In Growing Hairs

S

salop sniper

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76
Location
Telford, Shropshire
Folks,

Whats the worst in growing hair youve had and how did you treat it and help the recovery ?

Ive just got one out and its the worst ive ever had giving irritation for 2+ months and I finaly got it out and it was just over an inch long and am sore as heck now with a nasty wound where the hair came from that very dark blood and i little smelly. Ive washed it and its better now but still looks real nasty. I know what caused it which was my first attempt at a shavette / straight shave !

ATB

Matt
 
Dry toothbrush to the afflicted area, raises the hair, in theory. I do this twice daily until there's enough to get at with tweezers.
Never pluck it once you've got it either. Shave it down as usual, don't pull it out.
 
Used to get one each side of chin. 4/5 days of poking around with a pin and they eventually burst out like a stick coming out of your hand. Looked like 5 hairs all together and extremely thick. Left alone it developed into a huge lump.
 
I found the dry toothbrush thing helpful in preventing mildly ingrown hairs from getting worse (lower neck was always a problem area for me). Pre-DE, ingrowns were a habitual problem. I used to ease bad ones to the surface using a disinfected needle. Long ones got snipped with a regular scissors, if needed. Then I'd clean the area with warm water & disinfectant. I'd be very gentle in shaving the area, hoping that the hair would stay above ground. It was googling for solutions/prevention that led me to single-blade shaving.
 
Likewise, it was an alternation of ingrower hell and post-shave deep tissue irritation that led me to traditional shaving. I think in the six months that I've been traditional shaving, I've had a mere handful of ingrowers which have thankfully worked their way to the surface easily. These have come about from over-stretching my skin, particularly around my mouth which I've been able to get at with tweezers and a little skin breaking and douse of TCP afterwards - not a good technique, but works out for me. I'm not a pretty boy :D

A few things that have helped me along the way ...

First, use a sharp blade and roll in a fresh one frequently. Don't push your blade too far. If you're prone to skin issues, discard after three shaves.

Second, I believe that the condition of skin can be dramatically improved by using olive oil based pre-shave oils, shaving creams and soaps. For me, this seemed to balance my skin condition rather than alternating between dry and oily.

Third, twice a week, a good wash with an abrasive face wash. I like T&H No.10. Walnut husk and grit, I think :D Worth doing while you have stubble, or on days in between shaving. This will help bring up any ingrowers.

Fourth, toning. There's another thread about this, but I think if you're prone to skin issues, using as simple a toner as you can prior to bed is a good thing. Simple witch hazel. Yes, it will tighten your skin, but if used as part of a regimen that includes skin moisturising with olive oil pre-shave and a damn good wash, then it won't leave you overly dry. Reconsider those moisturisers and balms.

Finally, if you do feel like you've just had too close a shave and know instinctively that you'll have ingrowers, keep a bump repair product handy and use it frequently. In my early days traditional shaving, I used Shaveworks ... which I believe was originally marketed for folks who shaved their "intimate areas". Chaps prone to ingrowers seemed to get on with it. It worked, but left a sticky film on my skin which I put up with but didn't like. Then, I found Clubman Club Mend. Excellent product!

I'm not saying this is the "be all and end all" to dealing with face issues, nor that it is dogmatically right for everyone; just that here's a bunch of things that for whatever reason worked out really well for me ... and now I can shave with just about anything, any time and feel only sheer joy afterwards.
 
Don't remember how long i had it, but it was about a foot long when it came out! it appeared back when I was still wearing a beard most of the time. I started off thinking it was a spot, and then when it stayed there I thought it was just a small cyst and took no real notice of it. It wasn't irritating, just a slight lump. After a while you forget about it.

Anyway, I decided I'd had enough of the beard and took it all off with a mach 3, including a chunk off the top of the lump. A bit of bleeding, but also a little pus. This surprised me so I squeezed a bit more to get any other pus out (didn't fancy an infection) and the damn thing popped. Out came a rolled up ingrown hair, some old dried up pus and a shed load of blood.

Straightened it out and this thing was almost a foot long, rolled up in a perfect loop. Damned thing had literally grown round and round in a circle.

Left me with a scar on my left cheek and took about a week to heal enough to shave again. I didn't bother and grew the beard back. A couple of years later, i bought the Futur and tried shaving with that, but my technique was awful and i was forever hacking bits off the scar. In the cupboard it went and back came the beard. for the next few years I took the beard off with clippers while my DE sat in a cupboard unloved. I just ran the clippers over my face and lived with stubble.

Only really got into wet shaving again about a year ago, about 6 years after actually buying the DE! by this time, the scars had softened enough that i don't even have to think about them and all is well!
 
rhedgehog said:
Don't remember how long i had it, but it was about a foot long when it came out! it appeared back when I was still wearing a beard most of the time. I started off thinking it was a spot, and then when it stayed there I thought it was just a small cyst and took no real notice of it. It wasn't irritating, just a slight lump. After a while you forget about it.

Anyway, I decided I'd had enough of the beard and took it all off with a mach 3, including a chunk off the top of the lump. A bit of bleeding, but also a little pus. This surprised me so I squeezed a bit more to get any other pus out (didn't fancy an infection) and the damn thing popped. Out came a rolled up ingrown hair, some old dried up pus and a shed load of blood.

Straightened it out and this thing was almost a foot long, rolled up in a perfect loop. Damned thing had literally grown round and round in a circle.

Left me with a scar on my left cheek and took about a week to heal enough to shave again. I didn't bother and grew the beard back. A couple of years later, i bought the Futur and tried shaving with that, but my technique was awful and i was forever hacking bits off the scar. In the cupboard it went and back came the beard. for the next few years I took the beard off with clippers while my DE sat in a cupboard unloved. I just ran the clippers over my face and lived with stubble.

Only really got into wet shaving again about a year ago, about 6 years after actually buying the DE! by this time, the scars had softened enough that i don't even have to think about them and all is well!
Click to expand...

That's the worst I've ever heard of!
 
rhedgehog said:
Don't remember how long i had it, but it was about a foot long when it came out! it appeared back when I was still wearing a beard most of the time. I started off thinking it was a spot, and then when it stayed there I thought it was just a small cyst and took no real notice of it. It wasn't irritating, just a slight lump. After a while you forget about it.

Anyway, I decided I'd had enough of the beard and took it all off with a mach 3, including a chunk off the top of the lump. A bit of bleeding, but also a little pus. This surprised me so I squeezed a bit more to get any other pus out (didn't fancy an infection) and the damn thing popped. Out came a rolled up ingrown hair, some old dried up pus and a shed load of blood.

Straightened it out and this thing was almost a foot long, rolled up in a perfect loop. Damned thing had literally grown round and round in a circle.
Click to expand...

That's roughly the same that I had. I remember it was a spot just to the left of lower lip and a bit further out from the jaw (coincidentally I have another similar spot there right now). Must have had the spot a good six months or so. Was sat at my desk one day and randomly picked at the spot. My nail caught something, I looked at my fingers and found a monster hair caught between finger and nail. It must have had a cross-sectional diameter of about a quarter centimetre. It was thick like the sort of string you get in children's play sets. My mum used something similar to hold up her tomato plants when I was much younger.

Anyway, I remember the feeling of moving my hand away from my face and this monster hair kept coming and coming. On closer inspection it was actually made up of lots of hairs tangled together. I had such a terrible stomach feeling just as if I was in a car, going over a very large bump on the road at high speed.

It's what turned me to wet shaving. I used to shave with the despicable Mach 3 back then. That was in 2005 or 2006.
 
I only ever got them when I had to shave with an electric for some time - on doctor's advice because I had a neck rash that was forever being opened up with blades. However, I've always used a brush and soap and used cartridges for years - so, when other posts say they have not had them since changing to DE, I wonder if it's the change to a brush and soap preparation that really makes the difference.

I can't figure out why a sharp cartridge would make you any more prone to ingrowers than a sharp DE.
 
UKRob said:
I can't figure out why a sharp cartridge would make you any more prone to ingrowers than a sharp DE.
Click to expand...

Didn't say it was a sharp cartridge, but nonetheless my theory is that because cartridge 'blades' are packed closer together, more of the cut hairs get trapped in there. If you are dragging them all over your face before rinsing the razor, that could easily cause an ingrown on someone with the right (wrong?) type of skin. Very coarse, sharp hairs combined with often dry and sensitive skin mean that's the perfect environment for ingrown hairs to occur.

Seriously wish I could be free of these for good. My ultimate problem solver now is Art of Shaving's Ingrown Hair Night Cream, which worked a treat. Shame you can't get it in the UK or Europe these days...
 
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