Electrolysis Reviews
After 16+ years in business, Alison has earned a reputation as a top electrologist in Los Angeles, and every client story on this page is a testament to her professionalism. We are proud of our excellent rating on Google and Yelp . You will also find photos of our space, in case you are curious about the salon, parking, and nearby areas.
Testimonials About Electrolysis
Electrolysis is a fairly private procedure, so we typically don’t ask our clients for a “testimonial.” You may not want the world to know exactly how you came by your smooth hair-free skin. We understand! We don’t expect our client to share “best electrolysis in Los Angeles” from the rooftops.. With that said, many clients over the years have taken the time to provide a review, a story, or a testimonial. These clients are excited to share a resource with others, and “pay it forward” by recommending Alison to those who they think will benefit from her service. The testimonials below were shared voluntarily by our clients, and we absolutely respect their privacy. If you are a client and would like to share your electrolysis story, please send us a message.
Electrolysis Client Stories
Alison has a variety of happy electrolysis clients from all over the West Los Angeles area. And you can be one of them! Contact Alison today to schedule your first electrolysis hair removal session.
Real Life Electrolysis Stories
Electrolysis by Alison is proud to help people from all walks of life get rid of unwanted hair growth. From women with PCOS to men looking into removing hair on their backs and shoulders, and everyone in between, we have given thousands of clients the opportunity to feel better about their facial hair and body hair situations. These are real people whose self-image and confidence have received significant boosts from the steps they have made to feel better about their appearances. Our founder Alison considers seeing the improvement in a client’s attitude as their treatment progresses from session to session one of the best parts of the job,
Myths about Electrolysis Revealed
One of the common myths about electrolysis treatments is that they are essentially the same procedure as laser treatment with the same outcome. This is far from the truth, as every one of our clients could happily tell you. Electrolysis is effective on all hair colors and skin types, unlike laser therapy. Electrolysis is also different in the quality of the hair removal provided. With laser therapy, hair growth cycles are disrupted, but long-term are not interrupted. Follicles will eventually recover from the procedure, and the scattershot approach to treatment (with all follicles, terminal or otherwise) in an area being targeted means that some vellus, or light, wispy hairs may be triggered into growing more terminal, dark hairs. Conversely, electrolysis only targets the affected follicles, meaning that they will be permanently neutralized. And of course, the difference in what laser therapy and electrolysis feel like is not to be overlooked.
Another myth about electrolysis is that home electrolysis kits can be effective. Sadly, this is not true. Electrologists work hard and study to achieve their certifications. The training and understanding can not be substituted. The risk of re-growth, scarring, and infection from poorly-executed electrolysis is too great. We advocate only pursuing electrolysis at a center with a credentialed electrologist that uses new needles for every procedure and preferably already has at least three years of experience in the field. Alison has been practicing for over 15 years at this point.
Related to the above myth is the one that electrolysis is always a 100% success. While even an inexperienced electrologist can generally do an excellent job, it’s not always guaranteed. Your best chance of success is to choose a highly trained and experienced electrologist.
Another myth is that electrolysis is a ‘one-and-done’ solution. While electrolysis is effective at permanently disabling individual follicles that it treats, the fact of the matter is that not all follicles in an area of skin are active at the same time. There are three stages to hair growth: anagen, catagen, and telogen.
- Anagen – during this stage, the growth stage, the hair will physically grow 1cm (around 0.4 inches) a month. This stage lasts from 4 to 6 months for body hair. The follicle is actively connected to the dermal layer of the skin in order to obtain nourishment.
- Catagen – during this transitional phase, only two weeks long, the follicle shrinks and detaches. The hair strand is cut off from its blood supply and nourishment. The hair shaft is pushed upwards by the follicle, which shifts to less than 20% its length in the previous stage.
- Telogen – in this stage, the shedding phase, the follicle remains dormant between one and four months.
What this means in practice is that while the density of hair in a treated area will definitely be reduced by the first procedure, multiple procedures will be necessary in order to treat every follicle that is actively involved in the hair-growing cycle. Even then, if you are suffering from a hormonal imbalance such as menopause or pregnancy, it is possible that more of your follicles that were previously inactive and thus not treated by the initial cycle of treatments will be activated by new waves of androgens and start growing terminal hairs. Electrolysis by Alison can work with you to put together a schedule that will address your personal situation. Alison specializes in treating women with PCOS, but any comparable situation of hormonal flux can be addressed.
Electrolysis Hair Removal Success Stories
There are no shortage of happy testimonials on this page. People talking about shedding the hair on their arms, on their faces, upper lips, backs, and more. Hair removal is a sensitive topic for many. There are nightmare stories out there of people trying a less permanent method and it horribly backfiring, eating up thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars to repair the damage done. We’re happy that our clients have no such stories to report about our service.
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My husband and I both love Alison! She is super fast and very accommodating with our hectic schedules. We’ve been seeing her for years.
My problem began in 2004 when I started tweezing unwanted hair around my chin area. Little did I know that this would become a major problem. After 8 years of tweezing, picking, and pinching my skin to get rid of coerced, ingrown hair; my skin became irritated and severely scarred. I had to tweeze EVERYDAY! My facial hair would grow quickly and I didn’t understand why. I wouldn’t leave the house without wearing foundation to cover up the damage I had done. I was embarrassed; especially since I thought I was only one who suffered from this. After 8 years of frustration and scarred skin, I decided to do something about it. I had heard about laser treatment and considered it; since my aunt, who suffered from the same problem, had done it and had seen immediate results. Luckily, a good friend had tried electrolysis and told me its benefits and the bad effects of laser treatment. It was then that I decided that electrolysis was for me; especially since at this point the problem had spread to my throat area (I began tweezing that area soon after too). After telling another girlfriend about my ‘problem,’ I realized that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to get rid of unwanted hair. I told her about electrolysis and she began to research different locations. She came across Alison and and after a few visits she gave her a good recommendation. I decided to join her and I have been treating my unwanted hair with Alison since the summer 2012. Now, I don’t have to tweeze at all, (I’ve learned that it’s bad for your skin anyway) and my skin is clearing up too! The scarring is fading away. I’m amazed with the results so far, and have considered treating other areas, as well, since the results are permanent; unlike laser treatment. Alison is fantastic! She’s great at assessing your skin and she’s very quick during the sessions. I currently go twice a month for 30 minutes.
My story with unbearable hair growth begins when I was thirteen years old. The laser crave had just hit LA. I’m Persian and from all the Persians on the block, laser was supposed to be the final answer to our years of battles with excessive hairiness. Now I don’t remember being that hairy. Definitely more so than your average Caucasian American, but never as bad as I am now. I had some soft, dark (definitely visible) hair on my arms and legs, along with sideburns, a mustache and visible baby hairs on my cheeks and chin. My skin tone is an olive tan, definitely not the super pale candidacy that lasers at the time were looking for. Nonetheless, my mom took me in to the brand new laser joint in Encino and bought a package for both of us. She would do her legs and I would do my arms and face, so the kids at school wouldn’t make fun of me and so I wouldn’t have to wax every week anymore. I remember being seen by the doctor who ran the laser clinic and she performed a test run on me. She explained that although I wasn’t the “ideal candidate” for laser (dark hair on pale skin), the laser technology had improved enough to work on tanner individuals. The test session went fine and I was actually looking forward to finally becoming “normal” and hair-free.
Boy, was I wrong. The laser sessions would turn out to ruin my life. After six sessions on my arms and face, I saw no improvement. At around the third or fourth session, I noticed that not only were my hairs growing back after about a month, they would grow back darker, faster, and thicker. Much, much thicker. By the end of six sessions, the hairs on my arm were like those of a man. The laser did nothing for the lower half and actually induced thick, monster, eyebrow-like hair to grow on my upper arms and near my shoulders. I have to shave my entire arms almost every day to feel normal. Even then, people would brush against me and ask why I was always so “prickly.” But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The laser took a similar toll on the hairs of my face. The technicians were only supposed to treat my sideburns, jawline, mustache, and chin. They ended up zapping the entire lower half of my face, including my neck, where I had no hair. I wouldn’t say anything in the sessions because I thought it could only do me good to be treating these areas. I thought I was getting a deal by not opening my mouth. It wouldn’t even have mattered though, because once you zap a spot once, the damage is irreversible. The hairs on my face became thick and coarse like a man’s beard. They grew frighteningly fast and there were hundreds of them, covering the half of my face nose down, all the way to the middle of my neck. I would have to wake up two hours before school began to pluck out every single one…and then go to class and contend with the fact that I could grow more of a beard than any of the boys in my classes. It took a ridiculous toll on my emotional well being. I gained the reputation of “taking forever to get ready” and always being late–little did anyone know that all of the time I spent to get ready was spent shaving every inch of my arms and plucking every hair off my bristly face. When I got tired of plucking, I would wax at home and rip off patches of my skin because the hair was too thick to remove. I’d go to school with bandages on my face and have to explain why I so often “burned myself.” When I couldn’t take waxing anymore, I started up a membership and the threading parlor at the mall, where most people go to get their eyebrows done. Every week, I’d pay $35 to get a threading on my full face. The ladies would pull so hard at the thick hairs on my face that their threads would break. They would whisper to each other about me and my hairiness. Some even asked me why I had such a thick beard on my face. Imagine being sixteen years old and having to answer this question.
Because of the laser induced growth on my face and arms, I spiraled into a depression. There were days where I’d come home from school and go straight to my room and cry my eyes out. I stopped eating and lost a lot of weight. I would throw violent tantrums in front of my mom out of my helplessness. I blamed her for causing all of these problems and cried that it wasn’t fair. Especially because she was rather unhairy and pale-skinned. The laser had completely removed the leg hair she was treated for. She had no hair on her face and barely any on her arms. To top it off, my younger sister had none of the same problems that I did. She never went through laser and could wax the manageable hair she had on her arms and face. I felt so alone. I felt like I was the only person in the world going through this. At one point my mom became helpless and took me back to the laser center we had originally sought treatment at. She complained to the owner and showed her the growth on my arms and face. The owner mentioned that for some people, laser actually induces hair growth, and they don’t know why. She said a good option would be to keep coming back for laser sessions to keep the hair away for at least a good month until they would start their vigorous growth cycles again. She gave me six free sessions. So that’s what I did for the next year.
I kept going to get my face lasered once a month. We couldn’t afford to go for my arms, so I kept shaving them, but my face was unbearable and the laser treatments were necessary for my functioning as a normal human being. Even then it was impossible to have good relationships. I would hide from my boyfriend and all my friends during the week when my facial hair began to grow back, until my mom could take me to get it lasered off again. I was living my life at the mercy of the laser. During my first year of college, I still went every month to get my face lasered. I found a new laser joint that offered face sessions for extremely cheap, about $25 a session. This was totally affordable considering I’d paid $35 a week to stay clean until the next week. But still, laser didn’t answer my problems. I still searched for a solution because I got tired of feeling shameful and abnormal for that week where my hair would grow back thick as a man’s beard and I’d have to shave it. I tried new lasers and settings that the new laser center offered. I switched from an Alexandrite laser to a YAG laser (which is supposed to reach deeper in the skin and preferable for clients with darker skin tones). Nothing helped. When I tried one more session on my arms and underarms with the new YAG laser I was using for my face, I found that everything I already had got EVEN worse than it already was. I vowed to stop laser right then and there.
I shaved every day for about a month until I found Alison and set up an appointment for electrolysis. I had heard of it before, but figured it was extremely painful and far, far too expensive for my parent’s pockets. However, there was nothing more that I could do. I couldn’t live with the unasked for consequences of laser any more. I had never been so depressed in my life so my parents agreed to help me pay for the cost of electrolysis. I’ve been to five sessions so far and I’ve seen results already. The treatment is nowhere near as painful as I’d imagined. It is tedious, though; but, with everything I’ve been through, I’m not spending another dime on anything that won’t guarantee me permanent reversal from the bitter consequences of laser. All in all, I am just thankful that there even is an answer. It could be far worse. I could have to deal with this for the rest of my life.
I want all hairy women out there (either born that way or induced by outside forces) to know that you are not alone. No matter how hard you struggle, there are people out there who experience the same hardships and heartbreaks that you do. For all the less hairy moms with more hairy daughters, please, be sympathetic. Just because something works for you doesn’t mean it will work for your daughter. And please, do not risk your daughter’s or your own well being with the fraud of laser. If I could go back to the moment the first beam zapped my skin and stop it all from occurring, I would. For now, I will soldier on with electrolysis and hopefully reach a state of normalcy and happiness once and for all.
