In short ingrown hairs are caused by blocked hair follicles.

Your skin sheds cells every 7 days and if you do not exfoliate, at least every 7 days, those dead skin cells sit on your the surface of your skin clogging pores and leaving skin looking dry and dull.

When you shave, wax or eplilate you’re removing the hair… yet the dead skin cells remain on your skin clogging pores.  The newly exposed area is essentially wounded as well, and this can cause skin to form miniature scabs that further block the hair follicle openings.

Ingrown hairs can go away on their own once the ingrown hair has outgrown the blocked hair follicle.  How long his takes varies from days to weeks.

Popping an ingrown hair can cause infection and this can lead to whitehead (pimple) looking bumps all over the area.

If you just pick the head / skin off the area this will cause a scab which will close over and re-block the follicle.

If you’re going to try and remove an ingrown hair the best method is to use a sterilised  pin or needle (dipped in alcohol) to poke one side of the blockage then gently guide the hair out of the blocked follicle.  Leave the hair in place, plucking it out will only cause another hair to take its place, and leave the area to heal.

The following method should be applied to all forms of hair removal: waxing, shaving, epilating etc.

Step ONE:

Exfoliate the area first using Enliven Facial Scrub or an exfoliating glove.  This is an important step because it removes the build up of dead skin cells before you remove hair.

Why do this first?  Removing hair damages the skin which your body will then try to heal by forming scabs.  Applying a scrub to an already tender area could do more damage.  Also exfoliating afterwards means you could push those dead skin cells into the now open hair follicles which will exacerbate the issue.

Exfoliating also unblocks follicles that hair is yet to grow out of.

Step TWO:

Remove hair by your preferred method.

Step THREE:

Apply Soothing Salve to the area.  As mentioned above, the area is now tender after hair removal and your body will send plasma to the area to heal those tiny wounds.  By applying a soothing and healing lotion to the area immediately after hair removal you’re helping your skin repair itself – before any scabs and other blockages occur.