from years of tweezing thick hair on my face it seems i now have red spots on my face which I dont think are natural. they look like stains from a distance. i stopped the tweezing more than half a year ago. will this ever resolve on its on or is there anything I can do get rid of this?
I used to epilate my legs and it caused severe ingrown hairs and hyperpigmentation. It began with red pigmentation, then after a year or so, they turned brown. Shaving was a bad option too because I am incredibly pale (Think luminescent when the sun hits my skin.) and I have pitch black hair. You could see the hair under my skin when I shaved.
So, what I recommend if you are going to continue to tweeze is to use an ingrown hair product. This will help with irritation (red pigmentation) caused by tweezing. My favourite is Tend Skin. But it is really expensive. However, there are DIY recipes you can make at home. Here is a link to home-make Tend Skin recipe:
http://www.essentialdayspa.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=11902
The at home recipe costs 5 Canadian dollars as opposed to almost 50 dollars. I use the DIY version all the time and it works great. This contains aspirin so make use you are not allergic!
Also, my pigmentation has gotten better over the years but that’s because I started using AHA lotions and culminated everything with a 30% AHA peel at a spa, and the spots are LOADS better. Find a face cream with AHA or glycolic acid and perhaps if you still feel unsatisfied, get a chemical peel somewhere reputable.
AHA’s and Glycolic acids are chemical exfoliators that will reveal less pigmented skin underneath the red. I would suggest using over the counter creams before chemical peels. You may not need it! Try running a google search for AHA lotions, check reviews and buy one you trust.
Sorry I forgot about this thread. As it stands I still have red spots on my face that I would like to get rid of. Lara are you saying lotions can fix this problem?
Hi tinklebells
I too have tweezed for a few years. I started out with some coarse and dark (some light ones) hairs on my chin(mostly on my left side) but some other ramdom ones here and there on my chin as well. After a few years I was tweezing every nite as the hairs had advanced to both sides of my chin and down under the jaw line(towards the neck).
The hairs quickly began to get very tough like wire and I started to get red after plucking but I figured it was inflammation from the trauma of yanking the root from the follicle. Thus, I would pluck at nite before bed thinking that the inflammation would be healed by morning and my skin would be back to its normal state.
However,I was wrong. The redness began to pick up in intensity and not leave and I tried many inflammation remedies to try to solve the dilemma with no results. Redness spread and became permanent & obvious. It was growing, splotchy, bright, ugly, and embarrassing. I am fair in skin complexion and wear foundation on my face for some color. I have a very clear and fair complexion & the redness was overwhelming and could not even be diluted by the foundation or cover stick. I was very self conscious and began altering my behavior around people because of this.
Last year November 2010 I joined this site in an effort to better my situation. Thank god for this forum because when I showed up here I was initially looking for laser treatment info. I was under the impression from all of the advertising I see and hear, that laser treatment is what i needed to solve my facial hair problem. My thinking was if I eliminated the hair and stopped the tweezing trauma, the redness would subside and I could be normal again.
To make a long story short, after reading many many posts here I sought out an electrologist and began a treatment regime in late December 2010. The electrologist explained to me that the redness was increased blood flow from the trauma of the plucking. She said it was going to take TIME for this to reverse itself.I had been plucking for years.She explained that as the hair is removed and eliminated the blood supply will diminish and thus take away the redness with it, but not over-nite.
Also,more importantly, all of the plucking had contorted the follicles from the hair being yanked out. She explained to me that I would need to be patient with my treatments as killing a distorted follicle that has been plucked is much more difficult than a normal straight non-traumatized one. She wanted me to understand this so as I didn’t get frustrated / quit/ get pissy in the beginning and feel like there was a lack of progress being made or that she wasn’t competent.
The first 2 times I went, I only went for 30 min.It was not enough time to get everything. I stepped up to 45 min and it took a few times before she could get me to “clearance”. In retrospect, I should have stepped up to more time again so that I could have got to clearance sooner and then been able to maintain that. Also, the electrologist used the blend method, which is thermal and chemical I believe.
My treatments have been every 3 weeks for 45 min ($64) until now.
I was instructed to NOT ever tweeze again, which was a very hard impulse to stop thinking about for awhile! After an entire year, I am seeing great results. The redness has gone away 80% and I just now am scheduling out about 4.5 weeks between appts. and probably will cut back to 30 min, we will see as right now I am letting her clean up a few other areas here and there because I am picky (and so is she), but I do not need a full 45 min on my chin and lower area in itself anymore as the hair is mostly gone.I was committed and never missed an appointment.
Also, I wanted to add that I did/ and still do use a glycolic acid product(glytone). This product like other glycolic acid lotions, aid in exfoliation, which are great for many things like freeing ingrown hairs that get trapped by skin cells. Glytone did not help with the redness, nor will other products in my opinion from what I have learned as the redness is an increase in the blood supply sent in by the body to aid the area of trauma according to my understanding. I still have some splotchy areas under my chin which are evident when I have no make up on since I am so very fair skinned, but I am hoping that this will continue to fade as the healing continues.
I hope this helps and I hope you do not get discouraged. It is hard to be patient when it is your face that you want to heal in a hurry.
Press on 
KIM
Kimba, thank you for your reply. You are the second person who has said that electrolysis helps get rid of red pigmentation caused by tweezing, so I think you’re on to something.
I am currently having laser treatment on my face. One more next year, and then I will move on to electrolysis. Hopefully this is going to help against the redness.
Kim thanks forr that info! I too suffer from the same thing and im grateful to hear that there is hope for restoration. I was also considering chemical peels once I completed the electolysis for my facial hair but my electrologist has some skin care products that she thinks I’ll appreciate instead of the harshness of chemical peels. We’ll see if it works. Has anyone continued use with proactive during electrolysis? I want to use my prooactive but I don’t want to agitate my skin anymore than it already is. Tinklebells I feel ur pain and its because I was experiencing the same thing that I finally decided to do electrolysis. Very happy with my decision and highly recommend it! =)
Hello all…writing an update as I am almost to a 2 year mark from when I originally started electrolysis. I have to say again that i am so glad to have found this forum because I had thought that laser was what i needed from all of the incorrect and mass marketing geared towards women regarding laser and facial hair. Anyway, I started electrolysis and stuck with it on a very steady plan of every 4 weeks for about a year and then moved out the appointments to about every 6-7weeks for the next 6 months…and then in the last 6 months I have been twice…so that makes a total of almost 2 years of electrolysis. At about 1year my skin Finally started to loose alot of the redness from the trauma of plucking and at the 1.5 year mark my skin returned back totally to no redness ! It seemed to me to take forever. It amazes me how much damage the plucking did.
I am glad I did alot of reading and knew to ask my electrologist
good questions. She was honest with me also and prepared me to not get my hopes up for an immediate cure to the redness. Since my hair follicles were contorted from all of the plucking, my treatments were a bit painful as my current was a bit higher at times, but in the end I am very glad I stuck to the plan and did not cancel any appointments or screw up the schedules. It was worth it and now I do not have any redness, thick hairs, or hairy chin. I have a small
bit of regrowth every now and then that is probably somewhat tied to my hormones as I am perimenopausal. Repairing the damage takes time ! Do not pluck…dont get yourself going down that road.
Nice to hear about positive experiences with electrolysis treatments.
I know the thread was started quite a while ago, but maybe it will help someone else down the road.
I used to have terrible marks from plucking, and from picking at my hairs with my fingers, (i think hyperpigmentation is also from the hairs). As soon as i got electrolysis, the problem not only was gone but oh how quickly i was able to clear up the pigmentation without ANY special creams or anything, (and i hyperpigment very easily and stay that way), and now the skin is looking so good after just a handful months with electrolysis. Thank goodness. I was hiding behind a ton of concealor, now none is needed. : )
This is before and after electrolysis, photos taken a handful of months apart.