Ingrown Hair Removal
Ingrown hairs are a common affliction both of people who regularly shave or depilate their skins and those who do not.
An ingrown hair is a hair which either begins to grow, then curves back into the follicle, or which fails to emerge properly and instead grows crumpled beneath the skin. The result is a small, painful, red bump, also known as a razor bump, which is unsightly, uncomfortable, and can even lead to development of a tiny infection at the site.
Shaving increases the number of ingrown hairs, since the hairs are cut off at skin level and may slip beneath the surface before continuing to grow. However, they can also simply happen when a follicle malfunctions or there is some other slight problem with the skin. The friction of clothing on the shaved skin can increase the occurrence of ingrown hairs, as well.
Fortunately, several different techniques exist for removing these small but unpleasant features from the body.
The most direct method is to remove the ingrown hair using tweezers. Soaking the ingrown hair under a hot compress for a quarter-hour softens the skin. The hair can then be pulled out using the tweezers, a process which should be done gently and carefully to minimize injury to the skin. Any damage to the skin can potentially trigger more ingrown hair activity, which is not the desired result.
A more indirect technique for dealing with ingrown hair is to set the trapped hairs free by peeling the top skin layer away from the area where the hair or hairs occur. This is done using a loofah within a few hours after shaving. This will gently remove the topmost layer of skin, allowing any hairs which might otherwise have become caught beneath it to grow out naturally instead.
This technique is good for areas of the body which are hard to see, making tweezer extraction difficult; for those who suffer from large numbers of ingrown hairs, since multiple tweezing might be time-consuming and unpleasant; or for those who are squeamish about using tweezers.
Waxing is also claimed by some to be a method of removing ingrown hairs. Although the logistics of the process are difficult to grasp immediately, since the hair is located beneath the skin and the wax cannot ‘grip’ it directly, the waxing process exfoliates the skin to some extent as well, and thus ‘releases’ the ingrown hair in much the same way as the loofah treatment does.
In short, as with all hair removal projects, the removal of ingrown hairs can be accomplished successfully in several different ways, giving sufferers from this complaint the ability to choose the method best suited to their tastes and individual depilatory needs.
