One often hears false claims about proper treatment. The most common, and certainly the most misleading, is that "if a follicle is properly treated, it will not regenerate a hair." This is completely false, irrespective of which technique is being used. When obvious regrowth occurs, the usual excuse is that it is NEW hair or hair which had been previously tweezed or waxed. While it is true that new hair does occur sometimes, and also that hair which is below the surface will often show up after a treatment, the fact remains that after two weeks, most of the hair has surfaced.

Another false and somewhat dangerous claim is that properly treated hair slides out of the follicle without resistance. To that end, some technicians will treat a hair until it DOES come out easily, thus causing undue trauma to the surface (epidermis) of the skin which could result in scarring.

If you pull out a hair, you will see a small white bulb at the base of it. This bulb is called the keratin cap and is anchored to the walls of the inner root sheath. Repeated plucking or waxing usually distorts a follicle and causes it to "fishhook" at the base. Practitioners of the galanic or blend methods claim that the lye formed by those currents will travel around these distortions and destroy the root. This is only partially true. A small amount of the lye may reach the base of the follicle but rarely enough to actually destroy it. The majority of the lye, however, will remain in the upper portion and damage tissue which does not need to be destroyed.

When the Shortwave current is applied to a distored follicle, enough of the heat reaches the root of the hair to cause a weakening of the cells. This is quickly evident when regrowth occurs. Usually after only one or two treatments of a particular follicle, the hair becomes softer and removes easily. During the course of treatments, the number of hairs is greatly reduced and those that remain, grow more slowly and become even finer. This creates a caution, however. Because the hair becomes so fine that it is barely noticeable except under high magnification, a client too often tends to set her/his own schedule for treatments rather than following the advice of the electrologist. Even these fine regrowth hairs MUST be destroyed! We cannot be satisfied until NO hair remains in the follicle. Failure to completely destroy even these fine hairs will usually result in the need for treatments later because they eventually regenerate back to their full glory.