Help! Damaged skin due to plucking and shaving!

[dime]

I’ve been stupidly shaving off and plucking out the unwanted hair on my eyebrows and upper lip for years.
I get ingrown hair from time to time in these areas (used to not have any on my upper lip, but now I do). Because of that the skin between my brows has some scarring, and is severely dry and dull and seems to be perpetually flaky (my whole face seems to be perpetually flaky, actually, but that’s another story). I don’t really use makeup, but every once in awhile I need to apply a little between my brows to hide the ingrown hairs and scars, and it’s nearly impossible to do this now because the makeup makes the dryness more visible. The outer edges of my lips get a little dry at times, too.

I am sure there is no way to reverse this damage, but is there something I can do to alleviate it? Any bit of advice is welcome, but I am particularly interested in homemade/organic/natural remedies. I have sensitive and acne-prone skin, by the way.

[Bono]

Yes, unfortunately the eyebrow hairs are particularly prone to demonstrating the serious effects of repeated plucking that you have described. By the time most clients seek electrolysis, they have made a nasty mess of things.

Plucking out an eyebrow hair often causes a distorted follicle. When the hair grows back it can appear like a wire and “stick out” in an odd direction. Strangely, some eyebrow hairs seem to be “killed off” from plucking too. However, in most cases, the victim of “selfie-plucking” reports exactly what you are recounting.

So, you are “interested in homemade/organic/natural remedies?”

Nothing is going to work unless you stop plucking … or have the hair (follicles) permanently removed. You are injuring the hell out of your skin … laying down actual scar tissue from plucking … and there is nothing that can be put on your skin that will do anything to alleviate the situation.

It’s like this: I bang myself on the head every day with a hammer and I get bruises! Is there a natural/organic product I can use to get rid of the marks and bruises? Yeah, it’s like that!

[Arlene]

If you have acne prone skin yet flaky and you are looking to address this problem with a natural topical (treating the problem externally) try using jojoba oil. This oil is much like our own sebum; the oil that we produce.

As time goes on, if you stop the plucking, the scarring will most likely become less prominent as new skin cells move up to the surface of your skin.

All the best,