Be dubious, be doubtful, be cynical, mistrustful, and suspicious. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me--I should have taken my grain of salt. After all, certain knowledge is impossible, everything is relative, and between you and me with no disrespect, people will look you right in the eye and lie. In the best of cases, the lies are things they believe to be true, but c'mon--unless this is your first page on the internet--you know that quackery abounds, and urban legends strut through your inbox daily posing as fact. Beware of Nigerian princes ready to cut you in on unsolicited money deals, if it sounds too good to be true...
We're hair removal experts, we know that lasers can't offer permanent hair removal the way electrolysis can so we think of this as obvious. But if you're new to the subject and don't already know, for instance, that electric tweezers don't permanently remove hair, you might waste a lot of bread finding it out. And since we stand on the shoulders of giants and learn from history, it's obvious to we moderns that using X-Rays for permanent hair removal is a bad idea, but hey it was the 1920's and nobody could think with all that roaring going on.
We're, sadly, not experts on everything and as we look to add services, we're faced with a lot of potential chicanery and snake oil. Rene (esthetician, electrologist, CNA) endured product pitches as part of her esthetics training. We both get offers daily from manufacturing companies and salespeople. Many of them quote the company kool-aid without knowing whether what they're saying is true or not. Ultimately it falls to us to do our own research and separate fact from fiction because we care and we understand that you can't be an expert on everything either. Which makes it our responsibility to offer you the best treatments, ones that are a good value, ones that work.
Here's some of what we've considered.
Hopefully you already know about the UV index and that UV radiation exposure is strongly linked to cancer which is reason enough to offer an alternative to sunbathing and tanning booths. Another good reason is, here in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR, there's only 140 days or so of sun (on average) per year, so if you're chasing that bronze look, you're sunbathing in rain 61% of the year--which will only make you pruney.
That you should beware the use of canthaxanthin because while ingesting it will tan your hide, it can destroy your vision, and is linked to hepatitis. Further, the primary ingredient in most professionally applied tanning products is dihydroxyacetone which "reacts with dead skin cells in a chemical reaction that turns them brown" which is carefully worded indeed. In plainspeak, you're chemically cooking yourself for a ten day (on average) tan. But it doesn't end there, the fine print about DHA reveals that while the FDA approves it for use on the skin, they don't approve it for inhalation or contact with mucous membranes or eyes, which makes sense since some studies say it causes DNA damage which makes it a potential carcinogen. Even if it's touted as low-risk for the client, it seems unreasonably risky and new risks are coming to light. While a client may only be exposed a few times a year, the spray tan operator would be exposed every day and that necessitates caution.
It seems a questionable value and worse it's a little misleading, even if you get a tan you're happy with and willing to maintain, the tan you get doesn't provide UV protection the way a natural tan would. We don't want to see our clients get sunburned while thinking they're tanned enough not to worry about such a thing.
Sunless tanning is an interesting topic and one we'll continue to monitor but at the moment, the risk outweights the reward.
Endermologie uses a vacuum and mechanical rollers to temporarily reduce the appearance of cellulite. It started in France and there isn't a lot of clinical data to support any claims made about it. Normally I'd quote you something from Wikipedia but if you search for endermologie there, you won't find it, and while I can accept it might be missing from the English site, I can't quite believe there's no entry in the French version.
Because cellulite is a problem so many face and there aren't a lot of options besides diet and exercise. Indeed, part of the endermologie regimen involves...wait for it...focusing on diet and exercise. Which only serves to make it really difficult to tell if the good results, if they're seen, come from the treatment or from the change in lifestyle.
No matter how sparse the clinical evidence, some people are ready to tout it anyway. In fact, perversely, because there isn't much clinical data, doctors are reluctant to use it as a tool making it even more expensive for the people who do want it because there's less competition to provide it.
While I feel like endermologie is something that could make money and even do some good for a small handful of clients who fit the profile, overall, it's much too expensive and time consuming for us to recommend.
You work hard for your money, we work hard to make sure you don't waste it. We care and want to help, come see us!