Electrolysis Myths Are Plentiful
I write this blog in an effort to help people understand permanent hair removal. There isn’t much information on electrolysis available online or anywhere else so often people contact me and ask questions based on information they’ve cobbled together from a few online sources. There are a few things that come up all the time, “facts” about electrolysis that seem true but can be considered “electrolysis myths”.
Electrolysis breaks down the hair until it eventually disappears.
This is a very, very common electrolysis myth. It is so common that it is even perpetrated by people who run schools of electrolysis. The truth is that electrolysis, when done properly, can kill a hair follicle in one treatment.
There is only one right way to do electrolysis successfully.
Electrolysis theory is based on scientific principles, but practical electrolysis is all about intuition and the personal touch. There is no electrolysis textbook or course (yet) that teaches you exactly how to kill a hair follicle. There is no magical formula for killing a hair follicle, a good electrologist develops a style that works after many hundreds of hours of practice.
Electrolysis Myths and the Medical Industry
I started to research laser hair removal in academic journals because I wanted to know whether there was some information on laser that I didn’t know about. Although I had my own unsatisfactory experience with laser I still wondered whether I was an outlier and perhaps laser really was a revolution in permanent hair removal.
Based on my knowledge of the hair follicle and my understanding of why electrolysis works I came to the conclusion that laser was a useful, but not perfect, technology for permanent hair removal. I expected the academic literature to prove me wrong, but to my surprise much of the literature was itself imperfect and heavily biased towards laser technology.
I was surprised to read the electrolysis myths (downright lies really) printed in medical journals and dermatology magazines .
It infuriated me to see misinformation about electrolysis spread by doctors in publications read by other doctors.
I’ve written before about the reasons I think electrolysis has been sidelined in favour of laser technology. It basically comes down to the fact that electrologists are mostly women who are educated in a vocational program that lasts anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. The culture of the medical profession is much more exclusive and upper class.
Let’s be honest, the broader culture gives the word of a doctor more weight than that of an electrologist, thus, when doctors unwittingly spread electrolysis myths they read about in the trade publications the electrolysis profession suffers because we have no peer-reviewed journal to speak for our profession.
Common Electrolysis Myths Found In Medical Journals and Magazines
One thing that shocked me when I was reading up on laser were the studies used to compare laser hair removal with electrolysis hair removal. There was an oft-quoted study conducted in Turkey in 2000 that concluded that laser was faster, less painful and more effective than electrolysis. If you were to read this study without a knowledge of modern electrolysis you would take the results at face value. When I read the study I immediately saw how dubious the conclusion actually was. The study compared laser to galvanic electrolysis, a tediously slow and outdated method that no one uses anymore. Thus, the results are flawed and heavily weighted towards laser. Yet this study is cited in future studies on laser hair reduction.
The American Medical Association publishes a medical encyclopaedia that is advertised as “written and reviewed by top medical doctors and specialists…sets a new standard for consumer medical reference.”
The 2003 edition reinforced these electrolysis myths:”[electrolysis is]extremely time-consuming and can be painful. Because hair goes through dormant phases, many rounds of electrolysis must be performed to ever make a small area of the body completely hair free.”
I’m not going to correct this misinformation in this essay except to say that electrolysis is very well suited to hair removal on both the face and body. Yes, it can be time consuming if you’re doing your full body, but so can laser. My larger point is that the medical profession is partly responsible for all of the misinformation on electrolysis.
As far as I know there are no textbooks dedicated to the theory of laser hair removal and there are only 2 somewhat-decent textbooks on electrolysis at the moment and neither focuses on modern techniques. Thus, anyone looking for accurate information on permanent hair removal including laser and electrolysis really needs to take the time to assess the source of knowledge themselves.
Further Reading:
https://www.follikill.com/2014/02/20/distorted-follicles/
https://www.follikill.com/2013/05/06/laser-hair-removal-permanent/