The Importance of Diligence and Patience
One critical aspect of electrolysis that clients need to understand is that it is a gradual process. Here’s why:
- Multiple Sessions Required: Because hair grows in cycles, multiple sessions are necessary to target all hair follicles during their growth phase. Depending on the area being treated and the hair density, this can mean regular appointments over several months or even years.
- Consistency is Key: Diligence is essential. Regular sessions are crucial for achieving the desired permanent results. Skipping appointments can prolong the process and reduce its effectiveness.
- Slow and Steady Progress: It is important to be patient and maintain realistic expectations. Each session brings you closer to your goal of smooth, hair-free skin, but the journey requires commitment and time.
Why Choose Bare Electrolysis Edmonton?
- Personalized Care: Every client’s journey is unique, and I tailor each treatment plan to meet your specific needs and goals.
- Supportive Environment: We strive to create a welcoming and understanding space where you feel heard and valued.
- Expertise and Experience: With years of experience in electrolysis, I am committed to delivering the highest quality of care.
How does electrolysis work for hair removal?
The process involves inserting a tiny needle, similar in size to a hair, into the hair follicle. Subsequently, a low-level electrical current is administered for a brief period. Following this, the hair is freed and carefully extracted using tweezers. Although each session may be time-consuming since every hair is treated individually, adhering to a well-structured treatment plan, offers a permanent solution to unwanted hair.
Works for all women, men, and gender-diverse clients on all parts of the body.
Does it hurt?
You will have discomfort, like a stinging sensation during treatment. Some people use numbing cream or a pain reliever an hour before their treatment. After treatment, your skin may be red, inflamed and tender, but these temporary side effects should subside within 24 hours. Each person has a different pain tolerance, and many people find that their pain tolerance increases with treatments.
Is it both safe and effective?
Laser hair removal, while effective for reducing hair, may not be suitable for individuals with blond, red, or white hair. On the other hand, electrolysis is effective for all hair colors and types, and it holds the distinction of being the sole treatment recognized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a permanent solution.
Where is electrolysis typically performed?
It is frequently utilized to eliminate hair from various areas, including:
Facial regions such as eyebrows, upper and lower lips, cheeks, chin, the hairline, between the eyebrows, and sideburns. Body regions including the neck, shoulders, arms, underarms, breasts, abdomen, bikini line, legs, back, and chest.
How many treatments does it take?
The total number of treatments will vary from area to area and person to person. Your hair type, location, hormones, and previous removal methods used all affect your treatment.
For coarse hair, such as beards or bikini lines , more sessions will be needed.
Your treatment may take a while, but with sessions spaced apart.
And then once you’re done though, you’re done!
The easy way to remember the hair growth cycles is the Mnemonic
A-C-T which stands for Anagen, Catagen, Telogen which is the hair cycle.
Who uses it?
In short: Anyone who wants to permanently eliminate unwanted hair can likely receive electrolysis.
If you have any questions please feel free to Contact Us we would be more than happy to answer
your concerns you may have.
With electrolysis the hair color doesn’t matter! whether you have red, blonde or white hair, electrolysis
works on all hair colours and types.
We offer a discreet, safe and welcoming environment for all.
History of electrolysis and electrolysis machines
1834: Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
The process of electrolysis was first discovered by Michael Faraday in 1834.
Which better came to be known as Faraday’s two laws of electrolysis.
1900s: First Commercial Electrolysis Kit
Electrolysis hair removal is a very old tried and tested method of hair removal.
The first commercial electrolysis kit was not available until the 1900s which is
pictured bellow.
First Commercially avaible electrolysis kit in the 1900s
1938: The blend method is developed
1946 Blend Electrolysis Machine
Equipment manufacturers and owners of larger salon chains were well aware of the
difference in effectiveness of thermolysis compared to the older electrolysis technique
and in 1938 an electrologist, Henri St. Pierre and an engineer, Arthur Hinkel of the
General Electric Company, developed a method which combined both techniques.
Appropriately, they called this method Blend. Their idea was to combine the speed
of thermolysis with the effectiveness of electrolysis – something that had remained
wishful thinking until advances in electronics made the idea feasible in the late 1930s
and practical in the 1940s.
The key to this method was claimed to lay in achieving just the right blend between
the 2 techniques and different body areas required different combinations to be effective.
This required a lot of training and St. Pierre and Hinkel would not sell their new blend
machines to anyone who would not also take their training course. This meant the method
spread slowly but those practitioners who took it up were thoroughly indoctrinated in the
method and its “supposed” scientific basis. In 1968 Hinkel and Lind published their seminal
work “Electrolysis, Thermolysis and the Blend” and the method finally escaped America
eventually reaching England and Australia in the late 1970s. Long-term, the result worldwide
was the almost complete abandonment of galvanic electrolysis and the relegation of
thermolysis to general beauty salons lacking the skill to perform blend.
1980: Galvanic Revival
1980s 16 probe galvanic electrolysis machine
The 1980s saw a revival in galvanic electrolysis. Hair removal practitioners
read of the permanent results achieved by early galvanic machines – results
they weren’t seeing with thermolysis or blend – and tried applying modern
electronics to the age-old method. Led by Kay Lasker in Philadelphia, machines
were developed with up to 16 probes. Each probe had its own timer and current
regulator with the ability to gradually increase and decrease current at the beginning
and end of each cycle. These machines were much safer and more comfortable for the
client than multi-probe machines of the 1920s and up to 32 probes could be used at
once, making the process almost as fast as thermolysis, but with the success rate of
traditional electrolysis machines.
Through the hiatus in use of the galvanic method, much of the documentation on the
technique, current settings, timers and aftercare had been lost forever.
Kay and her associates had to reinvent procedure manuals from first principles
relying on experimentation and trials. Much of the information that had survived had
been set around basic battery-operated devices that shared little in common with the new
mains powered transistorised machines now being developed.
1875: Dr. Charles E. Michel
Dr. Charles E Michel (1832–1913)
Electrolysis hair removal was first performed in 1875
by ophthalmologist Dr. Charles E. Michel when he
published his record of successful permanent hair removal
of ingrown eyelashes.
1923: Thermolysis Discovered
Thermolysis was not invented until 1923
Early thermolysis machine circa 1923
This treatment was invented by Dr Henri Bordier of France
but may have been attempted earlier by a Dr Eitner in Germany.
It had few followers before the 1930s as the only way to produce high
frequency electric currents at that time was with a device called a spark-gap.
Just like a modern-day spark plug, a high frequency current was generated
across an air-gap in a device that operators had to constantly adjust by monitoring
the hissing noise and light flashes it made. This all changed with the invention of the
vacuum tube and between 1930 and 1940 thermolysis, then called Ray Treatment or
Diathermy, gradually took over from electrolysis.
Even though it was far less effective that electrolysis, thermolysis was much cheaper,
much faster and inflicted less discomfort. It also brought about a lot of confusion in
the marketplace. Since thermolysis treatment looked superficially the same as
electrolysis, clients called it electrolysis and were mostly unaware that they were
being treated by thermolysis.
1970: Transistorisation and Complication
More modern blend machine 1970s with integrated circuits
With the move in technology from valves to transistors then finally integrated
circuit boards in the 1980s, electrolysis machines became smaller, more reliable
and easier to use. On the other hand it gave full reign to the blend advocate’s obsession
with customisation. Machines could now have fine control and rudimentary computerisation
allowing the operator to choose from a pre-set series of control settings for every situation.
With the introduction of transistorised timers, current times could be controlled accurately to
the fraction of a second. This led to the development of the flash method of thermolysis where a
large current over a very short time period held the promise of greatly speeding the process.
However, the fine line between a treatment that was too short and ineffective on the one
hand and skin burns from a treatment that was too long on the other, was cut to almost
nothing with flash. This resulted in far too many disaffected clients.
2007: Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
In 2007 the FDA reconfirmed that electrolysis is the only permanent hair removal
solution.
https://electrologyworksnow.com/2022/05/
The FDA Consumer Health Information Bulletin of 27 June 2007 states:
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes electrology as
providing permanent hair removal. The FDA identification in Title 21,
CFR, Sec. 878.5350 for needle-type epilators is: “a device intended to remove
the hair by destroying the dermal papilla of a hair”. As no other device for hair
removal has the unique identification of “destroying the dermal papilla of a hair”,
only electrologists are allowed to claim permanent hair removal in their advertising”.
Laser hair removal is not recogonized as a permanent hair removal solution by the FDA
and as far as I know this has not changed since June 2007 on the part of the FDA.