i dont yet know much about electrolysis, but unfortunately i certainly know plenty about plucking. about 90% of my hairs return in 2 weeks on the dot, not similar hairs around the same area, same actual hairs. had elect. done. 30-40% kill rate. 60% - 70% came back. the majority of those came back in 3 weeks instead of 2. so i had a week of false hope. but that was a great week in my life.
You donât understand the electrolysis process. Nothing false about this. Electrolysis works when it is performed correctly, on a good schedule, with a compliant client and and a competent, skilled electrologist. Otherwise, expect failure.
What you, and many other people donât understand is that to âtryâ electrolysis with only one treatment, one would have to take a âBeforeâ picture, do the treatment, take an âAfterâ picture, and then wait a year, and take another âAfterâ picture on the one year anniversary of the treatment. What you see on that day, one year later, would be the proper evaluation of the amount of hair removal you received.
The hair you saw 3 weeks later was just other hairs in nearby follicles coming out on schedule. Thatâs why it takes 9 to 18 months to do this well, depending on the schedule the clients gets treated on, and the skill and speed of the practitioner doing the work. If hair grew like you seem to think it does, you would grow hair during some months, and then it would all fall out and you would be bald for some months. Since hair growth is a scheduled affair with shifting presentations of the same number of hairs being visable at all times, it is deceptive to the uninformed.
Maybe you should try your hand at chickens or banjos.
You need to give it an actual try on a schedule before you make false
assumptions.
It worked for me, but not after only one or two sessions. It takes
longer as both Deee and James stated.
Alicia
I made no assumptions. I never said electrolysis doesnât work. I knew nothing about electrolysis, i still donât. i was extremely misinformed by the electrologist. he told me one pass, one time, 90% of hairs would be gone. forever. $1600 after the plane flight and treatment.
NOW I know that it needs to be done on a schedule. Thatâs why I bought the machine to do my own work, I wouldnât have spent 900 bucks if i didnât have faith in electrolysis.
All I am saying is this. i pluck 160 hairs on friday. 2 fridays later, pretty much exactly 160 hairs return. every time. you canât possibly expect me to believe that all theses hairs are new and just happen to be in the exact spot and all come in exactly 2 weeks later?? over and over and over again. i have been plucking these same hairs for 20 years!! believe me i know.
again i must say, i have the upmost respect for all you pros and electrolysis in general, but it doesnât take 6 or 8 weeks for my hair to return after plucking, i wish!! and iâde love to take up the banjo instead, i am doing this to end a 20 year cycle of depression over this problem. didnât mean to offend anyone 
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I might be able to answer part of this one (pros, feel free to take me to task if I get this wrong.)
When you pluck, you may end up with some hairs that break off under the skin. Those hairs will continue to grow up and out of the follicle, or in the case of non-anagen hairs will continue to be squeezed out of the follicle (and look like they are growing.)
I know this, because I had the same problem. I used to pluck as much of my beard out as I could (including much of the upper lip :sick:) and had the exact same problem you have. I pluck an area clean, and in mere days some of the hair is already âbackâ and there is still some shadow under the skin, indicating hair left under the skin.
It has already been pointed out that to see what the value of one treatment would be would require a year to see that.
If one wanted to clear up a hair problem in âone passâ, the definition of a pass in electrolysis would be multiple treatments spread out over the course of the growing cycle of the hairs in the treatment area, covering the entire span from start to finish, so that all hairs that ever grow in that area are treated sometime between the time they first present above the skinâs surface, and before the hairs go into shedding phase.
It is very difficult for practitioners to explain to the general public what we do, how we do it, and have them understand well enough what they need to do. Above that, the person must trust that what we have told them is correct, long enough to see the proof of what we have said. Often times, we donât get that time, nor enough co-operation to make that happen.
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i am sitting here absolutely amazed. i pluck 160 hairs. 160 hairs come back 2 weeks later. so i wait a week to make sure theyâre all back. i pluck all of them again. 2 weeks later, 160 hairs are back. they donât break off, i can see the gel around the base. theyâde all have to break off to come back with nearly 100% consistancy. my regrowth cycle in this area is 2 weeks. are u saying im the only one in the world who must pluck the same hairs every 2 weeks??? lucky me. well it will be easier to zap them anyway.
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the so called electrologyst said to me âcome for 1 treatment. 4 hours. 90% of your hairs are gone foreverâ i didnât misunderstand a thing. i was mislead. his place was a mess. he was not a professional. his machine was homemade. i was tricked by a fancy website. i know exactly what u are saying. if he had explained the cycle of hair growth thing, i would have understood it completely. i should have researched before i went. i wish i had gone to a reputable establishment like yours. but either way, itâs too expensive for me to travel as many times as would be needed.
It is very important to keep in mind that you have more hair than you think. Tweezing, prior to setting your mind on getting electrolysis, makes this more evident. If you tweeze 100 hairs a day on your chin and there are 7 days in a weeks, then you are tweezing 700 hairs a week. If a hair growth cycle is every 8 weeks, and you are tweezing 700 hairs a week, then you can assume that the chin area has about 5,600 active hair follicles!!! That means over the next 9-18 months, we are playing the waiting and punching game. We are waiting for all 5,600 hairs to come to the surface so we can see and punch them. Human hair does not appear at the surface all at the same time. It comes in dribs and drabs, sort of like the drip, drip, drip, drip pattern of a leaky faucet. Thatâs why permanent hair removal takes a minimum of 9 months and a maximum of 18 months to bring full relief.
Hair growth cycles are hard to understand and visualize. Just know that 160 hairs do not come back in two weeks. It is biologically impossible. Mother Nature is a strong opponent, but she doesnât work that fast. What you are seeing are neighboring hair follicles, close to the ones that you tweezed, cycling in.
About your electrologist you say was not a professional. That is why we say go on the hunt for a professional, skilled, competent, modern electrologist. An electrologist has to be a compassionate teacher, be as skilled as a surgeon with the hand eye coordination, have a hygenic office and be a person of hygiene as well. To know what that means, you need to read the electrolysis boards and www.hairfacts.com . You will put it all together and you will have a certain comfort level when you finally choose. People do travel to the better electrologist if they canât find satisfaction close to home. That is a personal decision and sacrifice that one has to come to terms with. I know this is not easy, but many things are not easy, but if you know it is action you have to take for a period of 9-18 months to get something permanent, then it is worth it.
Dee
yes, i wish i had found this site before i made that decision. this is all very informative. well, i give up on my hair cycle argumentLOL, i see i would have to prove it to you. i will say one more thing tho. a couple of my pores have scars from ingrown hair battles. if i tweeze the hair in the scarred pore, and see the root of the hair knowing it didnât break, and thereâs no other hair around within a 1/8 of an inch or so, that exact hair in that exact scarred pore is back 2 weeks later. i wish i lived closer, i could make a fortune off you in a bet. 
anyway, that aside, thnx for all the info so far, i value your opinion.
We are not being petty here, but I have to say on the point of knowing exactly which hair, or which follicle is which, scientists use one of two ways to mark them, radioactive markers, or with the insertion of fiberglas markers. Unless you go that far, you really donât know that it isnât a different follicle 15 microns to the left of the one you want to monitor.
Hair follicles can be very, very close to each other and there millions of them. Some are empty and can never grow a hair, some are active and do grow hair on regular basis and some are dormant and have a hair in it, but the follicle is just asleep until something wakes it up! So, it is hard to convince someone that what they are observing is not really what they are observing.
Iâm glad you found this site helpful. Thatâs the intention.
Newb, trust these folks when they talk, they know about what they speak! Notice the number of posts by them, itâs not just trying to fill bored time in their life.
It is hard to imagine at our level; I know, because I recently purchased my own equipment, part of which is a decent set of 5X loupes and a halogen lamp that really lights up an area. What looks to my naked eye like multiple (2-4) hairs growing out of one âporeâ (follicle) is actually 2-4 hairs that are SO CLOSE to one another that they just appear to be in the same follicle.
On that note, there are hairs that are alone, with nothing around them⌠except about a hundred empty follicles. As Dee said, some are dormant, some donât grow hair at all. In a week or more, some of those empty follicles fill with hair. Some donât, and havenât for years. But with the proper stimulus (laser can provide this stimulus sometimes), hair begins to grow from these follicles.
When your book arrives, and as you begin to observe your hair under magnification, you will see that it is physically impossible to have multiple hairs in one follicle, or for hair to grow as fast as you describe. Not trying to say you are average; perhaps your hair DOES grow faster than average, but if Dee & James are telling you itâs impossible to see hair regrowth that fast from an improperly treated follicle, then it is impossible.
The bad news is, the task of removing so much hair without instruction can be daunting, and it is easy to get discouraged. The good news is, the folks here will give you as much help as is humanly possible online. Stick with it, learn the ropes, and you CAN and WILL achieve your goal. It will take you much longer alone than it would take with a pro, but the price is right, and heck, you are going to spend the rest of your life with you anyway, so what have you got to lose? 
Good luck to you, and many happy, permanently removed hairs!
I know you are done hearing our consults, but I must throw this in. If each of your 160 tweezed hairs grows back in 2 weeks - then you only have 160 hairs. Do this for me. Donât tweeze in 2 weeks, wait 3. You will probably tweeze 240 hairs in 3 weeksâŚOh My! You grew 80 new hairs!!!
If you are like the rest of the human race, then your body is cycling in a few old hairs every day. If you are seeing 160 hairs in two weeks, then you are have 11 or 12 hairs cycling in every day. If you are only needing to remove these every 2 weeks, you are fortunate. I have women who used to tweeze for 30 minutes every day! They thought they were tweezing the same hairs every day.
Hair grows, hair shedsâŚnone are synchronized.
ok I have read all of the posts but still my question remainsâŚ
I have a question about hair regrowth which I just canât seem to figure outâŚ
I have been cracking my brains on this one but I just donât understandâŚ
Like I said before I am getting electrolysis (blend) treatment on the genital areaâŚ
Normally if I would pluck the area the hairs would be back in about 2 weeks (and I am speaking of full regrowth)âŚ
Now when I do electrolysis the area stays hairfree for many more weeks.
The regrowth comes back after like 5-8 weeksâŚ
Now I know that is because of the normal growth cycleâŚ
And that the hairs I would normally see after 2 weeks are new hairsâŚ(and no the hairs didnât break offâŚ)
But why donât they also show up after two weeks after I have been treated?
I mean, apart from the electrolysis, it is plucking like usualâŚ
So something must be happeningâŚBut what!?
And when we speak of new hairs in the same spotâŚare these hairs from a different dermal papilla?
So why is it that with electrolysis the areas where hair does grow back, it takes such a long time compared to all the other times when I plucked it?
Properly performed electrolysis renders the treated follicle UNABLE TO GROW NEW HAIR. By definition no more hair ever grows from a properly treated follicle ever again. Therefore, any hair seen in that area would be from a different follicle.
As the grid in the regrowth chart post attempt to give you the visual, although you treat a follicle, when the next hair springs up from a follicle located 20 microns to the left, it looks like the same hair to the person who is just looking at that same area of skin 2 to 8 weeks later.
You said,âI knowâ. Wanna bet? Communication is a big problem in this world. Between husband and wife, between parents and kids, between heads of state, between doctor and patient (usually because the doc is too busy), but worst is the communication between electrologist and client probably due to the emotional factor and the poor communication skills of most electrologists with the patientâs lack of ability to comprehend what is going on. When I come across a patient who cannot understand, I suggest they get another opinion. So, for all of you who are having trouble with your patient⌠because that last patient you had may be one who I suggested she get another opinion, or learn better communication skills.
Patients want miracles and we do not do that. Some of us are better at what we do than others so it may seem like a miracle, just like doctors or hairdressers (doctors call it âcomplicationsâ when there is an boo boo. We do not have that luxury even if some patients do not heal well. Perhaps we oversell our work as we do not want to lose a patient because this is still a business. Patients have an emotional factor as well and they do not want to talk about anything except âremove the hairâ today, NOW. Sometimes we become Psychiatrists to the patients because they feel SAFE and they have to get something off their chest and they do not know who else they can talk to (I could write a book about the stories Iâve heard but that is unethical). When you say ,âI KNOWâ, believe me âŚyou do not⌠IF I GAVE YOU A TEST on the basics of electrology YOU WOULD FAIL BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. YOU WERE TOLD EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR. HOW CAN YOU FIND ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT? YOUR GUY WAS using some psychology. âGive 'em what they want. Tell 'em what they want to hear.â That is exactly what they want and it is a little bit showbiz.
HAIR GROWS at the rate of about 1/2 inch per month but that does NOT INCLUDE the time it takes from when a hair is âpluckedâ and a new hair has to reorganize and then send up a new shaft. It takes time to reach the surface and that varies for each follicle because the depth of the follicle varies and the hair you see might not be a replacement for the one you plucked, therefore, you have to start with a hair that is cut at the hairline as in shaving. There is a more accurate method. It involves giving the patient one dose of a chemical marker (cystine) that follicles love. The chemical is picked up by a growing hair and it is incorporated into the hair chemistry. You know when the chemical was given and you know when the chemical is seen in hair that is poking through the surface. Therefore, you can measure the distance between the marker in the hair as the day you gave the patient a marker to the day when the marker no longer is in a hair. The distance from beginning to end of the marker in the hair tells you exactly how fast the hair was growing and you know how many days it took to reach the surface. A little bit of math and you can figure out the speed for each area of the body. You know when the dye was given and you can measure the distance from the first appearance of the dye to when the dye ends on the hair. The distance from the beginning of the dye to the end of the dye tells you how long the hair was growing and the rate of growth. Since you know when you gave the dye you can determine the exact date the dye was given and how much growth per day took place until the dye ended on the hair shaft. There is a type of follicle called a âcompound follicleâ. It consists of multiple papillae that meet in a single follicle. Similar to a road where 2 or 3 lanes meet at a single lane. These hairs are not connected to one another. They are independent of one another except that they all come out of a single follicle (keep in mind that the follicle is only a way to get the hair out of the body. The papilla is where the hair begins as this is where the cells that become hair originate). It is common to see 2 hairs coming from one follicle, but it is probably more common than we see it because the hair can be wiped off with the friction of a towel.
if I understand correctly, you said it was common that two hairs from one follicle. Sorry not to agree with you. The follicles are grouped in threes, parallel or crossed between them, but each is independent and should be treated. As shown by the drawings.
If Iâve misunderstood, Sorry. Thank you
I like this forum because of this. We can have different opinions and inform one another or disagree with each other. Here we are not competitors âŚwe are colleagues. When we are advertising for new business we are competitors.
Many (not all) electrologists will agree that it is common to see two hairs growing from a single follicle. Yes hairs do happen to grow in clusters of three, however, there can be three follicles growing in close proximity. There are also âcompound folliclesâ where two or more follicle grow in close proximity to one another but they are like âsiamese folliclesâ. As the hair grows independently from each follicle they grow upward and meet at a fork in the road. Similar to 3 lanes of road merging to 1 follicle opening. The electrology text shows sketches of this. There are none in dermatology texts because, as one doctor told me,âWho Cares?â A chinchilla has 1000 hairs per follicle and there are no more in the wild. They are raised on ranches these days.