Ingrown Hair

In rare cases, your healthcare provider may use a sterile surgical knife with a thin blade (scalpel) to make a small cut in your affected areas. They’ll squeeze out any pus and use sterile tweezers to remove the ingrown hair.

Taking Care of Ingrown Underarm Hair

You may be able to treat an ingrown armpit hair with topical products, such as retinoids or benzoyl peroxide. Practicing good hygiene may also help prevent infection.

Ingrown hairs are hairs that curl back into the skin instead of growing out. Many hair removal techniques blunt and toughen the ends of hair. This allows them to more readily pierce the skin, leading to this occurrence.

Coarse or curly hair is more prone to becoming ingrown than fine, straight hair. Ingrown hairs tend to crop up anywhere you shave, tweeze, or wax, including your armpits.

Ingrown hair can often be treated at home with over-the-counter products or natural solutions. Things to try include:

• Steroid cream. If your skin is very irritated, try using a topical steroid treatment to bring down inflammation.
• Exfoliation. Natural products make excellent exfoliators when combined with oil or another base. These include sugar, kosher salt, and baking soda. Baking soda can also be effective at reducing inflammation.
• Moisturize. Dry skin is more prone to ingrown hair than moisturized, supple skin. Make sure to pamper your armpits before and after hair removal with a noncomedogenic moisturizer, and shaving cream.
• Gentle scrubbing. Wash and moisturize the area. Then, use a clean, soft toothbrush to gently scrub the skin in a circular motion, to release the hair. You can also use a clean washcloth, or other abrasive substance.
• Topical retinoids. Over-the-counter products containing ingredients such as adapalene, glycolic acid, and salicylic acid, help to exfoliate skin, clearing away dead skin cells, and making ingrown hair less likely to occur. Adapalene, derived from vitamin A, has been shown to be effective at reducing ingrown hair growth, and eliminating infection, when combined with clindamycin.
• Benzoyl peroxide. The topical antiseptic benzoyl peroxide (often used to treat acne) has been shown to be effective at reducing the pustules, papules, and hyperpigmentation associated with ingrown hair, according to a 2004 study reported in the clinical journal Cutis .

If you get an ingrown hair in your armpit, you’ll probably want to do whatever you can to make it go away, but sometimes, watching and waiting will be enough to do the trick. It’s important not to further irritate the area or to create an opportunity for an infection.

If you have an ingrown hair that becomes infected, you’ll need to treat the infection as well as the ingrown hair itself. Infected ingrown hairs can become painful, hard, and filled with pus. The surrounding area may also become red and warm to the touch.

If the infection does not appear to be severe, try treating it at home:

• Apply a warm or hot compress, or tea bags, several times a day. This will help bring the infection to a head.
• Follow up the hot compresses with twice-daily applications of antiseptic gel or wash.
• Don’t shave or use any hair removal products during this time.

If the infection doesn’t improve within one or two days, see your doctor. They may prescribe antibiotic treatments for you to use, either topically or by mouth.

It’s important to treat any type of infection which occurs in the underarm. Untreated infections can cause the lymph nodes in that area to swell up with drainage from the infected follicle.

Ingrown hairs can be painful. If you’ve allowed your underarm hair to grow out, they may also be lurking underneath, causing irritation. Deodorants and sweat might further aggravate the skin, making ingrown hairs in your armpit more uncomfortable.

Ingrown hairs often resolve on their own, within a few days, or weeks. They may also turn into longer-lasting, ingrown hair cysts, which require at-home, or medical treatment. The occurrence of ingrown hair in armpits can also become chronic.

You can have one or many ingrown hairs in your armpits. Symptoms include:

• red, solid bumps (these may be round, or slightly cone shaped; the ingrown hair may be visible as a line or as a tiny dot, on or near the top of the bump)
• red bumps with pus-filled heads
• itching
• pain, or discomfort
• irritated skin
• hyperpigmentation

Ingrown hairs can resemble razor burn. If you’re not sure which you have, avoiding hair removal, and treating the area with a gentle moisturizer will help.

Ingrown hairs can also look like boils which are caused by bacteria in the hair follicle. Both boils and ingrown hairs can be treated with exfoliation and good hygiene.

There are a number of causes of armpit lumps, some of which are serious. If you’re unsure whether you have an ingrown hair or something else, see your doctor. They can give you an accurate diagnosis and recommend treatment for whatever you have.

Ingrown hair can occur anywhere you shave or use hair removal, such as the armpits. People with curly, or coarse hair, are more likely to get ingrown hairs than those with fine or straight hair.

Ingrown hair can often be treated at home. They can also get infected, requiring additional treatment. If you have an ongoing ingrown hair problem under your arms, changing your hair removal regimen may help.

If the problem remains chronic, talk to a doctor for a better solution.

Ingrown Hair

An ingrown hair looks like a raised, discolored spot on your skin. It’s a strand of hair that grows back into your skin after shaving, tweezing or waxing. Ingrown hairs can affect anyone, but they’re easy to treat and prevent with the right hair removal practices.

Overview

An ingrown hair is a strand of hair that grows back into your skin instead of out. Ingrown hairs are common to find after shaving or waxing.

What is an ingrown hair?

An ingrown hair is a strand of hair that grows back into your skin after shaving, tweezing or waxing. They may be painful or itchy, and they commonly appear around your face, legs, armpits and pubic area.

Ingrown hairs are sometimes called razor bumps, shave bumps or barber bumps.

Who does ingrown hair affect?

Ingrown hair is very common. Anyone who shaves, tweezes or waxes their hair can develop ingrown hairs. If you shave often, you’re more likely to have ingrown hairs.

You’re also more likely to have ingrown hair if you have skin of color or thick, coarse or curly hair.

How does ingrown hair affect my body?

The beard area of your face (neck, cheeks and chin), legs, armpits and pubic area (bikini line and inner thigh) are most likely to develop ingrown hairs. However, they may also appear on other parts of your body, including your scalp, chest, back, abdomen, inside of your nose (nostril), eyebrows and buttocks (butt).

Symptoms and Causes

What are the symptoms of ingrown hair?

The symptoms of ingrown hair include:

• Skin irritation.
• Small bumps with hairs in the middle on your face and neck (papule).
• Pain.
• Discoloration (red, brown or purple).
• Itching.

If an ingrown hair becomes infected, you may notice the bumps getting bigger and more painful. Pustules occur when there’s pus around the follicles. This infection can lead to scarring.

What causes ingrown hair?

Removing hair by shaving, waxing or tweezing can cause ingrown hairs. New hairs grow from hair follicles under your skin. Shaving, waxing and tweezing only remove hair strands — they don’t remove hair follicles.

When new hair grows, it may curl back and enter your skin. This more commonly occurs if your hair is thick, curly or coarse.

Is ingrown hair contagious?

No, ingrown hair isn’t contagious.

Diagnosis and Tests

How is ingrown hair diagnosed?

Ingrown hairs are easy to recognize, so you don’t necessarily need a healthcare provider to diagnose them. However, your healthcare provider can confirm them during a physical exam. They’ll note your appearance and symptoms, and they may ask questions about your skin and skin care routine, including:

• When did you first start noticing symptoms?
• Do you have ingrown hair bumps all the time, or do they go away and come back?
• Do you shave, wax or tweeze your hair?
• How often do you shave?
• What type of razor do you use to shave?
• How often do you wax or tweeze?
• How do you prepare your skin before you remove your hair?

Management and Treatment

How are ingrown hairs treated?

There are several ways to treat ingrown hairs at home, including:

• Stop shaving and allow the hair to grow.
• Use an electric shaver. Hold it just above the surface of your skin.
• Use depilatory products to remove hair without shaving. Depilatory products dissolve the protein structures of your hair.
• Apply warm compresses to your affected skin for 10 to 15 minutes to open your pores and make it easier for ingrown hairs to release.

If your symptoms don’t improve, your healthcare provider may need to prescribe medications that decrease inflammation and improve infections.

In rare cases, your healthcare provider may use a sterile surgical knife with a thin blade (scalpel) to make a small cut in your affected areas. They’ll squeeze out any pus and use sterile tweezers to remove the ingrown hair.

To prevent scarring or infection, don’t pick at, scratch or pop your ingrown hairs.

How do you remove an ingrown hair?

To remove an ingrown hair, gently exfoliate your skin. Exfoliating your skin removes a dead layer of skin cells and helps release ingrown hairs. Use warm — not hot — water and small, circular motions to wash your affected areas with a washcloth, exfoliating brush or exfoliating gel or scrub.

You can also remove an ingrown hair that has looped or curled back into your skin by gently pulling it out with a sterile needle, pin or tweezers. Apply rubbing alcohol to your surrounding skin to prevent an infection. Then, carefully thread the sterile needle, pin or tweezers through the exposed hair loop. Gently lift the hair loop until one end releases from your skin.

What will happen if an ingrown hair goes untreated?

In most cases, ingrown hairs usually heal themselves within one to two weeks with only minor irritation, as they eventually release from your skin as they grow longer. Infections can develop around the ingrown hair, causing pus formation, discoloration and pain, though. If you see signs of infection, you should visit your healthcare provider.

What medications are used to treat ingrown hair?

Your healthcare provider may provide medications that can decrease inflammation and improve infections from ingrown hairs, including:

• Antibiotic ointment or pills.
• Prescription acne medications, like retinoids, to help remove dead skin.
• Steroid pills or creams help reduce inflammation.

For more serious cases, your healthcare provider may recommend other hair removal options, including:

• Electrolysis. This technique uses a tiny needle and a mild electrical zap to destroy your hair roots one by one. Each hair follicle requires treatment, so it may not be practical to use electrolysis over a large area of your body.
• Laser hair removal. In this technique, heat from a laser destroys cells that have a lot of pigment (color). This works best on dark hair.

How soon after treatment will I feel better?

Most ingrown hairs will go away on their own without treatment after a few days; though, severe cases may take several weeks.

Medications may take a few days to see results. The results of electrolysis and laser hair removal are immediate.