Whether it’s at a waxing salon like His & Hers Waxing or at home on your own, there’s one term no one wants to hear when waxing the skin: Ingrown hairs. These ugly red marks can be frustrating and painful, and can also lead to danger when they cause bacterial infections on the skin.

Luckily, part of our waxing services includes offering tips on avoiding these frustrating ingrown hairs. Here are some basics on ingrown hairs, plus how to avoid them.

What Causes Ingrown Hairs?

Waxing is meant to remove the entire hair from the follicle, but there are times where this process doesn’t go perfectly. Sometimes, the hair breaks off just above or below the skin’s surface – this leaves a blunt edge instead of the beveled edge you’d naturally find.

This leads hair to struggle to cleanly break through the skin’s surface when it’s attempting to regrow. Combined with the fact that we wax in the opposite direction, making hairs more likely to break, you can see how ingrown hairs can form.

Pre-Wax

There’s really only one major item to consider pre-wax: Exfoliation. Use a gentle, mild exfoliant to remove dead skin cells that might prevent the hair from being fully “grabbed” by the wax on your skin. Scrub the exfoliant for 30 seconds, then rinse the area and pat it dry.

Waxing Frequency

You can’t overdo it with waxing, even though it can be tempting. Some may be able to get it done every other week, where others might be best shooting for every three or four weeks. In general, the rule is to never wax any hair that’s shorter than a quarter of an inch – shorter than this and it will be too difficult for the wax to grip, and ingrown hairs become a risk.

Post-Wax

Immediately after a wax, you want to do nothing to your skin – leave it totally untouched. Wear loose-fitting clothing to avoid irritating the area, and don’t take a super hot shower or do anything that might cause you to sweat a lot.

A day later, exfoliate again with a rich moisturizer. Getting dead skin cells away from the skin is continuously valuable during this time. Be sure to wait until the skin is no longer irritated to do this, however.

For more on avoiding ingrown hairs while waxing, or to learn about any of our waxing services, speak to the pros at His & Hers Waxing today.