Frequently Asked Questions

These frequently asked questions are off the top of my head or surrounding the knowledge of Electrology, so if you feel that there was a question not asked that would be helpful to you, let me know via email or text. I’ll answer it to the best of my ability and potentially consider adding it to the FAQ too if enough people ask me.

ALSO, I made a video which has replaced the major talking portion of my in-person consults that you should watch here - https://youtu.be/a7F402b9gEo - it should cover all or most the FAQ, so that when we meet for the actual consult it is only 20~ minutes rather than 45.

 

 

Question 1: What is Electrology?

(From wikipedia cause it's easier) Electrology is the practice of electrical hair removal to permanently remove human hair from the body. Electrolysis is the actual process of removing hair using electricity.

 

Question 2: How Do you remove the hair with Electrology/electrolysis?

(Wikipedia again, so useful) In electrolysis, a qualified professional called an electrologist slides a hair-thin, solid metal probe into each hair follicle without puncturing the skin (when inserted properly). Electricity is delivered to the follicle through the probe, which causes localized damage to the areas that generate hairs, either through the formation of caustic sodium hydroxide (AKA, lye) (the galvanic method), overheating (thermolysis), or both (the blend method).

 

Question 3: Can you tell me about the Galvanic Method?

The galvanic method is the oldest of the three forms of electrolysis, and my stance on it has changed since the start of my business. I use the galvanic method the most nowadays. The POV (point of view) given to me was that it is ancient and slow and has no practical use outside a few practitioners. I don’t think my teachers meant to speak such a harsh POV of it, but that is what was built up in my mind during school. This mindset was broken down by a sharp comment on reddit from Charlotte Lai, an electrologist in California to one of my comments, and I’m so happy she gave it. Her website is informative and awesome, and I recommend you read it too, I’ll link it for each of the different electrolysis methods, here it is for galvanic. https://auroraelectrolysis.com/galvanic-electrolysis/

I take a metal object called the probe electrode and put it in your hand, and I take the probe and insert it into each hair follicle. When I press the footswitch DC (direct current) electricity flows into your body through the probe, does its treatment at the hair follicle area, and travels the path of least resistance to the probe electrode and back to the machine. Your hair follicle is essentially the main resistor in a circuit we create through the process of galvanic electrolysis.

The DC electrical action causes the moisture and salt content in your skin to continuously break apart and reform into new chemicals. NaCl (salt) and H2O (water) turn into NaOH (lye, which is an acid and a liquid), CL2 (chloride gas), and H2 (hydrogen gas). The gases escape out the top of the hair follicle harmlessly into the air, and the lye does chemical destruction of the hair follicle. I create enough lye to make the treated hair come out easily, which generally means the hair follicle was treated well and has a higher probability of killing the hair off permanently.

 

Question 4: You say higher probability of killing the hair off, why?

All the methods only give a 10-50% chance of killing the hair follicle fully and completely that the follicle will never produce a hair again. Galvanic is the most effective method, followed closely by blend, and thermolysis is in last place. The trade off is that galvanic and blend takes around 6-13 seconds, usually 7-8 seconds,  to treat one hair follicle whereas thermolysis takes around 1 second. Galvanic and blend can go faster by increasing the intensity, but the fastest I’ve seen an electrologist legitimately do it is 3 second and it fucking hurts hardcore, 10/10 on the pain scale. Creating lye works on an equation, 1 unit of lye = 1 second x .1mA (milliampere). A general setting I use is 7 seconds x .7mA = 49 units of lye, but we could also create 50 units of lye by running 5s x 1.00mA. Current at .7mA feels like 3-5/10 to me, 1.00mA feels like torture 10/10.

 

Question 5: What is the thermolysis method?

Thermolysis uses AC (alternating current) electricity to excite the moisture atoms in your skin to move back and forth very fast (around the tune of 13MHz or 27MHz). The atoms being excited creates heat, causing coagulation and destruction of the follicle. This method is very fast in that it takes about a second to treat a hair, but it doesn't do as thorough a job as galvanic or blend. Because electrologist are making strong estimations every time they insert the probe into the follicles (we don't have x-ray vision to see through your skin, sorry) it's possible we didn't put the probe down far enough, or it could have gone too far and broken out the bottom of the follicle, or your hair follicle is kinky (it's curved and twisted) so the probe wasn't able to properly treat the hair. Thermolysis is good and can clear a lot of hair fast, but it's not as efficient as the galvanic or blend. Furthermore, thermolysis is the worst of the three methods in causing skin damage, temporary and permanent. Every method has the chance to hurt the skin, but the heat destruction of thermolysis is so much quicker and more destructive than the others. Galvanic/blend will usually cause redness and swelling that goes down within 2-24 hours, while thermolysis’s redness and swelling tends to last longer, upwards to a week, even if done correctly.

Thermolysis has 3 basic modalities that I learned, and we only used two of them. There is manual, microflash, and thermoflash. Manual thermolysis is sending the AC electricity at the same intensity for a set amount of time - we didn't use it alone, though it can be used in the blend method. Microflash sends 2-3 quick pulses of heating action into the hair follicle to treat the hair. This heating action done right creates a sort of teardrop shaped heating pattern at the tip of the probe into the hair follicle. It is a narrower treatment pattern that hurts very little, but depending on hair type it may need the follicle to be treated another 2-3 times to treat the follicle and pull out the treated detached hair. Thermoflash is exactly like microflash but has the flashes go for a bit longer (we're talking tenths of a second longer than microflash) and the heating pattern is broader, giving a better area of treatment. It's still fast and doesn't hurt much, but if the hair is twisted under the skin or the insertion was off at all we may miss the critical area to be treated. It's why I like the idea of galvanic and blend better. For further reading please see Aurora Electrolysis’s page on it here: https://auroraelectrolysis.com/thermolysis/ . Also, you don’t have to hold the handheld electrode with thermolysis, but it’s always nice to have something to hold on to so some electrologists still give it out.

 

Question 6: What is the blend method?

The blend is the latest and was the best method of treatment, until I learned more about galvanic. It sends AC and DC electricity to the hair follicle simultaneously or on an overlapping basis. The lye is created via the galvanic method and the lye is excited via the thermolysis method. Thermolysis makes the lye and surrounding tissue more caustic, more porous, and faster acting. While you may see a lower number of hairs treated per session via blend or galvanic, they are more likely to be permanently destroyed sooner than via thermolysis. The lye is a liquid, so even if the probe doesn’t reach the bottom of the hair follicle the created lye can push the earlier created lye to the target area to treat it, even in kinky hairs.

The blend has multiple modalities too, but it's just different patterns of applying the AC and DC current. Generally the DC current just runs, and the AC current is run either as manual thermolysis or like micro/Thermoflash with pulses. The DC electricity masks the pain of the AC current usually, so you don't feel two separate ways of pain, just one. Also, unlike thermolysis, for the blend you must hold a handheld electrode to complete the DC circuit. Furthermore, Aurora Electrolysis has some great points to be made or re-made here: https://auroraelectrolysis.com/blend/ .

 

Question 7: Does it hurt?

Yep, it’s electricity running in your body with heat or acid destruction in your follicles. Nerve plexuses are wrapped around or near some of these follicles, so if they get hurt or destroyed it can be painful. You're not going to lose feeling permanently in the treated areas, though you may have a dulling of feeling in treated areas while the nerves recover. The pain is only temporary too, it is gone 1-4 seconds after treatment of the follicle, though the burning of thermolysis may last longer than the acid destruction pain of galvanic or blend. I try to get my clients to say pain is within a 3-6 out of 10 pain scale by adjusting time and intensity, but sometimes it’s impossible without going slug speed slow.

 

Question 8. If the nerve plexus's come back, why don't the hair follicles come back?

If the hair is mistreated/undertreated it does come back and we treat it again and again etc. until we cause total destruction to all the parts that would also the hair follicle to regenerate and produce hair. Treatment is done to destroy the hair germ cells, papillae, and bulb cells. A single surviving germ cell could in theory replicate and bring the hair follicle back to life and production, albeit weaker/thinner hair until the cell comes back fully within multiple generations. That's why I like using galvanic, the lye in decent amounts is likely to properly treat a hair and be enough to fully treat the hair. Galvanic is also going to stay better contained in the hair follicle and so cause less unwanted tissue damage compared to blend or thermolysis.

 

Question 9: What about infection? Don't I now have a wound that could get infected?

Heat destruction and/or lye also causes sterilization (or at least top-quality disinfection) of the follicle when treated. So immediately there will be no infection in the follicle. We also disinfect your skin before treatment of potential bacteria and/or viruses on the skin barrier and disinfect the skin after treatment too with an astringent and/or cataphoresis. Furthermore, we ask YOU to keep it clean for the 24-48 hours after treatment to ensure your own skin safety. This means not putting dirt or makeup over the treated follicles and keeping it clean. We prefer 24 hours at least, but till the next day is enough time to ensure a healing period and closing of follicles from the dangers that lurk on your skin and in the world.

 

Question 10: How do I pay?

I now do cash, check, zelle, credit or debit card, and can do venmo but prefer not to. If you give me a tip via zelle, check, credit or debit card, or venmo it is counted as just paying more for the service because there is no way to separate that out within my understanding.

I do not charge the extra 3% that comes with using a credit card, but I definitely should because it is money coming out of my pocket to cover the 3% charge that comes with using a credit card.

 

Question 11: What’s a consultation session?

A consult session is a free of charge session where I collect your information on a client card you fill out and give you a free 15 minute session of electrolysis so you know how it feels and I know what settings seem to work best for you. The client card has blank rows that I fill out to track when we had a session, what settings I used, comments, and payment info. We can try out the 3 modalities if you like, you can experience how painful it is and I can adjust settings so it’s more efficient. We talk a bit to get to know each other and you can ask any followup questions to my consult video here: https://youtu.be/a7F402b9gEo .

 

Question 12: It doesn't seem to be working. Hair is already growing in the area you just treated. Why?

Hair grows in multiple cycles. The basic stages of growth and death is anagen, catagen, and telogen. Anagen is the active growth phase of the hair follicle, where it receives constant nutrition to grow a hair from the blood supply. Catagen is a transitory phase where the blood supply (papillae) has separated from the hair follicle, but some nutrition is leftover for the hair to keep growing, but only lasts at most a few days. Telogen is the resting phase of the hair follicle, where the blood supply is gone, and the hair follicle shrivels upwards while releasing the hair to fall out of the follicle. The hair may fall out during the telogen phase or stubbornly stay in there till it’s pushed out by a new hair follicle growing or someone pulls it out.

 If I treat a hair in catagen versus anagen it's less likely the treatment would be completely effective to destroy the follicle because the papillae retreated already, and if I treated a hair still leaving the follicle in telogen it's even more so. Anyways the hair that showed up a day or a week later is something that was in early anagen from a new cycle and just didn't extend out he follicle yet from the last session, or it was too hard to really grasp and treat last time.

When I treat a hair follicle and pull the hair out, if the hair follicle can grow a new hair it will start doing so in a few days, but it will take between 6-8 weeks before that hair pops out of the skin. So when new hair shows up a week after treatment that is because it is a hair that was growing in early anagen and hadn’t popped out of the skin yet.

I can’t tell you how many hair cycles are in which part of the body, but consider that the average life cycle of facial hair is 52 weeks anagen and 10 weeks telogen it means, that means the average person could have like 52-62 hair cycles they need to get through before truly seeing permanent reduction and destruction of hair. I’ve seen people have good success in 6 months, going from 1hr sessions weekly to 15 minute sessions weekly, but it always depends on if we are clearing the full area we want to every session or just part of the area.

I know this can be a frustrating answer to hear, but remember that laser works on 4-8 week cycles for that very reason, and it drags out over at least 6-8 sessions, so 6 sessions every 6 weeks means to get all your laser sessions would take 36 weeks at least. If you’re trying to achieve permanent hair removal it’s going to take a long time no matter what.

 

Question 13: Where can or can’t I get hair removed?

The only place I will never do is inner ear and inner nose, because the pain scale for inner nose is like 14/10 (and probably so for inner ear too in theory) and inner ear hair is what gives you balance and destroying it could give you permanent vertigo and I’d get sued (plus it’d be near impossible to reach inner ear effectively anyways).

I’ve done brows, above/below brows, top of nose (also a 14/10 pain spot), upper lip, lower lip, chin, cheeks, jawline, neckline, chest, breasts, stomach, crotch, legs, armpits, arm, toes, feet, ankles, back (lower and upper), back of neckline, the tragus of the ear (the little ear flap), outer earlobe,…. Pretty much anywhere besides butt so far. I’ve worked on a lot of crotches for trans feminine people getting prepped for grs, and some men that just dislike hair down there.

 

Question 14: What's the timeline for having an area permanently treated? How many sessions?

Ha, there is no specific answer. Especially if it was a big or hairy area; it takes time to get even one full clearing. But if it was an area I could clear fully every session, the general timeline is 2~ years. BUT as time goes on, what once took me 2 hours to completely clear later takes me only 1 hour, only half hour, only 15 minutes, only 5 minutes. Maybe you only come once a month after that first year because there is so little regrowth. No one wants to suck you dry for your money. You will eventually never have to come again, or only come again once a year for 5 minutes. I'm not going to charge you full prices for that short session because you've probably been an awesome loyal customer through the whole ordeal.

 

Question 15: What about waxing, plucking, threading, laser, sugaring, epilators, etc?

If you come to me for electrolysis, please don't do any type of epilation (which is plucking, epilation, waxing, threading, sugaring) on the face. The face is a hormone dependent area, and it will make the hair grow thicker over time. Doing it on other parts of the body isn't that bad (supposedly). Epilation has a very small chance of permanently destroying hair follicles, but it is not selective. Waxing will grab terminal and vellus hairs. And consistent agitation could eventually lead vellus hairs to turn into terminal hairs, especially in the face (hormones), much less so in the rest of the body. Yes, I'm saying all 20+ clickbait articles you googled are wrong because they don't differentiate between hormone dependent areas of the body and non-dependent areas, that they are clickbait low-information articles.

If you want to do laser, go ahead. It's not like I can't work with laser or after laser hair removal (reduction really). LHR can give great results, but saying it's permanent removal is iffy. Electrolysis works on all hairs, LHR has different success rates when dealing with hair color to skin color contrast.

Sometimes you don't need/want hair fully gone, so if LHR can severely thin/weaken your leg hair, why not try it. I'm always here if you need touch-up work with the FDA certified only permanent hair removal method. Oh, also. I might recommend LHR first before coming to me, like on back hair. It truly can make a strong difference and save you money in the long run to do other parts because electrolysis is slow in comparison, and I only work so many hours.

 

Question 16: Who do you work on? What is your planned audience? Women, men, transgender individuals, cisgender individuals?

Khajit has wares if you have coin. *cough cough*, sorry. Everyone that wants treatment can come and receive it. I do have the right to refuse work if I feel awkward or unsafe with you. Personal and business safety first.

 

Question 17: Any discounts, sales events?

No, but yes. I am on Groupon for those that want a discount but like at most I want you to use 2-3 Groupon coupons ever. I give transgender and gender divergent people a discount already because they are likely going to be removing hair for much longer for many more sessions than cis people. I also do direct action aid to some poor people by giving them a bigger discount because I understand their situation and empathize. I also have the continuation hours for those that need a lot of work, and that is heavily discounted from standard pricing. I do a shitload is what I’m trying to say, so if you ever call me greedy you can go straight to whatever hellscape you believe exists.

 

Question 18: Any other shameless promotions?

Just a shoutout to my awesome local electrologist Chris Frank, my fellow student Jacqui in Waukesha at Electrology Essentials, fellow student Tara in Wisconsin Rapids, and fellow student Becky in the Fondulac area. And always, my school Eau Claire Institute of Electrology and teachers Erica, Andrea, and (the retired) Joyce. Jacqui is starting her own Electrology school soon in 2023.