I finished electrology school in october, got my certification, and finally came back home from California. Since i am from non-licensed state, i was required to do only 2 weeks of hands on training, after completing theoretical studies online, at home. I had two instructors, both of them had chance to work on me, and i also watched them working on other students, so i could tell they are trully skilled. They both had more than 30 years of experience in electrolysis, massage and skin care.
I had my first client on my first day. I picked up probe holding tehnique (with tweezers in the same hand) after 10 minutes. I also picked up nice sterilizing and cleanliness manners as well. I discovered that easiest to do was leg hair, and i was good at it, but at the same time i had big issues with insertions and epilations on underarm area. That was frustrating to the point where i started to question my ability to ever do this job and be good at it. I also had big trouble working on dark skin, and i had zero succesfull insertions on curved follicles, but my instructors insisted that this is something that will require great deal of practice. One of my instructors tried to teach me bent needle tehnique on curved hairs, but director sugested that she stops since that is not the policy of the school, nor practice. I have to admit that i was able to make few insertions that way, even though it was still difficult and time consuming.
I wasnt lucku enough to work on the face in those two weeks, but i figured i can always practice on my family members, so i didnt want to bother with that. But by the end of those two weeks i managed to have quite a few clients, some of them returning ones, and i also made some money off of tips.
On my last day, before i left, my instructor sat down with me, and she explained that its going to be harder for me than it is for other students, since theyre required 600 hours before they go to state board, and even though she is extremely happy with my progress, shed like me to keep practicing so ill make up for being there only short time. She said shes happy with my insertions, that i am precise, and not nearly as slow as some students who spent longer time in school already, and i should be happy i dont have shakies (shaking hands) like some other students.
So now that i m home, (its been almost a month), i completely shut down. I have everything i need to start my own business, i have people waiting for me to start working or practicing, but i am too scared to do either. My husband is suportive, but he wants me to at least start practicing for free on people, and start working on my skill development, but i am confused and scared, and all the confidence i had at school, is gone. All i have right now is my mashine, table, probes and huge student loan, and on top of everything this huge feeling of desperation, fear, anxiety and not knowing what to do. I know i suck when it comes to darker skin, and i dont know how to learn, or weather i ever will. All students i was in school with had some kind of aprenticeship at different electrology offices thruout california, but here in Phoenix that isn`t an option for me. Only route i have available to me is my own practice, and what makes me mad is the fact that i have bunch of prospect clients, and i am being to emotional about it.
One more thing before i go though…In school we had instructors checking settings for each clients, so i managed to get out from school not knowing proper current settings for different types of hairs. they used Apilus equipment (senior and platinum), i worked on both, but my mashine is S.Tone VMC, which is a bit different, so i need to learn that like i am new at this (which i probably am).
I would really appreciate some advice right now, because this is making me trully sad. It was my dream to be electrologist, maybe i was expecting miracles in only two weeks, or maybe i just plain suck at it…
Big Hug Sanny.
Take a deep breath.
First of all, underarms are nowhere near as easy as leg hairs, and everyone must find the way around that new challenge. In fact, the reason some electrolysis practitioners only treat faces is that is the only area they feel comfortable working on. I suppose there are some who only do legs, but I can’t imagine they would be able to make a full time living off that.
You have paid for school, and you have worked hard before you even went to school. You can do this. You should also be paid for it. Offer your inagural clients a cut rate, up to half the local price to start, but make it known that this rate will end in the near future. If they want to pre-pay a number of hours at that rate, to insure they get lots of work, take the money and pay off your loans. Honestly, you should have enough people willing to break you even already, assuming they wanted to pre-pay you.
As for the work, you really have to do it to get better. I don’t care what school you go to, or how long you are there, everyone graduates with a little insecurity about their fitness to do this, and only the people who do a year long apprenticeship finish confident that they are doing things well, as they are the only ones who have been doing it long enough to have seen their results to the end, while having worked on almost every part of the body in the process. This is just one of the reasons I am against the current trend in licensing systems that discredit apprenticeships, but elevate high cost classes, as if they teach more.
You have support here, and now that we have lured you into this industry, we are not going to let you out that easily 
Expect a PM from a friend to set up some more education. I also know that you have phone numbers on hand to call for help as well.
Don’t freaze up now. Feel the fear, and do it anyway!
When I went full time, it only took me 6 months in this business to recoup my investement and replace my income from my previous employment. Do you think you are any worse off than me? Well, I got news for you lady, you are ahead of me. After all, you are a lady for starters 
, that counts for a lot in this business. Nine out of ten people want some hair somewhere removed. You just have to educate them that you are their answer, no matter what they heard on TV about LASER.
If all this still has not convinced you to call the people who have been impatiently waiting for you to come home and start ending their suffering with unwanted hair, then think about this:
If you don’t remove their hair, they may become desperate enough to drive all the way to East Earl Drive, Scottsdale AZ in search of someone to do their work.
Are you motivated now?
Practice, practice, practice. Forty hours of hands-on is not enough. It sounds like you really care - and will muddle through, but you really need more hands-on with supervision.
I would also like to address your statement of “certification”. A certificate from a school does not make you certified. You have a diploma, which does show that you cared enough to get some education, but that does not give you the credentials of “certified”.
Regarding apprenticeships - they can be a wonderful thing. My state requires double the school time for an apprenticeship, so an apprentice in Kansas does 1000 hours of training and all of the hours must be in the facility. None of the online or homeschooling allowed!
Do you have any hair left? If so - work on yourself. That was very good hands-on for me. You will know if you have a good insertion technique. You will see the healing process - and you will know if you got those hairs!
Practice, practice, practice.
May I offer some advice? I never went to electrology school (though I would in a heartbeat if I could), and I have only worked on myself but I have been through similar frustrations. You can see how many hours I have logged on myself in my signature. Over that time I have made quite a few mistakes on my own skin (probably nothing permanent) and have been very frustrated at times. It is only recently I have actually began to feel confident and that I am doing it right; even then, sometimes those hairs don’t want to come out properly and I really really wish I had some personal instruction and immediate feedback so I could correct my technique.
(In other words, while I am working I keep thinking… Hey Professor Walker, why are the hairs not coming out intact? In some cases is this ok? Hey, Professor Walker, are these scabs too big? Professor Walker, should I use a larger or smaller needle? Professor Walker, am I moving around too much in a given area? Professor Walker, the hair didn’t slide out easily but came out intact is that ok? What percentage of these hairs should be in anagen and come out intact versus the catagen and telogen ones? Is this a catagen or an anagen hair, it has a little hook on the bottom but I am not sure?? And on and on… sorry James 
)
I have a great deal of curly hair so it is something I have had to learn to do. I make sure I hone in on the pathfinder, ignoring the rest of the hair, and figure out the angle of the hair below the skin judging only by the pathfinder. I have learned to just sort of “know” where the hair goes based on the angle of the pathfinder and previous experience with insertions on similar hairs. I don’t know if this is the right way per se, but it works for me. It may not work when working on other people. In time, I also learned how to “feel” the follicle with the needle, and can tell (I think I can) when I hit the follicle wall or the bottom of the follicle. When I first started out, I was glad to have immediate feedback, since if I made an insertion that was off I felt it (ouch!, ouch!, there it goes!)
Amen to that. If you show insecurity to a patron they will pick up on that & no matter how well your work was they are inclined to critisize you personally. No matter your expertise or lack thereof act the part & be professional. I’m guilty of being chummy with my own clients I must admit but I’m a chummy person. I suppose & noone has complained; eh yet. Good luck to you newbe & thk you James (professor is it now?)
Thank you all for the good advce, especially you, James. I needed to hear that.
I wanted to correct what Barabara stated, and say that i had 80 hours of hands on, not 40. I was there for two weeks, and we had 12 hour days as well, which was very hard, and let me tell you, there is no way i would ever spend 12 hours of continious work on clients in my regular life. I never experienced back pain like that before, and hopefully i never will again.
As for certification, well certified or not, thats least of my worries. They explained to me at school that i need to go to a convention, buy study guide before hand, pay for written exam and ill get CPE-d for less than 200 bucks. I am not much into titles, and i did recieve certificate from school, so i guess only expression i could have used is “certified”.
Also, the online studies i completed were no joke, even though they may sound like it, i had 15 chapters to coplete, midterms, and finals, lots of writing, studying and testing, and i finished all of them with 100 % score.
Vicki, i know what you mean with practicing on yourself, i think its best way to go since you can feel firsthand what youre doing, especially if your insertions are off. Luckily i have bunch of hair everywhere, so lots of material there to excersize on.
James, in regards to Earl drive, do you think one can get THAT desperate?
I have not gone to electrolysis school yet, nor taken the CPE exam, but I have been told I am certifiable 
I think you need more than 80 hours before you can take the CPE exam (120? 320 hours?) I was going to take a 120 hour course myself but I don’t think it would be enough to qualify, at least looking at what it says on the AEA web site. The convention was at the end of last month.
If I am wrong and 80 and/or 120 is sufficient, I’d love to know
I was told that my 80 hours is suffiecient to take the exam. My instructor didnt tell me anything about having to bring my diploma, she said that i am required to purchase books, and guides, even though there is a trick to skipping that as well (i have to call her to discuss that part), and then go to a convention and pay to take the exam. To be honest, as long as i get to do this as a proffesion, i dont think it bothers me much if i am CPE or not. There is such a small number of electrologists in Phoenix, that as long as i keep my rates little lower than others, people won`t care much about that part.
Maybe James will chime in on this
As long as there is a chance that licensing will rear its extortionist head in your state, you will find that you are better off being a CPE than not. You will also want to get the thing while you qualify, before they change the rules on you mid stream and you have new hoops to jump through in order to sit for the exam.
The good news for you is that the next exam is said to be taking place in Las Vegas, which is drivable from where you live. Make that a target date.
In the end it will cost you about $1,000 or more in that you will be paying for the test, the AEA membership, and the hotel plus travel and meal expenses.
I love teaching using the leg technique. Automatic feedback for both what the practitioner feels, and what the client feels. Later, you can move faster, and lose no quality to your work.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that price is what drives the purchase decision. There are people who won’t come to you if you charge too little, as they will believe that you are cheap, because you can’t do the work well. When you shake out the jitters, raise your rates. As you gain speed, raise your rates. When you get your marble floor… oops.
As for Earl Drive, if you don’t do their work, they may believe they have no other choice.
Finally, the talk about 12 hour days makes me wonder if I am so starnge. I frequently do 12 hour days… sometimes with the same client.
Oh, and you are welcome. If getting people in the business counted towards some award, I would have gotten one several times over.
I just read rules and regulations for registering for CPE exam, and they said that for unlicensed states, 320 hours is minumum required in order to take a test. Either that, or confirmation from a CPE, that you have completed one year of aprenticeship. On top of that, its required to take the test every 5 years, to renew it, so i dont know how would that be feasable for me, being how in 11 years that i spent in USA i was never able to go on a vacation.
So `ill scratch that idea out of my head, since i have only 150 hours, and go from there.
You don’t have to take the test every five years. You need only attend Continuing Education Unit classes amounting to 75 hours total every five years. That is an average of 15 hours a year. There are many weekend courses, and day courses that work for this purpose. Again, the convention is in Las Vegas next year, so that one would be a nice close trip, and you would have a semi-vacation
Even with that James, i can not take CPE test, since i don`t have required 320 minimum hours of schooling. I have 150. 
The rules keep changing, and they don’t necessarily give advanced notice of changes in the rules, to give a window of opportunity for those who have already made their plans based on the rules as they were when the person mapped out their road to the exam (and paid their money, and invested their time).
The good news is, you can become a great electrologist no matter if you ever become a CPE, RE, LE, 5*E or any other E.
This is one reason why the CCE and PCE tests don’t have to worry about a lack of popularity. The CPE administration pretty much works at an advertisement for those competing exams. They are just much more convenient to take. When it comes to the materials, if you can pass one, you can pass them all. The only essential difference is the security of the tests.
Of course, all this gets back to the reason why we keep saying, NO PRETTY PIECE OF PAPER ON THE WALL WILL ASSURE YOU THAT YOUR PRACTITIONER IS ANY GOOD. Only sample treatments and consultations with as many practitioners as possible can tell you who is the best available practitioner available to you.
Sanny, I apologize - my math was bad…Eighty hours - maybe more if your days were 12 hours long???
Another reason more hours is essential, is that you will see different reactions on skin - and people don’t always return one week later.
Sanny:
After I graduated from a 600 hour program, I practiced on anything that moved - for free. Then I worked up to $5.00 per session on a friend and removed her underarm hair. Twenty-eight treatments later, she was very happy and I got to see that I actually performed permanent hair removal! That lifted me so high. You got to get in as many insertions as possible.
Don’t let the epilator situation stump you. Certain principles apply to all epilators. Your VMC is a fabulous machine. Start low and gradually bump up the energy until the hair releases. Watch the skin reaction and make adjustments as needed. You can make really small adjustments on the VMC and sometimes that’s all you need. Use the correct probe size always. We were all neophytes at one time and can totally relate to your “lost/clueless” feelings. It will fade as you get better and better. Just don’t get too arrogant once you get the feel of what to do, okay? If you lived closer, I would be glad to mentor you, but you can pm me anytime and I’ll try to help out.
When you get frustrated, go take a nap and go at it again when you are rested. That’s always been my strategy for everything. For Suzuki violin players, they were brought up with the saying, “You do not have to practice on the days you don’t eat”. It’s a good saying that applies for new electrologists, too. Doing lots of insertions and aiming for perfection with each insertion is the main advice you are getting here. It means everything to your success. Once you get the feel, you’re going to feel richer than money.
I routinely work 10-12 hour days. This is only made possible by good vision wear and a good epilator (which you have) working in auto sensor mode. Work to that level and you can work longer days and pay back that loan sooner.
Dee