I am so happy to have found this site! Just wish I knew about it years ago. I am writing to ask for advice on my hair removal journey. I had laser hair removal done on my face eight years ago. It was done by a dermatologist and after three treatments he told me I was done and the process was permanent. Needless to say the hair has come back. It is NO WHERE near what it was volume wise, but I have patches of hair that i have had to wax/pluck on a weekly basis for the last eight years. I was going to have laser done again, but after finding the hairfacts site i am not so sure. The laser was permanent on about 70% of my facial hair, so do you think having it done again would work on the other 30%? I work face to face with people daily so i am not sure about having to heal for a week with electrolysis. Does it always take that long? Any advice or tips would help.
Welcome to hairtell, hairytooth. Hairytooth???
Can’t guarantee that if you have electrolysis that you will have no temporary skin manifestations. Many skilled electrologists who use excellent tools can do a treatment and all goes back to normal within minutes to hours. No scabs, red bumps, pustules, swelling. Whether you find someone who can give you the best outcome or not, is a matter of visiting several electrolgists and comparing outcomes. Healing depends on what you do when you leave the office as well.
I hesitate to give a thumbs up for laser hair reduction of female facial hair. You can take the gamble and see if the remaining patches can be eliminated by laser if the hair is coarse and dark. If more hair is induced to grow, then just know that electrolysis can turn that situation around.
A skilled electrologist can make hay of that extra hair. Get it cleared off and keep it cleared. Find a MiroFlash or Pio Flash electrologist would be my next piece of advice.
Do you have several electrologists in South Carolina that you can start the consultation process with?
Dee
Thanks for the welcome Dee,
I chose hairytooth cause I am hairy and a dental hygienist.
The facial hair I have is coarse and dark. I had an ovarian tumor that stopped my body from making estrogen and only allowed for testosterone production for at least three years. The tumor was removed in 2000, but my gyn said that once a hair has been affected by testosterone it retains those properties.
I am emotionaly drained when it comes to the hair. Enough already! So I don’t want to watse time trying the laser again if it won’t be 100% perm.
I have looked online at which states are licensed for electrolysis and South Carolina isn’t one of them. I only live 5 min. from the North Carolina border, so i am thinking of going there where it is regulated. I saw a few online in NC, but the names confuse me. Most are named after the owner like, “Marges Electrolysis”. This seems a bit old school and unprofessional to me. I liken hair removal to a medical procedure, so i wouldn’t go to an MD with the office name “Bobs Medical”. Please let me know if I am being harsh about this? It isn’t my field, so I don’t know what the norm is.
Also, should I let them work on me at the consult?
Thanks for your help.
Where in SC? I am in NC and may be able to refer you to someone.
I wouldn’t judge an electrolysis practice by the name. To me, I’d rather see “Marge’s Electrolysis” in the yellow pages than one more “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow” (which I thought was MY original idea until I checked it out, LOL)
Absolutely have some work done during the consultation. Most electrologists want to do a short treatment before starting regular sessions.
May I add that just because South Carolina might not have the regulations and professional extortions one might find in North Carolina, that doesn’t mean that good electrologists don’t practice there.
Just as many good practitioners work under the simple title of Electrolysis by (Insert Name Here) doesnt mean they are delivering poor quality treatments.
You should try out practitioners in your area, and then, if you choose, you should compare the SC ones with the NC ones. I expect that your report will be higly useful for those in the area who read our pages.
There are also a million “Hair We Are” hair salons across the country.
I was talking about this very thing with a friend yesterday (who was also considering getting into electrology as a career.) James’ business name is fantastic, I wish I had thought of it 
Thank you to all who replied. Sorry I have been gone so long, but I was not in the mood to talk about hair. My weekly pluck/wax has turned into a daily thing. My gyn said it could be due to my going off BCP. Who knows. I finally have had enough and am going for my first electrolysis appt. on Monday. I took your advice and ignored her business name. She sounds nice on the phone and is even willing to see me in her office when she normally doesn’t have hours. I have to drive an hour (living rural here) to her office and work 10hr days. She also sugggested I come in as her last appt. in case she needs a lot of time with me. I will share my experience afterward.
I am not going to use any pain relief for the tx. When I had laser done I took percocet and it still hurt, but I lived. I pluck my face daily and it doesn’t bother me at all. Am I naive about the pain of electrolysis?
I had my first appt. today at 2. I ended up taking 800mg IB an hour before and she applied a topical in office. It hurt, but I didn’t cry and feel fine now. As of yet I don’t have any scabs, but I am noticing that my skin is a little bumpy and I have a few “whiteheads”. After reading previous posts I know this can be normal. I am going again in next week. I keep reading to get consults, but I don’t want to interrupt treatment. The tech was friendly and she is inside a doctors office, so the space was clean. One complaint would be that she asked me if I wanted to get the longer hairs around my lip or have her try to get the too short ones again. I said BOTH, but she said we were almost out of time. I am willing to pay whatever for however long. I just want it done.
Please make sure to use proper aftercare to avoid scabbing and heal the area faster. Buy some witch hazel and apply several times a day. Also, avoid makeup for at least 24 hrs.
Btw, do you know the cause of your facial hair? It may be important to know since if there is something in your body causing it to develop hair, it will probably continue to do this during your lifetime and you have to expect to need touchups later in life.
I developed scabbing today. The electrologist gave me a cream to use for aftercare. It is called Rex Eme cream made by Brun Laboratories and she swears by it. I used it last night, but used witch hazel to clens and aloe only today. I am not to sure about the cream since everyone on here says only aloe or tea tree oil. I actually had to go buy makeup today so i can cover it for work tommorrow. My friend said it looks like acne. The scabbing is only on my cheeks and neck.
The hair is from an ovarian tumor. I had it removed 9 years ago, but not before it did a number on me hairwise.
What are the ingredients in the cream? Scabbing can be controlled or eliminated. Tell her that you don’t like this reaction and see if she can change things up to lesson this.
Dee
The cream has camphor, emulsifiers, eucalyptol, hydrolized lanolin, menthol, mineral oil, mineral wax, petrolatum, phenol, propylene glycol, purrified water, resorcinol, sodium metabisulfite and vitamin E. Lokking at the scabbing (which I do everytime I see a mirror), I can now see that it appears where the hair was. Not just certain places. If this is normal I will deal with it. Also, I didn’t wear makeup today because i am scared to make it worse. I put on extra eyeliner to draw attention from my lower face:) Do you think two/three days post is okay to put on makeup?
Talk to your electrologist. She can adjust the settings to minimize scabbing. It’s part of the process to figure out settings your skin can handle.
Either way, the scabs fall off within a few days. Makeup is fine, just not within the first 24-48 hours when skin is healing.
I don’t like the ingredients. Please consider using witch hazel, pure aloe vera gel and tea tree oil (if needed).
Tell her you don’t want scabbing. Ask her if she can do something to ease up on the skin reaction. Give her a chance to figure this out or just move on with a new electrologist.
I am going to see her again on Monday and I will mention the scabbing to her. I also set up a consult with another place. The woman on the phone said they have a new Applius(sic) epilator machine that may not hurt as much and works quicker. The scabbing has lessened and different hair is growing, so i am excited to be able to have another treatment and get the new growth of hairs.
I only used the cream the one time. Since then i have been using witch hazel to cleanse and aloe to mosturize.
The Apilus epilator part sounds great. The skill part is the most important as you know. Good job for getting those consultations.
My electrologist called me on Friday to see how I was doing and I told her about the scabbing. I still had a few left today when I went in to see her. I didn’t think they would hang around for a week, but did. She said she has to have it turned up that high to get the really coarse ones that grow since I have been waxing/plucking for 8 yrs. She also said she never knows how someone will react to treatment. But I told her how I reacted! She gave me another bottle of stuff to apply. It is called bump n blemish and specifically says it can be used after electrolysis. I hope it works. I was a little surprised by her not a big deal attitude towards the scabbing since she is otherwise so sweet. I am going to see what my consult on Friday has to say about scabbing and what she can do to reduce it. I expected some, but not everywhere that was treated and I can see it starting to scab from todays treatment also. One last thing, she answered the phone 5 times during my hour long appointment. I hate to complain about her, but after reading all the advice you pros give I guess I am looking for a better experience.
The one thing I will say about answering the phone during treatments is that most electrolysis practices don’t have anyone to answer the phone but the practitioner. Even when I was working in an office with my home in the rear, and ten family members living on the property, no one could be bothered to be my reception staff. They just expected to continue to get the free swag and trips to Disney World. Even when I do have reception staff, many people won’t book an appointment until they talk to me personally anyhow.
(My one receptionist liked to answer the phone on Speakerphone for some reason, and one day I got a laugh when she answered the phone: “Good Morning, Executive Clearance, how may I help you?” and the guy on the other end just says “I wanna talk to the CPE.” Everything she said was replied with “I wanna talk to the CPE, I am not asking to anyone but the CPE.” My Administrative Assistant could have handled all of his questions, because he sure did not know enough to ask any truely hard questions, but he did not want to hear anything if it was not coming from me.)
Clients are actually at fault for this, because what you guys do is, you make a list of who you are going to call, and the first person who answers the phone AND who can see you on the day you are free, (which is frequently, a case of, "Any chance I can come in today?) is usually the last person you ever talk to. An electrologyst knows that an unanswered phone is likely lost business. (You people don’t like to leave messages on the voice mail either.)
What I would advise is that those who must be their own reception staff in addition to performing electrolysis treatments should invest in a good hands free set up. Plantronics makes the best headsets that I have ever experienced. Unlike Bluetooth, they don’t require their own power source, and they sound just like you are talking into the regular phone (In some cases, even better than the regular phone). They are a little pricey, but they are durable, and work so much better than the average hands free garbage sold out there for $10 - $30.
So I am supposed to keep paying her for the full hour and just shut up? As a dental hygienist I see people by appointment also and only answer the phone if I am expecting an emergency phone call. I also have the courtesy to warn the patient I may have to get the phone and excuse myself and apologize if it does happen.
I no longer answer my phone when I’m with a client, but when I did, I always paused the timer. Could she be doing this and you don’t realize it?
And James is sooooooooo right. For a short time, I had a receptionist, and it was a waste of money. No one would talk to her. They would ask for Wednesday evening at 6pm and she would tell them it wasn’t available, but rather than schedule for another time, they would insist I call them back. It was as though either my receptionist was lying or that I could magically make room for them at 6pm on Wednesday.
Training my clients to leave a message has been a chore. My outgoing message even says, “I’m with a client! I will return your call ASAP” Not quite like that, but you get the point. Most still refuse to leave a message.
I’ve looked into the hands-free setup, but have had clients complain to me about other electrologists or hair stylists, etc., using them, so I haven’t made the investment. It’s so hard to please everyone!