leg plucking obsession

Hair Removal Methods Tweezing/Plucking
#121

This is an interesting thread. I stumbled upon it since I too pluck my leg hairs and bikini line occasionally. However, I do not suffer from trich and it is not an obsession for me.

Most of you suffer from scars and wounds from digging into your skin in attempts to fish out ingrown hairs. I want to share some things that I’ve done in order to lighten or prevent scars as well as prevent ingrown hairs.

Pre rotary epilator, I rarely got ingrown hairs. I shaved but I didn’t routinely apply lotion to my body, exfoliate with a scrub or anything. After I started to use an epilator, I suddenly started to get a lot of ingrown hairs on my legs (the kind that grew sideways that you could see clearly through the skin and were not inflamed). I started to tweeze them out digging into my skin with my tweezer to fish them out. I share the same satisfaction of releasing a stubborn ingrown hair from under my skin as you all do. Then one day I epilated part of my bikini line. When the hairs started to grow, the area became riddled with ingrown hairs. I started the same harmful tweezing process on that area too.

I did this for a while (week or two) and then to my dismay I noticed red dots and dark spots. I immediately stopped digging for the ingrown hairs. I did some research and with much success I was able to heal the wounds and lighten the scars by a significant amount.

First, stop digging and tweezing. Even trying to lightly lift an ingrown with a needle, tweezer, light squeezing, pinching. You could start to shave but I think that its better to hold off on hair removal for a while to better allow your skin to heal. Besides, most of you are wearing long pants to cover your legs to hide the damage so letting your hair grow out for a while shouldn’t be a problem.

Exfoliate. Since you are tweezing and not receiving the exfoliation from sloughing off a layer of dead skin as you do when you shave or wax, this is an important part to preventing ingrown hairs. I suggest getting a scrub and scrub your skin (when dry) gently in circular motions. I make my own scrub that consists of dead sea salt, brown sugar, vitamin e, and honey (the honey doesn’t really do anything for your skin, just makes the mix moist for easier application). Do this once a week. However, I wouldn’t do this exfoliation until all wounds are healed.

Also, exfoliate regularly in the shower with a good loofah. Once again, be careful until all your wounds are healed.

Remember, do not be rough when using these methods of exfoliating especially for you guys that have done extensive damage to your tender skin.

Another preventative is to use Tendskin. Tendskin is relatively expensive but there is a good home recipe (not the one with just alcohol, witch hazel, and crushed asprins) on this forum. You need to use it twice a day on present ingrowns and after your ingrowns are healed, once a day after you shower.

As far as fading your scars, you need to moisturize daily with a good non-comedogenic lotion. I suggest Cetaphil body lotion.

I also use a manuka honey/oil toner for scars by wild fern daily (before moisturizing). For those who do not know what manuka honey is, its best known for its healing properties even better then tea tree. Theres another thread on this forum about manuka honey.

I also do spot treatment with a q-tip dipped in vitamin e.

Also, you guys need to try out James W. Walker’s post about the diet. The above things that I wrote about healing your skin and preventing ingrowns (which you dig out and create scars from) is valuable information but your condition will not get better if you are unable to stop creating the problem.

Lastly, everyone’s skin is different. If the above things do not work for you, do some more research specifically for your skin type. Also, get to learn what the ingredience in your products do. You’d be surprised how many harmful ingredience are in products that you may or may not be using. What good one ingredience may do for another may not do good for your skin type.

Hope that helps.

#122

Very helpful post. Thank you so much for taking your time to write this.

Dee

#123

Hi there!
I suffer from the same problems, obsessive tweezing anywhere.
I find it a great stress reliever, boredom curer, procrastinating option and it is extremely satisfying.

Nonetheless I have begun to see scars emerge from my digging of he ingrown and after reading all the posts about not being able to wear shorts again, today I am attempting to stop cold turkey.
I still will continue to tweeze my fingers though (the area below the knuckles) and toes. I’ve found that scarring does not tend to occur here yet you still get the satisfaction of tweezing. Eye-brows will need to be continued as a necessity but I really hope I am able to hold off the leg tweezing urges as I do not want scars :S

It’s so good to find out that there at people exactly like me! I’m 18 and have been tweezing now for around 2 years, so it’s still early enough for me to attempt to stop :frowning:

#124

I have been plucking my leg hairs for about 12 years, at age 13, when I learned about hair removal and started shaving. Plucking gives me a feeling of release and comfort. When I smoothly pull out a hair from the root, I feel GOOD. Seeing all the short thick black hairs annoys me, and getting rid of them, from the root, soothes my nerves.

Unfortunately, the front of both lower legs are covered in dark reddish brown dots. Each leg has more than 50 dots. These are ugly scars. It disgusts me, but I keep plucking because it relaxes me.

At one season of my life, I didn’t pluck, thanks to my environment. I lived in a cabin with minimal privacy and minimal heating, so there was no space to comfortably sit with my bare legs and pluck. The bathroom was freezing. The bedroom was freezing. As a result, my leg hairs grew long, and I was SO thankful, because with long leg hairs, I had virtually no desire to pluck or shave (wearing long pants everyday anyways).

But now that I’m back to the comforts and privacy of urban life, the plucking and scarring has increased. Recently I’ve tried to wear shorts in front of strangers, embarrassing as it is, hoping that the embarrassment will prompt me to give up plucking. But I hate wearing shorts, and can’t bare to wear shorts or skirts in front of my friends or co-workers.

I also have scars just underneath my belly button, about 20 reddish brown dots. I think about not plucking, but inevitably, I pick up the tweezers when I see a little thick black hair poking out or getting ready to poke out.

I’d like to confide in a local friend, but I’m too embarrassed.

From people who have successfully stopped plucking- What is the best way to overcome plucking? What is a reasonable length of time to stop the habit? When will the scars fade?

#125

It is SO good to know that I am not the only one who does that! I have been tweezing my legs for about three years now, and my legs do look horrible because of it. I have tried hiding my tweezers, but, that does no good, because I am very good at pulling the leg hairs out with my fingernails! I shave every day, yet, it seems that the shorter the hairs are, the more satisfying they are to pluck. Even as I am typing, I want to pluck!

I know what you mean, starry eyes, when you say that it feels good to smoothly pull a hair out from the root. For me, I it feels best when I can see the hair sort of slide out as I am plucking it.

#126

As we mentioned above, this is called Tricholomania and is a condition that’s one of the OCD disorders. So yes, the “feel good” feeling is part of the condition and why it is hard to stop. There are entire OCD centers in the country dedicated to helping people with this condition if this is something that interests you.

#127

Hello all. It pains me to look back and see that I started this post 4 years ago and I continue to pluck.
Last week I finally decided to make a dermatologist appointment. I went back when I started plucking (I think I was 13 or 14). I’m now 24. When I went before, I went with my mom and I was too embarrassed to let my mom know why I had red spots and soars. Needless to say, the dermatologist didn’t get the full story and was clueless as to the “cause”. Now I’m going back, by myself, and will explain everything. I don’t know what he’ll say. He may refer me to a psychologist or something but, we’ll see. I think if he is able to give me a cream/oil/ointment, I will try it and not pluck because it is getting to be shorts season here in Mississippi and I’m tired of seeing all these girls with beautiful legs while I’m hiding. I’m looking forward to my appointment though it’s not for another month and I don’t expect any miracles.

As much as I would love to have laser down, it’s so expensive. Wish I could win a treatment…wouldn’t that be nice!

#128

I don’t think there is a point of going to a dermatologist (especially if it’s not free). I’m not sure what you expect him/her to do. They treat conditions that are not self-inflicted :slight_smile: I think you should seek out an OCD specialist in your area and start there.

Laser could be an affordable option. You only need treatments once every 3 months on the legs. If you only do lower legs where most problems occur, it would cost about $200-250 per treatment. So if you can afford to save up that much every 3 months, it’s totally doable and affordable. If you decide to go in this direction, please make sure to do proper research so you don’t waste your money on ineffective treatments.

#129

Well, my appointment is this afternoon. LAgirl, I know not to expect miracles but maybe he can refer me do an OCD specalist if that is what I need.
I also want to talk to him about laser since he is one of the top guys down here. I’ll post after my appointment!

#130

I’m so excited. He looked at my legs, told me I wasn’t crazy-everyone has a little OCD- and recomended laser removal. He suggested 8 treatments for $100 a piece that are spaced out every 8 weeks. So, $50 a month isn’t too bad so I signed up. It’s a little more than I wanted to spend but a lot less than I though it would be. They went ahead and did the first treatment today! It felt great! I little sting but not near as bad as when I pluck for hours. He was a little worried that my OCD would kick in and form a new habit but we will monitor that. He said Zoloft or something like that may help. He asked me not to pluck and I think that I can do it since I have to put down the money. I don’t want to mess this up! He said I can still shave and recomends that I shave two days before each sesion. They want to be able to see the hair but not have it so long that it singes and stinks when they laser them. Makes since. I though I’d have to have the hairs long for the laser to work. So glad that I don’t have to let them grow out. I can’t stand that.
Anyway, I’m totaly happy and will have to cut out my weekly lunches out but I think It’ll be worth it!

#131

Good move, pink piper. What is the name of the laser that is being used? What are the levels?

Dee

#132

Please start a new thread on the laser hair removal section of this forum so we can help monitor your progress and make sure you’re getting results. Just because someone is a doctor doesn’t mean they’re experienced at laser hair removal. We normally recommend to check out 4-5 places before committing. There are many types of lasers out there and everyone usually will tell you their is best, which isn’t true.

Anyway, good luck with your treatment and please start a thread with your progress.

And yes, you need to treat ONLY shaved areas with laser. Also, for legs, you won’t need treatments more than once every 10-12 weeks if they’re effective. And remember that you should be hairfree 3 weeks after each treatment. See what happens to make sure this is happening - that’s how you tell effectiveness.

#133

It’s Candela Gentle Lase 755

http://www.candelalaser.com/products/index.cfm?task=gentlelase

So far so good. No growth!

#134

I have the same obsession, actually. I cant stop, its so awesome o:

#135

HA, i looked up plucking knee hair and found this.
then i joined just to post this :smiley:
i have these tiny tweezers and they are small enough to pull out leg hair. i started pulling out knee hair and that’s all i really do, i couldn’t do it for weeks since i lost my tweezers and i went mad on the inside since i couldn’t do anything for my knees, so whenever i shaved i just shaved my knee so ever slightly so i could just dig in and get those hairs under those bumps. i JUST found my tweezers too…it for some reason makes me happy knowing i continuously pluck hairs that are not painful to pluck. is this really a form of OCD? wow if it really is.
well, im going to go pluck my hairs!

#136

Yes, it’s a form of OCD.

#137

As noted here previously, many OCD’s are a result of a need for more B-Complex vitamins, and Eccential Fatty Acids. The brain doesn’t work the same without them. In fact, schizophrenia can be induced with a simple lack of Vitamin B-9/Folic acid, and/or vitamin B-6/Pyridoxine and/or Vibamin B-12/Methocobalmin in a very short time. It used to be that you could not officially diagnose a person as schizophrenic unless you had first proved that supplamental B-6 did not cure them. Of course, most peole don’t eat Liver and sunflower seeds, so where are they going to get these things in their diets?

#138

I’m a little confused by all this. I also obsessively pluck my leg hairs, but don’t tend to get many ingrowing ones after this way, certainly not a fraction of the number I got when I tried epilation!

I used to wax my legs, but after several goes at that I started to get bumps after a week that itched like crazy (I assumed because it was growing back finer), and when I bought an epilator thinking that would be less messy than waxing, this just got worse. It seems my hair is brittle and more likely to snap just above (which is fine but would have looked better shaved) or just below the surface (which leads to the bumps) than to actually pull out properly.

It was so bad having a week of my legs itching like they had a hundred mosquito bites on them that I gave up on the epilator entirely. But with tweezers, if I’m really careful, I can gently pull the hair out in the right direction and not make it snap.

So, why is everyone else getting scarring all over their legs from tweezering? Yes, sometimes I get the hairs that you can see growing along under the skin, and I’m compelled to dig those out… but that barely leaves a mark. Also, after having my bikini line waxed in a salon once, I had a deep ingrown hair that left an angry red mark for weeks, and when I finally decided to “operate”, it healed up nice and fast afterwards.

#139

The scarring is from multiple wounds, pitting, and infections from constant tissue injury.

Seriously, OCD’s are easy to induce in humans via nutritional maniplulation. Just check out Pellagra and Schizophrenia.

#140

I’m surprised and glad I found this discussion. I’m 57 and just started doing this last week (dammit!) I had knee surgery recently and was lying around looking at my legs, and it suddenly seemed tempting to just clean up a few strays. Then, it became an obsession. I seem to long for an opportunity to slide them out. I go on hunting missions and am disappointed when I can’t find anything. Oh, my. I actually thought I might be doing some good–sort of the equivalent of waxing. But after reading this, I’ve learned a thing or two. I’m already seeing the red bumps and going after the ingrowns when I run out of stubs. I suspected an OCD was behind this. I think I’ll talk to my doctor. And I’ll try to take this group’s advice about nutrition and clearing up the scars.

In any case, it’s always a comfort to learn one is not alone.