Question For James

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

Hello James

I have had about 6 full upper body laser treatments over the course of the last three years. I have decided that right now is the best it is going to get with laser and I need to switch to electrolysis. It has been about 3 months since my last laser treatment.

  1. When I was doing the laser, I could not be in the sun for more than five minutes. Is there anything that prevents me from being out in the sun or tanning as far as electrolysis is concerned?

  2. What method of electrolysis is the best? I read in a post that you were able to remove 2300 hairs in 3 hours with thermolysis. Is this a typical number for a good electrologist? What % of hairs would you estimate regrew from this 2300?

  3. I noticed that after some laser treatments it seemed like some hair actually grew that was not there before. Is it ok to wax the parts that were treated with the laser at least once to see exactly where I am at?

  4. I read somewhere that it is actually better to wax and then treat the hairs as they grow so that you are guaranteed that they are in the growth stage. Do you recommend this?

Thanks for any information you can provide.

#2

With electrolysis, you don’t want to tan the day before treatment so that you don’t dehydrate your skin, leading to the need for increased (higher)treatment settings. Post treatment, you should stay out of the sun for 24 to 72 hours in order to avoid freckling. If you don’t mind temporary freckling, it doesn’t matter.

There is no best electrolysis modality. How you choose depends on practitioner skill, and your priorities. Most people have as a priority speed to clearance, and speed to completion. If those are your priorities, then for a large area, Thermolysis is the treatment that is most in line with those priorities.

How much hair can be removed in any period of time depends on your electrologist, and the challenges your body presents. Any decent Thermologist should be able to hit speeds upwards of 250 hairs per hour.

I really can’t go into all the details of phases, and kill rate, and regrowth here. I have talked and talked about that in other places on the site here, and if you use the search feature, you can find the volumes I have written on this subject. In short, those in anagen growth phase can have up to a 100% kill rate, the hairs that are not will most likely come back thinner and weaker later. The first clearance, since it has a mixture of growing hairs, and shedding hairs will have regrowth of treated hairs, because they were not in the phase for removal. If one keeps on schedule, all hairs will be in growth phase as they are removed. This is why some wax the treatment area a week or three prior to treatment. This creates a situation where all the visible hair should be in growth phase when they are treated.