Thanks for posting that information Squash and Vickie,you don't have to dream about using PicoFlash thermolysis someday, I think you already know what your goals will be when you become an electrologist. Don't skimp - get the best epilator and vision wear there is for your clients, even if you have to borrow the money to do this right. Permanent hair removal is tough on people and we need to get the hair off fast and with the best comfort scenario we can, in order to give them hope and reassurance that the hair is going to be affected for good.

A quick question which occurred to me. Why is it so important to tweeze the hairs away so quickly ? Due to the areas I'm having done, I can never actually watch the probe at work, but it seems like a lot of time is wasted switching back and forth between probe and tweezers (I mean relatively, since it takes about 1 second to do that, and a probe+zap in about 1 second, so it's using roughly 50% of the time). Wouldn't it be so much faster to simply use the probe to zap zap zap as fast as possible, and then spend the final few minutes of a session just getting rid of the hairs that were done ?

The electrologist needs to keep track of the hairs she/he has treated. Treating 3-5 hairs that are neatly lined up in a nice little row and then lifting them out is the best one can do for a densely populated area. Leaving the newly treated hair in the follicle can create infection because the hair is considered a foreign object after it is treated with electrical current. It needs to be lifted out so as not to cause infection and it visibly improves the area as well.

When I do a man's back, I may zap 40 hairs and then return to lift them out if the density is not so much that I can't keep track of where I had been zapping. That increases speed, for sure, but it depends on the situation as to whether that is a good strategy. However, if I am doing a woman's face, that has 100 hairs per square centimeter, I need to do one zap and then lift out the hair and so on and so on. It's easy to get lost in a jungle of hair.

Your comment, "Why is it so important to tweeze the hairs away so quickly?" Just a small point here: we do not TWEEZE hairs, we lift out hairs from properly treated hair follicles with tweezers and discard them. Tweezing is an action that implies that you are paying a professional to do a temporary method (tweezing) when in fact we are performing permanent hair removal, using tweezers as a tool to discard hair. I know it is a pesky point, but others might not seen it as you meant it to be said.

If you have a total of 40 coarse hairs on your chin that are easy to keep track of, then your idea would be a good one as far as zapping all of the hair present and then going back to lift them out. The problem is, what if all 40 hairs were zapped and the electrolgist realizes that she needed a touch more energy to get the hair to slide out better? She would then have to go back and retreat all those hairs, thus, not saving any more time than if she had treated three follicles at a time.

Dee

I wondered whether anyone would call me on the 'tweeze' bit... I thought someone would. Yes, I use tweeze as a verb because you're removing the hairs with tweezers, not plucking them out of the hair follicle with tweezers.

Here's what I've semi-noticed from having my shoulders done (again, I can't see much, so I generally guess whats happening by what I feel in my skin) - the needle goes in, zap, the probe gets swapped for tweezers, the tweezers gently grasp the hair... if it slides out right away, then the probe is swapped back, and the next hair is done. If the hair doesn't fall out, then the probe is swapped, and the same hair is treated with a longer time/more current, and then the same process of testing the hair is repeated.

From my point of view, it seems that if you zapped a large area, and then went through again with the tweezers, the hairs that are now properly treated will fall out right away - those that need more treatment will still be in there, in which case, you'll have less hairs in the area than you started with (since the ones that are treated right are now removed with the tweezers). Then you can do all the hairs again with the probe, and then repeat the process.

I guess in my idea, all that's really different is that instead of swapping the probe/tweezers after every hair, you're doing it once every few hundred hairs. The coarse hair still gets the extra treatments as needed, and the hair is still removed... it's just faster because there's less time wasted swapping probes and tweezers.

I suppose that could work, but how much time saved may be a matter of only minutes??? Do you think that the client would need a rest in between zappings? Could they sustain getting 100 zaps over 10-15 minutes continually and then a rest period of several minutes to test and remove the hairs?

Some hairs need several zaps too. Once you take this and what Dee is saying into account, it will be more time consuming to do it your way and you'll still probably be plucking some hairs by mistake.

hmmm... I guess the pain is something to consider... in my case, probably not, but for people who get the 'good' stuff that doesn't hurt, they could probably tolerate a long session of constant zapping. I assume anyway

I'm sure you're all correct, after all you're the professionals... but something is still bugging me in my mind that just hasn't clicked... I'll keep thinking on it.

Oh, one more thing... would being ambidextrous enough that you could have the tweezers in your other hand and tweeze right away while moving your probe to the next hair make it quicker? My mind says yes, but...

a quick question if you could help me abcdefghijklmn?

i'm thinking of electroysis on my back cause my IPL isn't very effective. but my back isn't that bad and being at a young age of 20 i thought if i can get on top of it now it will be better in the long run.

anyways to my question, how many hairs would you say you get removed in 1 session of say an hour?

because i have like 2 hand size areas on my back that arnt all dark black hair but they are all dotted around and so i thought rather than shaving the area with the black hair and peach-fuzz mix for IPL i could just get the hairs zapped with electrolysis.
cause i would say there are about 400-600 hairs there if that.

would you say electrolysis is for me?

thanks

That is called the "two-handed method." Some prefer it, some don't. My speed is better with the "one-handed method."

How the electrologist removes the treated hair is near the bottom of the list of what you should be looking for when choosing an electrologist.

Electrolysis would be highly effective for these hair patches. Search for someone who does MicroFlash thermolysis or PicoFlash thermolysis. They will have computerized epilators that will speed the hair removal along. Fast can mean deadly with these modalities and I'm not kidding!

Four to six hundred hairs per hour is what you want and it is a reasonable expectation. Many electrologists who have set themselves up with the best equipment can easily reach these numbers, but you just have to find them. If they go slower, don't freak out, you will still get permanent hair removal. You have to deal with whatever your local talent offers.

You are correct to point out that you are young and your hair patterns are still developing. No problem with starting now so you can ride with the hair growth patterns as they awaken with the coming years.

Good luck, but learn how to get the best outcome for your situation. Nothing is more frustrating than giving time and money toward a project to see no results. Learn thoroughly and become an expert on how hair grows.

Dee