Every week on Beaut.ie, we solve our readers' beauty dilemmas. Every subject is covered, from tan disasters to skin woes; nothing is out of bounds. That's why today we're talking ingrown hairs.
Sophie asks:
" Hi Aisling,
I wax my legs on a monthly basis, and recently I have started to get ingrown hairs. I'm not doing anything different than usual, why has this happened and how do I stop it? "
Hi Sophie,
Thanks for your question. Ingrown hairs can be a complete disaster alright, and painful as well. When you wax your hair over time, your hair becomes weaker and finer. Because the replacement hair is finer, it can find it harder to penetrate the skin which can cause it to grow inwards.
The best way around this is to make sure you consistently exfoliate your skin; this will help reduce the number of ingrown hairs you get. A muslin face cloth is my favourite method as you are not adding any additional product to your skin.
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Brace yourself for this next part; you are going to have to remove the ingrown hairs you already have. Start by making sure your hands are sanitised (cleanliness is very important), then, heat up a clean face cloth and hold it over the ingrown hair.
Keep it compressed for about five minutes; after this time, you should be able to see the hair come to the surface. If you don't, repeat the process with light pressure on either side of the bump and the hair should come out. If it doesn't, you might need a more aggressive solution like using a sterilised tweezers, salicylic acid or hydrocortisone creams.
I would always start with the heat compress. It's better to be kind to your skin where possible to prevent scarring.
If you have any beauty dilemmas, you need answering, please comment below.
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