Removing Ingrown Hairs and Blackheads on the body and bikini line!

By Mo on November 1, 2012

I made a little mention of ingrowns in some previous blogs when talking about hair removal because the two are nearly always related.

But it occurred to me that people are very discouraged by them because people simply don’t know how to extract them right.

For a long time, I was extracted my ingrowns and blackheads/pimples wrong too.

And it was not until recent years that I realized one of the main things I was doing wrong: Unless you are a professional dermatologist, don’t squeeze your skin. You might be doing more damage than good.

Even though I feel a certain way about Wiki, on WikiHow, they detail a good way to remove an ingrown hair, with pictures:

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-an-Ingrown-Hair

Their directions are pretty exact, but here is the routine I take after dealing with hirsutism for so many years:

LEAVE IT ALONE! Simply leave the ingrown alone. It will likely clear up on its own and dry out or it will extract itself upon you bathing or showering a number of times.
If you have to mess with it, or if it is painful, exfoliate it often. Exfoliating removes the dead skin layers on top of it, slowly bringing it to surface. You can exfoliate using a number of good body scrubs. Doing it enough times will expose the hair under the bump. You can also use like salicylic acid and other facial peels to expose hairs. They work well for me.
When you can see the hair, apply heat to it. You can do this best with a warm cloth or depending on where the ingrown is, soak in a very warm bath with essential oils to loosen your skin.
If it is still bothering you, apply alcohol or some disinfectant facial cleaner to the affected area and try to extract with a clean pair of tweezers, blackhead remover, needle or epilator. This is the tricky part. Sometimes, I have been able to use my epilator over an ingrown hair and the ingrown was extracted fine. Other times, I had to dig for it using a needle (sterile) or a pair of clean tweezers. Using tweezers may not always work because the hair may not be long enough and it may snap when you try to pull it out. Also, you have the impulse to hold the skin up, as if you were popping a zit. But you should actually hold the skin taut, as flat as possible.
Using a blackhead/comedone remover. I often get blackheads that are also ingrowns. Gross, I know. In that case, use a blackhead/comedone remover. I actually love using these because they almost always work. You put pressure with the device down on the zit/ingrown/blachead/pimple to extract the dirt, pus, or ingrown. And it certainly does not leave as horrific of a scar as popping a zit with your fingers. I almost wish all my ingrowns were blackheads; that way I know for a fact I can remove them almost immediately. Removing blackheads are pretty easy and it is easier to identify them; they are simply black pimples. They are more inverted pimples than regular pimples sitting above the skin. This is not my skin, but it’s a good representation of what my ingrowns typically look like:

Ingrown hairs…yeah…I know….gross! But they are very common even in people who don’t have a hormonal condition.

Again, a sterile needle, tweezer set, or epliator should remove the hair with little strain on the skin. I couldn’t find decent YouTube video of a good ingrown hair extraction but I found plenty of gross blackhead extraction videos. The instrument to remove a blackhead or comedone looks like this:

Blackhead remover…you put the hole part over the infected zit, push down and watch the nastiness be extracted.

Not my skin, but an example of what blackheads are (from BethChai3j.com)

Of course after doing any of these routines, clean the skin vigorously. I would even put some hydrogen peroxide or some type of alcohol lightly over the freshly extracted area to keep it from being infected again anytime soon. It also cuts down on your skin being ruined and scarred up.

For the pubes, I would recommend Bikini Zone to greatly cut down on the itching and irritation or some other type of lubricant. I posted in an earlier post how Bikini Zone very much cuts down on the bikini line irritation I get after hair removal. This also cuts down a lot on scarring your bikini line.

And my last tip is to get out more! If you go to the beach alot, stay out there! Keep sun screen on your skin (this goes for darker toned women too) and enjoy yourself! So what if people notice a dark mark or two on your bikini line? I am certain there is something fucked up on their bodies too! Being in the outdoors certainly clears my skin up, bikini line too. I might make it a habit to get to the beach more often with my children this coming summer myself.

Thanks for reading!