skin damage by electolysis

is it possible that electrolysis leaves scars on the skin?
my mother had had electrolysis on the hair above her lips for a year and saw no hair reduction at all. she did alexandrite laser and hair were reduced considerably after 3 treatments. why electrolysis didnt work? is local anaesthesia needed to reduce the amount of pain? my mum told me it hurt alot.

Electrolysis done well leaves nothing but smooth hairless skin. When done properly under the best of conditions, it is comfortable, or at least tolerable. In the worst of situations, it is really painful, leaves pits and doesn’t remove enough hairs per visit to give any noticeable result.

If your mother never got full clearance on her lip once, she would not notice any change, although there was one with even a small amount of work done.

This is just one reason why we say that one must get as many sample treatments and consultations as possible so that one chooses the best electrologist to do your work.

As for numbing, most people with a good electrologist can get by with no more than a topical. Some people either get a shot from a dentist prior to treatment, or an injection from some other professional depending on what is available where you are.

I stress that in most situations, this should not be needed on a face job.

i found an electrologist in my area, he is using a method called “BLEND”. what kind of method is that? would you recommend it?

Please go to our sister site www.HairFacts.com and look up Blend and for that matter the other forms of electrolysis, Thermolysis and Galvanic.

In short Blend is the combination of Galvanic currents with Radio Frequency Thermolysis in order to get the best of both worlds. It is slower than Thermolysis, but, faster than Galvanic. If you are not working on a really large job and you can get to first clearance quickly, you will be happy at how fast you get to completion with little regrowth.

Like anything, you need to find a well skilled electrologist to make sure that you are buying the skin you want to live with the rest of your life.

is it possible that electrolysis leaves scars on the skin?
yes. it is possible.
As a client, my answer on leaving scars would be more fair than answers from electrologists.

If you do not keep the area clean after the treatment, you might get inflection, and hence very likely to have permanent scars.
If your electrologist does not clear the area properly or does not use clean probes, and you will be in high chance of getting inflection.
Now, for those who have darker skin tones, it is likely to have noticeable pigmentation changes. Those pigmentation might last for months.
And if you develop scabs, and scratch those scabs, permanent scars are very likely to result.

she did alexandrite laser and hair were reduced considerably after 3 treatments. why electrolysis didnt work?

Another great example of electrolysis is not 100% guaranteed, as a number of posters in this forum like to spread such wrong impression.
Electrolysis is not suitable for everybody, just like laser may not work on every single individual.

As I was about to reply that neither I, nor my most experienced friends had ever found a hair removal problem we could not tackle had we been given the time and effort on the part of both the client and practitioner, I realized that I have found two cases that were not possible even for me to treat.

1.) A lady with a hair growing out of her third eyelid (that red dot in the corners of your eyes) that was too far in for me to find a way to hold it immobile, at the correct angle, and treat it at the same time.

and

2.) A post operative transexual with hair in the Neo-Vaginal Walls.

So there you go, I admitted it. Even I can’t do everything. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Allow me to point out, there are a number of people who had electrolysis, and did not work on them.
However, there are also people who do not have good results with Laser… the major difference is that a number of electrologists are making a big news base on that. (Not referring to you James.)

Ants:

I’d be curious to know the circumstances of those clients that you report electrolysis did not work for. A motivated client coupled with a competent electrologist, spells doom and disaster for ANY hair follice. If one or the other side fails to do their job correctly, of course, electrolysis will not work! In other words, it is not the fault of the actual electrolysis proceedure.

Electrolysis DOES work 100% of the time if you think in terms of both the client and electrologist doing their parts correctly. Mistakes on either side will not bring success. In a few cases, we’re talking about an internal hormonal environment that can stimultate tons of hair follicles, and you can hardly blame electrolysis for not working. How do you keep up with hair growing in faster than you can remove it? Remember,there are 500-1,000 hair follicles per SQUARE INCH on the face!

I’m sure you understand, ants, that obstacles cause preceived notions that electrolysis doesn’t work. To say it doesn’t work on some people would make me want to delve into the client’s behavior, the practioner’s knowledge and ability, and the hormonal happenings in that client’s body.

Dee

so, for fine light brown hair on face (sideburns & cheeks) which of the those 3 methods would be in your opinion more appropriate? i am also concerned, does electrolysis works at all for fine facial hair or is it like lasers where the ideal type of hair to treat is thick, dark hair?

For what you describe as fine facial hair, I would use the modality in electrolysis we call thermolysis (heat only). It is quicker than blend and would provide enough energy to remove the type of hair you describe. I would instruct the electrologist to remove only the hair that can be seen readily by the person standing next to you and to leave the finer, shorter hairs alone.

Electrolysis works permanently on ALL hair colors and ALL skin colors. That is why it is described as the gold standard for hair removal. Frequently, I am asked to to remove the hairs that laser can’t and never will be effective on. You just need to put in the time when you find a good electrologist that leaves your skin smooth and undamaged.

Dee

thanks for you answer. i sceduled an appointment with a highly recommended electrologist in my area for tomorrow afternoon, but as far as we discussed on the phone, he told me he only uses the blend method…now if you say blend does not work good on fine facial hair, i really don’t know what to do…

She did not say that Blend doesn’t work on fine hairs, she was pointing out that Thermolysis is faster, and that Blend is not needed for such light weight hairs.

You can remove them with Blend, but thermolysis would be faster and you would experience less sensation, and would get to first clearance in one or two appointments.

I’d be curious to know the circumstances of those clients that you report electrolysis did not work for. A motivated client coupled with a competent electrologist, spells doom and disaster for ANY hair follice. If one or the other side fails to do their job correctly, of course, electrolysis will not work! In other words, it is not the fault of the actual electrolysis proceedure.
Not just this thread, but too many similar threads. Whenever laser fails to work, the electrolysis guys make it as a big news. Whenever electrolysis fails to work, those electrolysis guys have time to defend it.
And seems to me Laser has lots of other side effects, and might cause skin cancer etc. But electrolysis seems to be 100% safe?
A bit too biased don’t you feel?

Antony

Hey guy, electrolysis has been around for 130 years and that speaks for itself.

If you’re trying to make this into a laser verses electrolysis broil, your efforts are not well taken. If you have read my past posts, then you can’t help but notice that I am broad-minded when it comes to hair removal options. I have given many of my clients names and facilities of professionals that do laser. There are some areas where I have seen fabulous results from laser (underarms and bikini areas). However, when they have finished their laser treatments, they frequently come back to me to finish off those remaining hairs that laser just can’t touch. It is their laser practioners that refer them to me. Kind of a symbiotic effort to help hairy people.

I do electrolysis for a living and I personally observe the cases almost daily where clients are very happy with their laser results, but they need to finish off with electrolysis. I have also seen the cases where they come to the electrolysis side as a SECOND choice after trying laser. Laser did not work for them even though they ran the advised course of treatments diligently. Whether they had a competent practioner using the correct laser at the correct fluences,I don’t know. Maybe that’s why laser didn’t work for them. There are variables in laser outcome,too. In some cases, they complained they have more hair because of laser!

This dear website is about options for hairy people - ALL OPTIONS. Laser is included. Your’re confusing bias with results when one makes positive statements about electrolysis. Electrolysis brings results and yes, we know it’s safe after 130 years of worldwide use. No one can spin that one. It is what it is.

I presume laser is safe. I have seen nothing to say that it isn’t with any credibility. We just keep observing and hopefully laser can join the rank of being a gold standard with electrolysis, with the passage of time. Eight years of laser hair removal use as opposed to 130 years for electrolysis allows us to blow our horn a little louder.

I’m very happy that laser is available for hair removal because it has been a great option for many, many people, I rabidly stand by what I said about electrolysis simply because it is the truth. You can continue you’re stale white bread bias rant somewhere else.

Hi, do you reccomend anyone for electrolgy in Los Angeles Ca. I am a 26 year old african american women who has trouble with chin hairs to the point of low self esteem. I would really like this nightmare to end. My skin is dark brown, I get ingrown hairs constantly and the hair grows back after plucking about every other day. It leaves dark spots all over my chin and I use heavy Mac makeup to try to cover the problem. Can you please send me in the right direction. I dont want to try lazer because I haven’t found someone confident in doing it on my skin color. Everytime I get a consultation I see doubt in their eyese about the success. Again can you please point me in the right direction. Thank you.

Hi roses.

I can’t recommend an electrologist in the LA area, but I’m sure there a several consumers or others that read hairtell that can jump in. You are very lucky to live in a location that has several good practioners, so finding a competent one should not be a problem.

Hair that you tweeze today in no way can come back tomorrow, but that hair you tweeze today will come back in 6-13 weeks. If you are tweezing every day, you have a lot of hair.

Definitely exfoliate and use something like TendSkin to release the ingrowns. When you start electrolysis, I would find a practioner that uses the Blend modality (no problem in California). You will need to stop tweezing and show up regularly for your appointments so hairs that pop through can be cleared. It will take several weeks for ALL hair the troublesome hair to surface. When you tweeze, you prolong the time needed to treat all hair. Stop tweezing and start clipping or shaving.

This will work for you. Some hairs may need to be re-treated if the follicles are really distorted from tweezing and infection, but that’s why you have to be consistent with your treatments. Do this while you are young. A year to a year and half for regular treatment is worth the satisfaction of having a clear chin. Knowing that you have dark spots from from tweezing, I would stress this to the electologist so she/he can take extra care with the currents used so as to try not to cause more hyperpigmentation.

Wishing you well.

Dee

Thank you so much Dee,

I will try my best to find someone that I can trust with my face. I’m so terrified of the problem becoming worse. Well you say a year huh. Well compared to living with this for the past seven years that isn’t bad news. Do you have some key things to look for when asking about experience. Especially experience with dark African American skin. My hair is also coarse so it curls back into the skin. I’ve been using Tend Skin and taking vitamins to replace my estrogen. My friend who is TS gave me a list of reccommended Electrologist in the TS community. Do you think that would be taking it a step to far. A lot of the Electrologist seem to work from home, is that a red flag?

TS recommended electrologists are the best you can find, because they have completed the worst case situation in hair removal. They have removed a male pattern beard from a male! What could a woman’s hair hope to do against someone who has completed this task?

There are also LA area electrologists listed on this site in the referral directories and I believe some are also on TSroadmap.com

An electrologist working from home is not a red flag. Many of the best, most experienced electrologists have come to a point where they don’t advertise at all, and only see continuing clients, and the referrals of their previous clients and work limited schedules in their semi-retirement. In fact, most electrologists do work from home, or a residential building that is not their home, but still looks like a normal house. If it is your home, you have no additional expenses for the placement of the business over and above your normal utillities and upkeep. If it is another house, you probably own the building and are no longer paying monthly for something that may or may not be used to maximum capacity. A good business person wants to have the rent and utilities paid in the first week of the month you know. They will price their services accordingly

Most people really don’t want anyone to know they are getting hair removal work done, and home offices allow clients to keep secret what they are doing, because anyone who does see you going in, or your car parked in front of the electrologists office just thinks you are visiting a friend (and in time, that is what you will be doing, in addition to getting work done) and it helps keep the overhead low, which keeps your prices down.

Electrologists who maintain an office have ongoing expenses that requrie them to pay overhead that just doesn’t exist when you are using the back bedroom off of the garage. This extra expense translates to higher prices in exhange for something that adds nothing to your treatment, other than the nice feeling you have when you see marble floors, and a yellow space marked parking lot.

Just get as many consultations and sample treatments as you can, and when you find the best practitioner in your area, report back here to let the next person know where to start their search.

You may even find that the best electrologist in town is a college student working on a massage table in her dorm room.

Just keep in mind, you are there to purchase the skill to provide the clear skin you desire, not to be impressed by the prior work of the decorator.

Hello James,

Thank you for your reccomendation to TS road map. I was able to find so much information there. It seems every question I could think of was addressed. I wish you practiced here in Los Angeles because I would love to put my face in your care.

So ladies, I know it may seem awkward but look into the information on www.tsroadmap.com if your thinking of having a electrologist performed. I have been plucking for years afriad to shave because of the myth of rapid hair growth. I tried shaving with an eyebrow razor and it has worked out really good for me, so far. I’ll be sure to give you the updated results and refferals if any after my treament.Look to hear from me again in Febuary. Thanks again you all have been a tremendous help.

Dana