October 24, 2007

How Long Does it Take for Unwanted Hair to Be Removed by Electrolysis?  

By Ronni Kolotkin

Electrolysis is a permanent hair removal system. It can take up to one year for hair to be completely removed.
It’s very normal to look for a quick fix for everything. Unfortunately, most things that are worthwhile in life take time and patience: including
getting rid of your unwanted hair permanently.


Laser hair removal was very popular for a while because people were thought that by having one treatment their hair would be gone forever. Of course this wasn’t true. A large percentage of clients who come to my Fifth Avenue office in New York City for electrolysis have had many laser treatments and have ended up with more hair than they started with.

I have a client who sadly invested her whole inheritance to have her hair removed by a practitioner who promised permanent removal by laser. She had absolutely no results and swears that in the end she had more hair. Now she’s having electrolysis and experiencing great results and is so sorry that she didn’t invest in electrolysis to begin with.

How long will it take to get to that point? The problem with Electrolysis for some people is that it is a process and does take time to get to the point where the hair is gone forever. It is very important to understand that electrolysis is still the only permanent way to remove unwanted hair, but it does take time and patience We are very clear with people when they begin the process as to what to expect.

First of all, if you are removing hair on a large area of the body such as legs or underarms, you should try to have one or more hours of treatment per week. This way you will see steady progress. I have some clients who have been literally coming for years to work on the same project. What happens is every spring they come for a few treatments when the weather warms up and they begin to think about the beach. Then they go on vacation and we don’t see them again until the next spring. So gradually over many years, their hair lessens. What they should be doing is coming on a regular schedule, take a few weeks off for vacation and then resume. This way they can be finished within a reasonable time period and never see that hair again.

Another point well worth making is that once you begin having electrolysis on an area where you have been waxing, tweezing or threading you have to immediately stop pulling the hair out or the electrolysis will not work. Pulling hair out stimulates growth, but if you do not pull hair out during electrolysis, the hair will come in finer and finer until it stops growing altogether.

So let’s say you start having electrolysis on your chin. You’ve been tweezing that area on a regular basis. You invest 3 months of time and money on your treatments. Then, the hairs begin to come in finer. That is called re-growth. If at that point you begin pulling the hairs out again, they will return in 7 – 13 weeks as thick as they were to begin with. Eventually you will be right back where you started. You will have wasted your precious time and money. Please keep in mind
That it is always OK to cut the hair on the skin surface while having Electrolysis.
You just can’t pull it out!

If you’ve been pulling hairs from you face it will generally take about a year until you are hair free forever. For the first three months you will need treatments once a week. Then, after we have removed each hair one time you will begin to see a steady decline in the amount of hair and you will gradually be able to come less and less frequently untilyou are completely finished generally in one year’s time.

If you were to work on an area like bikini line, upper legs, lower legs or underarms and had a treatment once a week for one hour it will usually take from 8 months to one year to complete the project.

I always tell potential new clients not to begin this process unless you are really ready to commit to it. Otherwise there is a very good chance that you will be unsuccessful. Make sure you get a clear idea of the duration of treatments until conclusion from your electrologist and know what you are getting into. Then if you feel ready, do it! Electrolysis treatments will be the best money you every spent.

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