Since I have the Platinum, I used very few times the “count of insertions” option. Lack of time to open tab for each new customer and my laziness by anything to do with learning to use new technologies…
Now, I’m struggling to know what my speed, but the number of insertions is fired so much that I suspect that there is something that I’m not doing well. Is it possible that the machine will be able to count insertions if the client holds no steel bar?
What the counter counts is completed treatment bursts of energy.
If someone is utilizing a “tapping technique” where they are doing 2, 3, and 5 shots of energy for one follicle, what the counter will count will have no discernible relationship to the number of hairs treated. Those who utilize a technique where one treatment packet actually releases the hair, and they do no additional treatments inside the follicle afterwards, will have an insertion count that is roughly the number of hairs they have treated.
I say roughly because some hairs will require an additional treatment, and in other cases, you will bet a “two for one” where a treatment in a follicle will also have spillover that treats the hair next to it, so that it requires no additional treatment.
If you care about such things, you need to learn to set up your client files, and maybe print out for your own records the tape of each session, so you can see how many treatment discharges the machine has done per session and how much time you spent on each person. This information will prove useful in some cases where you believe you have not done well, but the data shown on the machine will tell you otherwise.
The first time I was so helped by the insertion counter was doing one of my nightmare clients. This guy had hair on top of hair. When I cleared an area, I could see a whole other set of hairs below the skin’s surface taunting me because I could not treat them until they broke through the surface days later. All work on this guy was a challenge.
When I made my first attempt at working the upper lip, I decided to go at it a line at a time, as I did not want to try to clear it in my normal fashion (just take off the corner, and move up, then go to the other side, and take off the Hitler mustache last) because I was not sure that I would not run out of time before getting something that could be left until out next appointment. Good thing I did.
As it turned out, the treatment situation called for me to use blend, and I ran out of time as I had just completed one row of upper lip hairs from corner to corner. I was devastated. I thought I had far underperformed my usual expectations. When I closed out the file, however, and looked at the tale of the tape, I found out that I have removed over 1,000 hairs in blend in that treatment!
I then marveled at what a job I had in front of me, as this was a mustache that was more than one inch tall and more than six inches across, before we counted the lower lip, and it was going to be 1,000 hairs each line all the way. :o The good news is we got it done… eventually. It was that insertion counter that kept me positive, when I could not see the progress on the skin. I have also had several situations where I was able to do the same for a client who needed stats to motivate them as well.
This is what I thought James.
My old machine which has no autocensor, marks each pulse of pedal like a hair. It was easy to get the account because I used to schedule several seconds and lifted the foot from the pedal when I thought that the follicle had been sufficiently treated. So a pulse was effectively a hair. Now with the Platinum, my method has changed, I usually press 2 or 3 times the pedal. I know I’m faster with the Platinum, but I do not know to what extent.
Josefa, I believe that each time you press the pedal, it is counted. I had a new t-girl yesterday. Her skin was so very dry and her follicles deep with large diameter hairs. I tried everything under the sun and still ended up with needing to apply the current 3 times. At the end of each treatment I just automatically click to get the HC and saw that I’d done around 150, which actually meant that I probably did about 50 hairs. (It was a consultation tx, so short.) I recommended that she drink tons of water instead tons of coffee prior to the next tx and I will look in my little platinum box of tricks for some other ways to get a good release.
Generally speaking, if a higher PicoFlash setting doesn’t cut it (like, say .068 sec over 99%) then one would switch over to Synchro and move through the pre-sets there, and then, maybe fiddle with the settings from there. It has been rare that I was not able to find a setting in SOMETHING that would release the hairs in one treatment packet, and yet still be working in a way that the client could be comfortable.
Usually, when I was NOT able to find that, it was because the difference between what worked and what did not was too far apart for me to take the time to find the spot in between, without the client complaining about how ling it was taking to find the working rate. (Hey, buddy, I’m paying you by the hour here!)
Yes Barbara, I think so too. Tomorrow I’ll make it. I know I can find the settings to press the pedal once and obtain this information correctly.
James, maybe your clients prefer to pay by the number of hairs removed. Why do I have the impression that the cost per hour would skyrocket exceeding the length of the chain of human DNA?
Actually, because I was tired of the run around with people who tried hard NOT to understand how it is that what you pay per hour has little to do with how much you pay per hair, I worked it out, and found that my average client pays $0.15 USD per hair. I would make more money and have happier people on the phone if I said that I charge twenty-five cents per hair and the machine keeps count.
Interesting topic. Do not you think that if our collective would have charged for hair (I mean hair permanently removed) we would have managed to regain the confidence of consumers in the Electrolysis?
My personal record is 36 hairs per minute on the body (counted manually), but of course I can not keep that pace all the time. If so, each hair would cost 2 cents of €.
I think one of the main public relations problems we have with clients is that they so totally misunderstand the magnitude of what we do. I have never had a person who told me that they had “about one hundred hairs to remove” ever actually have 100 hairs or less removed on their first treatment. It is always five hundred to a thousand in that space that they represent as "about a hundred hairs. Worse yet, it is said that one needs to lose 50% or more of the hair in an area before there is a perceived reduction, and this is backed up by the fact that even while I may be fully clearing a person every 6 weeks, and the amount of time needed to do that is falling, the person I am working on, often has a point where he or she tells me, “it all came back” or “when is it going to start to get better”.
At least with the ability to give an approximate hair count at the end of a treatment, or at the end of a year, one can hold up a measure of the effort expended in the endeavor.
That is so true, James! I’ve started telling people that they will go through that phase, too!
Do I use too many exclamation marks? I think so! I must love the enthusiasm that they imply!
I have burned out two printers in five years. I print a statistic sheet for my client and one for myself, after each session. Clients love to get that piece of paper after their treatment showing their insertion count, treatment time, total paid, probe size and type, date…
I like using one burst of energy or one insertion with two pulses, if using displacement. I think it is more efficient, along with not using footswitch.
Another neat thing, at the end of 2011, I could see how many total insertions I have done for the year and how many total hours and minutes I worked for the year.
My wish list for the Apilus Platinum would include having an insertion counter on the screen to view as I work. That is the one thing I miss about my Silhouet-Tone VMC. As I went from area to area, I could record the number of insertions completed for each area, for I frequently do more then one area in a single session.
James, one of my clients did the math and reported that each hair that I treated on her abdomen cost her 15 cents per hair. What a deal.
Josefa, you can punch in the clients file number and set the parameters before the session with no problem. It really doesn’t eat up too much time. Once you get use to it, it takes less than a minute to set up. Using the client files is the funnest (informal adjective and Steve Jobs used this word :)) part of the Platinum. I’m rooting for ya!!
I have it, Dee! I’ve been opening a tab for some customers these past days and I can do in a few seconds (actually, I do not get customer name, card number, (you know, 000, 001, 002, etc) and only after the expected time of the session).
On Monday I worked in one of those cases in which all the planets are aligned to achieve the perfect treatment. No anesthesia, a single pedal stroke (WOW, in all hairs), 61 minutes, 1257 insertions, Multiplex. Each hair has cost 4.77 cents €. 
Before
After
