In good old Germany, too. It is very difficult for many people to look at their own work objectively and critically. And that, in turn, is a great pity.
Now, that’s interesting. So, that’s 500 beards times the average of (minimal) 100 hours … yielding 50,000 hours doing beards. Now, at $100 per hour you have earned $5,000,000 in the ten years or so you’ve been in business. If you’ve been in business 10 years, that would be $500,000 per year … if in business 20 years, that would be still be an amazing $250,000 per year, if in business 30-years, that would be $166,000 per year. Now, that is impressive.
Fine work … don’t kill yourself … 60-hours per week is monumental.
Looking good all the time … All that dough … let’s get married up!
So nice to see this … thanks. Amazing cases and beautifully executed too.
This comment has been removed due to a copyright strike. You do not have my permission to post excerpts from my site, here, or anywhere else.
Oh my … a real “gottcha!”
Liebe Ellen, lass mich sagen, dass ich dieses Gespräch liebe. Wenn die Menschen dies ohne Emotionen betrachten können, wird alles viel klarer.
Dear Ellen, let me say that I’m loving this conversation. If people can look at this with no emotion, it all become much clearer.
Die Grundlage der Irritation über “Standards” ist meiner Meinung nach die Angst, dass die eigene Arbeit an irgendeinem Standard festgehalten wird. Und das ist die Denkweise der meisten Elektrologen.
At the basis of the irritation about “standards” is, in my opinion, the anxiety of having one’s work held to any standard whatsoever. And this is the mindset of most electrologists.
(Sorry, but I don’t get to practice German too much … speaking is easier than writing.)
I think that stating “around 100 hours”: as YOU say on YOUR website, is what Ellen is also saying; or have I misread this? So, I don’t see the issue (at least with beard work). You are saying exactly what Ellen is saying! Average 100 hours. Her “low point” is probably not all that accurate.
Like you say, this is an appropriate and non-specific number. Of course when you see the client, these numbers will be adjusted. However, clients NEVER hold you to your estimate: it has not happened in all my 45-years.
For example:I usually tell clients that my AVERAGE is 40 - 25- 15 (3 clearances) … something like that for back and shoulders. And, these are MY numbers, not anybody else’s numbers! When I actually see the person, then I change my estimate.
One guy from Norway took a staggering 72-hours for his first clearance. Still, he was not upset that I’d stated (in an email) what my averages are. I was not able to give a better estimate, because he was still in Norway. However, stating an average is understandable to clients. I do not support the concept of the “I have no idea whatsoever how long this will take” statement.
It’s all about an appropriate “bell curve” and I’m confident that my German colleagues will come up with something quite excellent and agreed-upon by most of us. Remember, they are sill in the “growing stages” of establishing standards. Stay tuned.
Also, have you actually read the standards created by Ellen?
Additionally, if electrologist will actually take the time and effort to organize and submit their averages, and a big number-crunching computer can produce a bell curve graph … that would be extremely helpful. Problem is, such a study will never happen because this issue is too emotional for the vast majority of electrologists. Poor Jean Ogren tried for years to do this … and we only got anger and no cooperation. A true “Standards of Practice” is never going to happen. I’ve given up on the idea too. Well, maybe not altogether.
I cleaned-up this comment because the comment I was referring to was deleted. You know, ALL OF US get stressed and overworked so, now-and-then, tempers flare … yes, even among respected colleagues and friends. It’s always best to forgive and forget and move forward.
Are there published “internationally recognized standards?” Please give me that important link/data … so far I have never seen such published material. However, that would be a very important aspect to add to what the Germans are doing. You won’t be able to “stay away” for a week … I’m counting on it.
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So I finally found my way onto this forum too, thx to Deedra. And thank you Mike for posting my facebook comment on the original article.
After following the discussion here maybe I can elaborate a bit more and fill in some blanks.
For any electrologist both in the German and the international community; there is no reason to be afraid, the standards Ellen posted on the site are by no means mandated by law. They are just guidelines that we, as the people who are listed on the site, hold ourselves accountable to. But they indeed accurately represent the numbers that we each one personally found as TTTs for all the cases we treated so far. No lies, just statistics. And yes we do have the evidence for it (photographs, treatment logs etc.). Ellen kindly acts as a gatekeeper for this list and anyone who can’t provide the according data does not get listed there.
From what I can tell there are three main arguments from people opposing these kinds of standards:
a) "those TTT standards will create unrealistic expectations in clients"
I think this fear is stronger for compassionate people like e.g. you seem to be, Seana. And I get it; we all want the best for our clients, we don’t want to disappoint them, don’t want to create false hopes, and we are all dreading possible discussions that might happen when we can’t fulfill set up expectations.
But just as Mike I just haven’t encountered that personally. Our clients are (usually) not dense, if I explain to them what factors lead to a shorter or longer treatment time they understand it. After the consultation they -know- that I am slower when they shave their hair too short. They -know- that I’m slower when they talk or twitch around during the session. But that also means they can help me with getting a faster result and usually they happily comply.
So, when a new client comes in and she wants to get her beard hair removed and asks me how many hours I think I’m going to need my answer will usually go like this “based on previous similar cases I expect something between 60 and 70 hours, give or take”… and then if the TTT ends up being just 55h the client is happy, and if it’s 75h they don’t kill me either. No one yet has demanded that I work the “extra 5h for free” because they fully understand what factors led to the treatment taking longer. They know that the numbers were just an estimate and not guaranteed. But by hour 70 they also already see the results and see that we are 90% done and they know that i didn’t mislead anyone on purpose.
And yes of course that only works because I’m using my own numbers and not making something up. If I would have guesstimated “60-70h” but the case took actually 130h, then yes surely the discussion would be different.
I also think anyone who has been working less than 3 years shouldn’t bother with standards (yet). But @ any electrologist working for more than 5 years; you have your own numbers, just check your client files, and I promise you will be surprised how low our own TTTs actually are. 
(Granted, I’m fully aware that not everyone loves Excel as much as I do and I lowkey suspect that many electrologists hating on standards are actually just hating on Math 
)
The truth is: clients will have expectations regardless of if -we- set them or not, that’s just human. You can’t avoid that.
When I have a toothache and I go to the dentist I also have expectations that they will help me in a realistic time frame. If the dentist then told me “well, each tooth is different, maybe it takes 10min, maybe it takes 10 sessions, who knows, not me” I’m gonna be like “what the heck? has the dentist never seen a mouth from the inside before?? do they even have a license?”
b) "each case is different"
And yes of course that’s true, maybe the dentist discovers an infected root canal and what from the outside looked like an easy peasy 10min cavity treatment turns into a 3h operation. (It then also wouldn’t cross my mind to tell the dentist that they should only charge me for the 10min then because I fully understand why it took longer. And when I don’t understand it I see it as my patient’s duty to ask some questions.).
Different factors explain why some armpit TTTs are 2 hours and others are 12 hours. Hair and skin color + texture, pain threshold, distorted follicles, hormones,… we’ve all seen it and nobody is denying that these differences exist and make some cases more difficult than others. But it’s also not like you have a totally different clientele across the ocean than we get here in Germany. Berlin is a diverse city and I too get clients of all different ethniticies, ages, and backgrounds.
Even considering all these factors; the number of hairs humans have is limited. We are all born with ~5 million hairs (some with 4mio, others with 6mio maybe…) but the body is simply not creating new follicles no matter how big anyone’s hormones are throwing a party. So even the classic PCOS cases will -not- take longer than a full beard from someone whose face hairs all already turned terminal during puberty. Does it make the guesstimating harder? Sure! Does it make it impossible? No. So I might tell someone who has PCO “your case will be somewhere between 2-80 hours, but most similar clients are finished after 5-10 hours” and explain to her how her hormones will affect these numbers and why it’s hard to be more concrete. But still she will be happy to hear that it’s not going to take 200h and that there is a finish line in sight.
c) "well maybe these numbers are achievable when you are working in your prime, but we all get older and have bad days sometimes and you shouldn’t measure yourself against your best case scenario because you will set yourself up for failure"
Don’t worry, we don’t. I can only speak for myself and my dear colleagues from the German standards list, but neither of us is working ourselves to death. As you will go through the list that there are some older colleagues listed there as well who have no problem achieving those standards despite not being in their twenties anymore.
If I would try to achieve an 1200hairs/hour rate for each situation my eyes would probably bleed by the end of my average 70h week and I’d have to apply for disability pension tomorrow. I don’t even count these numbers but I would guess for most areas I’m more around 600hairs/hour and for especially finicky areas (ears, scrotum, etc) I’m happy when I can kill some good 200hairs/hour. I’m also not a sadist and when a client needs a break they will get a break, we have some friendly chats in between and it’s a very relaxed atmosphere overall.
Yet, there is no case where a beard removal took longer than 100h or some armpits took longer than 12h for me.
And I’m positively optimistic that actually 90% of -all- electrologists are able to achieve these times without difficulties, if they would just change two major things about their treatment schedules! And both Mike and Ellen (and Tina before her) have been proposing these two ideas for ages, it’s not like a particular well hidden industry secret??
- hair length! (don’t bother with hairs that are shorter than 5mm, natural growth without any trimming is best)
you are -not- helping the client by allowing them to come in with 1mm hair, you just prolong their suffering - don’t make the treatments too frequent. if you treat the same area too often will lead to undertreatment and possible long term skin damage (I often see electrologists or even schools promoting treatments every 1-2 weeks, that’s just nuts!). e.g. 3+ months breaks between armpit clearances.
easy as that! no expensive machine or magic needed. works for both thermolysis and blend. if anyone is doubtful; just try it yourself. maybe even run a little experiment with a curious client; treating one armpit with sessions every 2 weeks and the other armpit every 3 months and then add up the numbers.
and I’m just so puzzled why not more electrologists are following these two easy steps and are so dead set against it and think it’s hocus pocus??
my assumption: it’s fear. fear that the “standards people” are actually right and that the “100h max for a beard” numbers are correct and by conclusion that means that all the previous work was “bad” and that “previous clients will find out and will turn against them” being like “my beard back than took 200h, and now i read on your website that you are able to do it in 100h, i want my money back!”. that fear creates anger, the brain can just not allow to accept that possibility. so instead it resorts to the easy solution:
personally that makes me very sad, because this mindset hinders personal growth. I can imagine that it also partially has to do with being a female-dominated workfield because women are usually harder on themselves and less likely to forgive ourselves past mistakes. who knows. but this kind of error culture is not beneficial to anyone; not our clients and not ourselves.
On surface it might be much easier to keep on saying “500h for a beard are totally possible and a realistic number, anyone who says otherwise is lying” than to admit that these high numbers could easily be avoided and turned into 100h instead. It’s the path of least resistance. And the more years someone spent saying “500h is normal” the more reputation they have to lose and ergo the angrier they oppose any statements about standards. It’s a classic sunk-cost-fallacy.
But listen, it’s never too late to grow. I’m not expecting anyone to blindly believe me. I just invite you to try it for yourself like I suggested (treatment schedule + hair length) and see the results with your own eyes.
(At this point I probably sound like a preacher from a cult haha)
Previously when I talked about “200h for a beard = bad work” I put the “bad” into quotation marks on purpose. Because I personally don’t believe that it is actual bad work if you were doing it with your best effort and knowledge from that time. You still helped tremendously changing a clients life and that can’t be applauded enough and no one is wanting to take that achievement from you.
The process of learning new things unfortunately has the downside that it makes us face our previous versions where we didn’t know a particular information yet and makes us aware of possible shortcomings that were a result of that lack of knowledge. It’s a hard and painful process and not everyone has the strength to deal with that. And that’s okay. It’s not my right to demand that strength from everyone.
Yes, maybe if you change your routine you will face some angry clients who blame you for not having worked faster in the past. I can’t promise you that this will not happen. But by refusing to dip your foot into that path of growth you will also deny yourself the joy in a future client’s eyes when you have finished an average beard in just 40 hours, much less than they expected and have read online, so that they have still money left to work on more body areas with you and become “addicted” to the process.
Oh well, that reply turned into a full-blown essay and it’s already 3am in the morning for me. 
Gute Nacht ihr Lieben 
, someone should take the keyboard away from me now.
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Very well said indeed. I’m also, well, stunned at how well you know English. You are using phrases and words to make subtle shadings. Please tell me that you are from the US/UK … because, frankly, your usage is better than most native English speakers.
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Since this topic is somewhat unwelcome here, I have moved my comments on this important issue to my own website. If you wish to read my latest writing on this issue, you can at:
https://electrologynow.com/how-much-is-this-going-to-cost/#comment-110
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Thank you for the kind words, Mike! And no, English is just my second language and my German accent is still heavy. But I guess I must have picked some things up over the years from spending way too much time arguing on the internet. 
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ha ha … okay … I’m amazed and delighted!
Once again I thank Julia for her comments.
It is indeed not easy, but I also believe that it is worth not giving up. In my opinion standards for our practice are very important. And I am grateful to have found such wonderful comrades-in-arms as my dear colleague Julia.
I have hope in our newbies. They are the future of our profession. The standards can serve as orientation.
When I started, I wished someone had told me how long it takes to remove a beard. I remember my first trans client. I was asked to write an estimate, but I had no idea how long it would take to remove the beard. I asked my instructor and she told me to write 200 hours. When those are up, I will see how many more hours will be needed. So I wrote 200 hours on the estimate and the health insurance refused to cover the cost. But the client had confidence in me and started the treatment with me at her own expense. After 93 hours I was finished, the client was very happy, I was not.
Why wasn’t I happy? Quite simply, my trainer said that I would need at least 200 hours. She also said that there would be scars when overtreat. I was afraid… Afraid that I had done something wrong or bad. That the client will get scars or all her hair back. I spoke to an experienced colleague at a congress about the result. And she said that if I finished so quickly, it wasn’t a real beard.
And so for the following years I just worked as best I could and didn’t talk about results and treatment times anymore. But I always documented all my treatments and calculated how much time I needed for a beard, underarms, bikini line and so on. I worked with different devices and found it didn’t make a difference. I treat one or two clients one underarm with thermolysis and the other with blend. The differences were marginal!
And then in autumn 2014 a client came to me and told me about his odyssey with his underarm hair. He was treated for more than 100 hours and no difference was seen. I was horrified and decided that something absolutely had to change. At that time, I was still a board member in the German association and wanted to initiate a certification to check the quality of work. I resigned on New Year’s Day 2016 and since go on my own way.
The client above I continued to support as far as I could. I was a spectator at the first court hearing. The colleague and her co-workers said they usually need 150 and 200 hours for hair removal underarms. During I hear a lot of nonsense about our work. It was terrible, I could only roll my eyes. The judge said, unfortunately there are no standards. And I thought, ok we can change. The future can only get better. Already on the way home I phone with my colleague Tina Reuther. I knew I could count on her more than 40 years of experience. And so our standards were born.
But please my dear colleagues. These standards result from our treatment times. Each colleague can create their own standards by recording their treatment times and averaging them. If your average treatment times match ours, you are welcome to join us.
Hi Ellen, I left a comment about this issue on my website; but here’s a continuation of my thinking.
All of us, friend or foe … with arguments and skepticism should support attempts to create something for our profession. Even if it fails … at least an attempt is being made.
I think of your efforts as a starting point, and perhaps our European colleagues will be able to do something that Americans have never been able to do. Criticism and arguments are good and I’m sure are welcome. Also, the more input you collect from all sides, the better the standards will become. It’s a start.
As I stated in my original writing, the conflicting positions that “estimates are impossible” … or, that “TTT standards are absolute” … are both wrong.
Right now in the United States, two diametrically opposed positions on abortion define the conversation. One extreme position is that an abortion can take place at the time of birth … and, perhaps afterward. The other extreme position is that abortions should be illegal in every case. With these radical positions, there will never be a compromise … and, there will never be a quality set of standards that will benefit all parties.
It’s like that for establishing your TTT standards. Instead of anger and being frustrated, all arguments should be heard and dealt with in a reasonable manner. I learn the most from criticism … NOT agreement.
Importantly, more electrologists should add their “hours” in order to develop standards for every face and body part … and yes, of course, consideration for ALL the variables. Just don’t give up like I did, many years ago.
Art Hinkel not only had a school, but he also had electrolysis clinics throughout Southern California (called Arroway Labs). Hinkel kept TTT hours on the hundreds of thousands of cases he documented over the 40-years in operation. He compiled the data and attempted to present this to the association. The outrage that was generated against Hinkel was appalling. Hinkel gave up and told me, “Bono, you cannot fight the women.” Well, maybe “the women” can do it this time? JUST DON’T FIGHT EACH OTHER!!
I see.
Me too.
In Germany we are saying: “Steter Tropfen höhlt den Stein.”
That’s interesting! Have his records been archived?
That was not my intention.
I wish we has more colleagues like you, Mike.
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Well, if you live long enough you see the same issues coming up over-and-over-and-over.
Some of the hot-button issues seem to be somewhat settled such as: 1) modality wars … blend vs. thermolysis, 2) scabs! You must never see one … or sometimes … or measuring them. The scab issue is sort of settling down, 3) to clear the area or thin the area? These issues are usually discussed calmly.
However, today’s white-hot button issues are: 4) the use of local anesthetic, 5) and TTT standards … probably the most contentious of all the issues. Frankly, the mere mention of any of these issues can cause an avalanche of trouble.
Because of the rancor that certain topics engender, the associations always present neutral topics that are worn-out and boring. Maybe our profession is doomed, for some reason I can’t grasp.