Kaley (25) knows by now: shaving her legs hardly makes sense. After a day she feels stubble again and she should get back to work with her razor. And so she has been epilating her legs for years to her own great satisfaction. But lately she has been suffering from ingrown hairs on her legs.
“If I try to get it loose with tweezers, my leg will often bleed in that spot. Then I will no longer have hairs, but many spots of blood on my legs. How can I remedy and prevent this? Because I spend a lot of time Googling this problem, there are now often online advertisements of so-called crystal hair removers. Could that be a solution?”
“To start with the latter, I don’t think a ‘crystal hair remover’ is going to be the solution for you,” says cosmetic dermatology research physician Jetske Ultee. “It’s actually similar to shaving: you remove the hair down to the skin. By epilating you remove the hair and the hair follicle, so that the hairs stay away longer. I think you can just keep epilating if you make some small adjustments in your skin care.”
Exfoliate daily
When sebum, dirt and dead skin flakes build up around the hair follicle (aka the hair follicle where the hair comes out), hair can become ‘clogged’. And that means: ingrown hairs. You can partly prevent this by keeping your skin clean, Ultee explains.
“The secret to suffering less or even no longer from ingrown hairs is: exfoliate. For your legs, for example, you can use a scrub glove with some oil. But the very best is a product with a (fruit) acid (such as lactic acid or This also removes dead skin cells, but an acid does this much more gently than an exfoliating glove or exfoliating granules.”
You proceed as follows: first cleanse your skin and then apply the acid, and just leave it. Ultee: “In this way, the hairs can no longer get stuck in the skin layer with dead skin cells, but simply pass through the skin surface without any problems. Try to exfoliate daily – especially if you suffer from ingrown hairs very often.”
Lubricate, lubricate, lubricate
Furthermore, according to the research doctor, it is ‘extremely important’ to keep moisturizing your skin with a perfume-free cream. “Epilation is quite an attack on your skin. By applying good lubrication you can prevent irritations. Moreover, research shows that ingrown hairs occur more often with dry skin. In short, don’t forget your cream. Before, after and between epilate. So always.”
Preventing ingrown hairs altogether may not always work, admits Ultee. If you still have such an annoying ingrown hair, she recommends treating the spot first with a product containing fruit acid (as described above) for the first few days. “The acid goes deeper into the skin than an exfoliating glove and doesn’t damage the skin. That way the hair will probably come back to the surface on its own and you won’t have to fiddle with tweezers.”
Rubriek: Asking for a friend
In this weekly column Asking for a friend we submit reader questions about health to one of our experts. Do you also have a pressing health question for a general practitioner, obstetrician, dietician, psychologist or another health expert? Then mail it to [email protected] and who knows, you might see the answer appear here soon.