I am a 21 year old female. I have been reading this forum for a few months and finally scheduled a consultation with a local electrologist. I have no idea if she will be any good. She is licensed but does not appear on the American Electrology Association website, or any others that I could find. Unfortunately I don’t live in an area where there are many electrologists. I know that the area I want done would probably be pretty easy and straight forward if I was getting one of the amazing sounding electrologists on this forum. I’m nervous to go with someone who might be subpar, but on the other hand I will never be living in California, Ohio, or the other places that the real talented people actually live. I would at least appreciate input on time and pricing for this area; I will include pictures below. I can only afford to spend a few hundred dollars on this, so I am also nervous that this lady will only be in it for the money and go slowly. Overall I guess I’m just afraid that it would be what I hope it will. I am doing this on my own and so the responsibility if something goes very wrong is also on my shoulders. But this hair has been bothering me for years, and I have tried waxing, etc, which obviously isn’t very useful. It just wears down on my self-esteem, you know? Anyways, again, would love some input on how long this might take to be pretty much hair-free, and how much that might/should cost.
Can you ask her what method she uses? Thermolysis? Blend? Galvanic? What is the machine called? You can get those details over the phone.
Have you had a free consultation with her yet? You should start there and get a sample treatment. You need to make sure hair slides out without much resistance and she isn’t just plucking.
You have A lot of peach fuzz. You can only expect thinning of this area as you will never be free of ALL of the finer hair. You need an electrologist who has invested in quality magnification so they can SEE the hair follicle opening for these fine hairs. The ones who can’t see will only be guessing and making their own holes and cranking up the energy to get the hair to release. Most of all, you need more than $200 for this endeavor, I am sorry to say. One long appointment will be about $200 and you will need between 20 and 30 sessions over an hours length to perhaps get to the point where the hair is less prominent.
The picture was very fuzzy, but I get the idea of what you have going on. Is this hair only present on your sideburns area? Good luck with your consultation. Just because someone is not a member of the AEA doesn’t mean she or he is not fantastic. Many of the very excellent practitioners don’t need to bring attention to themselves as they already have plenty of work, if not too much work.
LAgirl- I will get back to you after my consultation tomorrow evening. I didn’t ask her the machine type over the phone so I will write that down tomorrow while I am there.
dfahey- I’m not super concerned about the “peach fuzz”. My entire face has that, so if it was all removed it would probably look kind of weird actually. I just want the main sideburns gone so I can put up my hair and it looks normal. I realize I was born with sideburns, but after lots of waxing and plucking etc, they grew back and don’t look the same as they naturally did years ago before I had them first waxed off. Thus I feel like they don’t really fit my face. I guess I’m hoping to get the dark, obvious hairs done because like I said, my entire face has peach fuzz (something I am not nearly as concerned about). I realize that it will cost more than $200 over time. I guess where it starts getting into the thousands of dollars is where I really start to freak out because I am a student with no income, i.e. this money will be coming out of my savings. I am willing to pay for quality work, of course, and if it works than I will have no regrets. If it doesn’t though…
Sorry about the picture, I thought it was clear. And thanks for the kind words regarding the consultation. I will update tomorrow!
I forgot to mention that it was not clear to me that you were only talking about your sideburns. Actually, some people would not be bothered with the amount of sideburn hair you have. I was looking below at the peach fuzz, not realizing you were interested in the area above.
In that case, thinning or clearing the appropriate amount of hair would take one or two sessions for me, using one of the thermolysis modes I have in my toolbox. I don’t know what the time element for other eletrologists would be. We are all so very different. I just completed a case like yours and it was not a hard climb, but you still need to adhere to a schedule of getting a clearance and maintining the areas until you are finished in 9-18 months. A speedy, well-trained high tech electrologist is worth every penny you spend.
It is always recommended and encouraged here that you get consults with as many practitioners in your area as you possibly can so you can compare and contrast work performed.
I just went to my consultation and it seems to me like it went great! I scheduled an appointment for this Friday for an hour long session.
This woman works out of her house, and she lives not 5 minutes away from me, so it is very convenient. She says she has about 58 clients at the moment (counting those who coming every few months, etc). I saw a client leaving before I came in. She uses an Apilus Senior. She has been using this device, and has been an electrologist for 6 years. She said that it would take probably 2 hours (which we will do in separate sessions) to clear the area and then I should come in about twice a month for the next few months. Overall she said it would probably take somewhere around a year to achieve the results I’d like. (This seems on par with what you said, dfahey…correct?). She answered all the questions that I had and explained the procedure. She then did a couple test hairs. She definitely was not plucking, I watched her work in a mirror and the hairs slid out nicely. She had me on setting 4 and while it wasn’t the most pleasant thing ever I think I can bear it. She seemed considerate when I explained that I am a college student and I’d like to as much as possible have it done evenly so it doesn’t look obvious between sessions. She recommended putting witch hazel on at night (something I have seen repeatedly in these forums) and also advised me on staying out of the sun for 24 hours, avoiding lotions, etc. Sanitation-wise she wore gloves, used a disposable needle, had a separate room for the electrolysis with a table to lie on, lamp, etc.
There is only one other electrologist in the area, a women whom she knows, and I could certainly have a consultation with her as well. However, based on the fact that this appointment went well and the distance away from my apartment I really felt like this was the right choice. Obviously I will see how the actual session goes and reassess from there.
Pricing-wise it is 45/hr right now, starting in Sept. it will be 50/hr. This seems reasonable to me…am I right? I don’t know a lot about pricing.
What do you all think?
I will be posting progress pictures as best as I can along the way as well for all who are interested.
We love pictures here, so post away. All sounds good, but time wise, think 9-18 months. By month 12 though, you will certainly know that something good has happened.
Just a hint for posting pictures. If you put them online at PhotoBucket or ImageShack, you can use the IMG tags to embed them in your posts here. Otherwise, you can simply post the URL/link to them in your message.
PLEASE dont tell me you think that the hair that grows on your side burns makes you insecure. I think that is very cute on a girl. I really do! its the same concistincy as the hair on your head. its not coarse and dark and compared to that of male sideburns. I honestly am attracted to that on young girls.
