The Pain-Free Way to Tweeze Your Facial Hair

Whether you're just bothered by a few hairs or have a lot of unwanted fuzz to remove, you've likely considered tweezing as your primary option. Tweezing is great because it's affordable and fairly quick. It also doesn't take any real particular skill to remove the hair and can leave results that last for weeks at a time. What you need to know to tweeze well is how to grab hair easily, feel less pain and have longer-lasting results.

Pick the Right Tool

First off, grab a good pair of tweezers. This is your only tool, so you need ones that work well. If your tweezers are sliding off it's going to take you a lot more time to get the job done. Even worse is that often, a less than stellar pair of tweezers will break hair off before it's plucked. If hair is breaking above or below skin's surface instead of removing it out of the follicle, then it's going to show up days later instead of weeks, and might even become an ingrown hair. The overall best pick is the Tweezerman Slant Tweezer. They're high quality, and the fact that the slant easily adjusts to the curves of the face allows the tweezers to get closer to the skin than they would have otherwise.

Wash First

You will want skin nice and clean to avoid post hair removal breakouts, so wash your face before tweezing your eyebrows or chin. The warm water should help relax skin and the hair follicles, so it's easier to pull hair out. If you exfoliate, now is the best time to do so. Exfoliating removes the build-up of dead skin cells, which may help hair point up for easier removal. Wipe off and pat your eyebrows dry to remove moisture. If you're ever worried about pain, apply a numbing spray like the GiGi Anesthetic Numbing Spray to a cotton swab or Q-tip and run it across the area you are going to tweeze.

Choose Good Lighting

You want to see your face clearly so you can get the best results. So when you do tweeze, you should be standing in front of a mirror with good lighting, coming from the front. Natural lighting, like a mirror by the window while it's sunny outside, is the best—you'll be able to see each and every hair. That's why you find "hidden" hair when looking in your car's mirror. Hold your skin firm with your free hand, and use your tweezer to grab onto your hair as close as you can to the skin. Make sure to remove it in the direction that it grows. Begin with only the thick, dark hair first and see if that does the job. If the finer hairs are still bothering you, then remove them in the exact same way.

Gently Pluck

Don’t dig tweezers into skin if you can't grab the ultra-short hairs. You just have to wait until they grow out, which could be only a day or two. By gently holding skin taut with your free hand while tweezing there will be less tugging. You want the least amount of pulling, which is a major cause of pain when removing hair. You also risk scraping skin if you dig in, which may cause scabs or dark spots.

Follow-Up With Skincare

When you're finished, apply your facial toner or some alcohol-free witch hazel. You can also apply your favorite facial moisturizer with a cotton square to keep skin looking soft. Ingrown hairs might be less likely to plague moisturized skin, especially where the hair is thick like on the chin.