However, because the skin around the eyes is so thin, you’ll want to treat ingrown brow hairs with extra care—you can’t expect to remove them like any other trapped hair on the face or body. Not to fear: Here, we tapped a brow expert for the best removal tips and how to prevent those bumps from making an appearance. “When you’re waxing or threading, you’re generalizing the direction of growth,” Healy adds, which can potentially break the hair. “When a hair breaks at the surface of the skin or right below, that’s a problem. You want to remove the hair in its entirety.” And because the skin around the eyes is so sensitive, the bumps can be more painful than other types of ingrowns. “The hair quality in the brow is often a little bit coarser than, say, a hair on your arm,” adds Healy. That coarser hair plus sensitive skin is a perfect recipe for ingrowns, which is why they’re so common in the brow area. Rather, wait until the ingrown has broken through the skin—then, and only then, Healy says you can use a pointed tweezer to remove the hair. “You should do this only if it’s visible; if it’s not, you don’t want to go digging for it,” he adds. To be safe, you can always visit a brow technician or esthetician to remove the hair for you.
