How to battle ingrown hair

Filed in archive Beauty on August 2, 2006

All of us are familiar with this problem, that is, if you remove your body hairs :)

The story goes like this: after you shave or wax everything's nice and smooth for a while and than, when hairs start growing again, you get one, two or even many of this little red bumps on your skin, which hurt and look horrible. It takes sometimes more than a week to get rid of it and in the meantime, you're bound to wear long pants and skirts.

So, how to battle ingrown hair? Once you've got it, there are a few things that can help you reduce pain, redness and speed up the healing process. Here we go:

Wash your legs (or wherever the ingrown hairs appear) with a soap bar containing 10% of benzoyl peroxide as an acitve ingredient and than put on some Hydrocortisone Cream on the bumps only. Both of these OTCs will get rid of the itch, redness and pain of ingrown hairs.

Next, to prevent getting ingrown hairs you should use a sharp blade and never shave without using a gel or a mousse. You can find a great how-to tutorial about the perfect shave here. It can also help to do a peeling a day or two after you have removed unwanted hair. For this you can use any brand of exfoliators, or simply take some olive oil and some salt, mix it together and gently rub the desired area. Always moisturize your skin with a decent cream after showering!