I’ve been reading about many modalities/techniques like flash, picoflash, microflash, blend, galvanic.
I read in one place (don’t remember where) that galvanic can remove hair in one sitting and hence most time and cost effective in the long run.
I get the feeling that, with thermolysis and flash, I’d have to come back again and again for years!
Any thoughts on this?
They all work. ALL modalities will permanently affect hair. The trick is finding a practitioner with skill, who equips herself / himself with good tools of the trade.
Thermolysis require more skill, but hair follicles CAN be disabled in one shot. You won’t be coming back for years, unless the practitioner is not skilled.
This is the hardest part for the consumer. How do you find a skilled electrologist?
In general, assuming that in general electrologist is of average skill and half-decent tools/machines, do you think thermolysis would be as effective as blend/galvanic? I read that thermolysis can only kill 25% of hairs at a single time while blend kills 70-80% in general.
LOL this is my first time asking this and you’re already assuming that I’m not going to accept your answer? If someone gives me an answer that doesn’t match with what I’m observing in reality, then yeah I’m gonna accept something that is only theoretically valid. Next time, might as well not answer these posts then huh?
All the modalities are similarly effective when done properly. You should be sceptical when someone offers a percentage for how many hairs one modality can treat compared to another modality. These figures are anecdotal, subjective and highly dependent on the skill and experience of the electrologist.
If you are aiming to achieve the highest percentage of reduction in one session, the main considerations are the percentage of total hairs present and, it goes without saying, the skill of the electrologist. This means you should not remove or shave hair for several months prior to each session if your goal is as few sessions as possible. Either way, the cost and total time in hours is going to be roughly the same.
If your electrologist kill each hair at first time than the number of sessions will be the same regardless of the modality used. The skill of the operator is what can achieve that.
Galvanic is my speciality.
It is my experience that most hairs will only need one treatment with multi probe galvanic IF THE SETTINGS ARE CORRECT. definitely won’t get as many hairs out as you would for thermolysis or blend in the same session time, however it is my experience that the Regrowth with these 2 methods is considerably more.
Many will claim that the research has been done to show thermolysis can deliver the same outcome as galvanic and no longer requires to be in the growing stage for successful treatment. For me, it is difficult to accept this statement, without validated research, which I have continually asked for,. Apparently there is none so I see it as operators opinions. I am yet to witness such results although I have been doing thermolysis for over 40 years and consider myself highly skilled. With galvanic multi probe, no matter how severe the problem, there is a start and a finish line depending on client frequency of visit 12-18 months in total. This is my reason for favouring Galvanic over thermolysis even though I offer both. Professional Research, that will be published in medical journals, is currently being carried out comparing thermolysis and galvanic, however the outcome from this research will not be available for some time. It is my experience, and I consider myself highly skilled, I also use Dectro machine, an excellent brand, that you can work on 25% and less success rate per visit - I call it progressive epilation - and PLEASE UNDERSTAND, this is my opinion based on my experience only - others, as you will see with the responses will be so very different to mine.
In this industry there is very few of us who use our own money and invest the thousands of dollars required to research all aspects of this amazing process. How much easier it would be for you to make decisions when all is laid bare on a table - that comes from research, research that does not exist yet - good luck
If you make the CORRECT SETTINGS for thermolysis or blend you will get the same results as the multi probe galvanic with the fraction of the time need for galvanic and it will be much cheaper for the client.
It’s simply not true that thermolysis only kills “25%” of hairs while galvanic kills XYZ. I don’t think there has ever been any kind of research showing this. In some ways galvanic is like an art, bordering on religion with some people, and they tend to throw around a lot of outdated or just plain wrong information in order to defend it. For example, it’s often claimed that thermolysis is only for “shallow, fine hairs.” Maybe this was true back in the '30s and '40s, when thermolysis was new and the machines much less sophisticated, but modern machines have a variety of setting which are designed to deal with hair of all types and depths. Multiplex and Synchro on the Apilus, for example, are specifically geared towards killing very deep, coarse, terminal hairs and do a great job of doing so. Even “flash” programs can be effective when using a double pulse and moving the probe slightly to target both the base of the follicle AND the “bulge,” where the stem cells that regenerate hair live. I have had pretty much every electrolysis modality possible from a number of practitioners, and I can tell you categorically that thermolysis can and does result in a high kill rate and permanent hair removal when done by a skilled operator. The one big benefit Galvanic does seem to have is that it’s more forgiving of operator error; because lye can permeate the whole follicle, if the insertions are a bit “off” you can still kill more of the germinative cells whereas in thermolysis if you insert too shallow you may not kill the hair. However, this can be overcome by selecting a skilled operator. Also, I’ve been told by one of the electrologists I’ve seen that some people find Galvanic less painful, and she’s started using multi needle galvanic to treat very sensitive areas like the genitals.
All three modalities will result in permanent hair removal, and I don’t think you can point at one and say it’s the “best” way. A skilled Galvanic operator, for example, would be a much better choice than an incompetent Thermolysis one. In general, though, assuming the person you choose is good at their job, I generally recommend thermolysis to my friends and it’s by far the modality I’ve had the most of. The speed means you can get to a complete clearance much faster, which is important for some visible areas, and after 2-3 complete clearances you should notice a significant reduction in hair and should be completely hair-free 12 to 14 months after starting treatment.
Do I even need to answer this? I think my associates have covered it VERY well.
There is no “Best Modality” . The modality that will give the best, fastest results is the one which your electrologist recommends to provide the best efficiency.They ALL kill hair. And above they are correct, there are NO studies that in any way show one modality has a better or worse kill rate. When looking at a hair, we cannot directy tell you which will have a greater or lesser chance of survival and if we do our jobs correctly, that chance is ZERO. In any modality , and in treating the hair in ANY cycle of growth.The electrologists who CAN determine through RESULTS approximtely what their kill rate are amoung the best in the world, and include such professionals as Michael Bono, and Josefa Reina. . They can tell you at the END of the process, fairly closely, what their kill rate is beccause they are able to determne the exact length of treatment and number of hairs treated in all stages. And they dont even work in the same modalities most of the time with the exception being Michael who does exclusively blend. Same result,just different way of getting there.
So what we are left with, is a lot of SUBJECTIVE opinions, deliberately skewed in favour of whatever practioners chosen modality happens to be.
galvanic has the highest kill rate from my experience as a consumer and professional cosmetologist
Treatment efficacy is 100% skill related and has nothing to do with modality.
So, the consensus is all modalities of electrolysis work well, but they will not work well without a skilled practitioner.
My advice has always been: get short appointments with several electrologists. If you are lucky enough to find one that does multi-probe, go for it. Try a blend electrologist. go to an electrologist that does thermolysis. Trust your instincts.
Do one side with thermolysis and one side with blend or galvanic and see what see, feel what you feel. Observe your healing skin.
Oh my goodness, what a fabulous idea Dee! I think I’d like to try this just so I can draw real statistics on length of time of treatment, total complete time, and comparisons between the two chosen modalities. Now all I need is a client willing to go the full mile for this experiment and see it all the way through. Now you’ve got the wheels turning in this old girls head!
Seana
I am reminded of a time, many years ago, when I got a client who had been convinced that thermolysis/diathermy was a scam and only unethical practitioners wanting to “beat it for the hours” and get more money for having you work longer hours total would utilize such a practice. This person wanted to clear a full beard of a 200 hair per square inch density. After agreeing that we would work in blend, because both galvanic and blend worked by creating lye in the follicle, just one did it in about 7 to 30 seconds, and the other could take minutes for one hair, we got started.
I thought that after a few weeks, this person would get the idea that maybe we should try some thermolysis, but no amount of talk could sway this person. So we plodded on, removing about 250 hairs per hour for weeks. I was sure the client would get discouraged or the money would run out before we made any real headway, and besides, this job was looking like a 30,000 hair minimum and if we kept it up at the rate we were going, it might take 5 years to finish, if at all. See, one needs to get to the point of clearing every hair in the treatment area if one is ever going to finish, and it takes a long time before galvanic or blend can do that in the case of a large area. If one is removing 100 hairs at a time, then it might not mean as much, since one would start with full clearances each and every time.
One day, the client came in and I asked how much time we had available, and the client replied that there was only funds for a certain number of hours, but the client had no plans after we parted company. I announced that we were going to do a little experiment at my expense. We would do the regular appointment on the left cheek and then, after the client paid, we would be on my time and I was going to give the client one free hour of work on the other cheek and the client could compare. After a little resistance, it was agreed that since the client would not be paying for the perceived to be awful thermolysis, it would not matter how effective it was. So that’s what we did.
Well, I was averaging +/- 700 hairs per hour in thermolysis, so I easily did twice as much work in that one hour as I did in any hour of work in blend. Bonus feature was that the thermolysis side healed up faster and had less redness and swelling.
When the client showed up for the next appointment weeks later, I asked how it went and what was the client’s thoughts on the experiment. The client laughed and said, “Like You Don’t Know! You get your way on this one. We are going to be working in thermolysis from hear on out.”
Now if only I could post a gif of Lilly Tomlin’s “Edith Ann” character rocking in her oversized chair saying “And that’s the truth. (raspberries 
)”
Hey, could not help to answer this: there is not so much education on is. ANY machines will work IF your electrologist is zapping the hair and not plucking it. That means, that once she zaps it hair should slide out from follicle without ANY resistance. It also, means that your electrologist found the right setting setting for your case. THAT’S THE KEY. DO NOT LET ANYONE PLUCK YOUR HAIRS because plucking will develop stronger hair roots and it will take you MORE time to get rid of them. You cannot pluck, electrologist cannot pluck. Does it make sense?
Now I would like to ask you a question: do you feel pluck when you go to your electrologist?
If so, this is why you are doing it for years and years.
When I take a client I ALWAYS know first time they may or may not see ANY result. What I can 100% promise is that they will see considerable change after 3-4 times. Every time they come back hairs are less less less less less …
Let me know if you have questions; www.hairbusted.com
or email customercare@hairbusted.com
Paula
Yap. Absolutely. I love galvanic but it is extremely slow and more painful.
I’ve done all three with same success. They all work. YOu need the skill not the modality:)