Jane M (Arlington, Virginia) on 01/27/2011

the first thing I tried to get rid of my ingrown hairs was neosporin. The goshdarn things were painful. I don't know about you, but I usually have about 3-5 individual hairs coming from every follicle (is that what the pore is?) and when I get ingrown hairs it gets very inflamed and hard to extract every individual hair or even know if I've got them all. So my boyfriend suggested neosporin and I tried it. I guess it helped with the pain a bit and I'm sure it didn't hurt by preventing infection.

then I went to google, and went through thread after thread of people with the same problem. I found a lot of people had found relief with an asprin mask or tonic made with witch hazel. The same thing has worked for me in the past for stubborn acne, so I was happy to try it and had the uncoated asprin in my medcine cabinet ready to go! The first thing I did while getting ready to make the tonic was put two of the asprin in my hand and added about 5-6 drops of water till they turned into a paste. I just put that directly on all the affected spots. It gets pretty flakey as it dries and if you put it on your face be careful around your nose it REALLY irritates for some reason if you inhale it. I noticed relief right away after it came off. It seemed much calmer. I put it on (either the mask or tonic) about twice a day. This CLEARED all but the most stubborn ingrown hairs within a week and most within a few days. I was very happy, as the asprin cost a dollar from CVS.

So then I was left with a few very stubborn ingrown hairs. At this point, I was fairly desperate. Every time I shave I get lots of tiny ingrown hairs that mostly resolve themselves in about 3 days with exfoliation in the shower and such, but usually a few are left if I don't treat them with the asprin. Even with treatment when I shave I'm usually left wth at least one I have to extract manually after the area calms down, and even then- problems. Not cool.

I see with further googling that somone suggests putting deoderant on the area. I thought that was a bad idea, so many chemicals in such a delicate area (bikini) is just asking for trouble. Or something. But I was desperate, like I said so I tried it. I hate to even include this one as it's not really an "earth" remedy, but it worked. Amazingly. It got rid of all the ingrown hairs after a few days, with results right away, after 30 min no more pain, no more inflamation. The hairs just worked out of the skin so quickly. If I put some on right after shaving and right out of the shower for a day or two I can shave up to twice a week without having problems, And even then minimal! Now it makes sense to me why my armpits never had the same trouble my bikini line did, even though I shaved those every day! I also plan to try oil pulling, I'll keep an eye out for if that helps!