Tweezing

What is Tweezing?

Tweezing—also known as "plucking"—is the process of using tweezers to remove hair one by one, pulling the entire hair follicle from the root. Results can last up to six weeks and, in some cases, become permanent: frequent tweezing can cause the hair follicle to become damaged and stop growing hair.

Tweezing is particularly useful shaping eyebrows and removing unwanted facial hair and small amounts of body hair.

What are the pros of tweezing?

As previously mentioned, tweezing is ideal for shaping eyebrows and removing unwanted facial hair and small amounts of body hair.

Tweezers are relatively inexpensive. Prices can range from just a few dollars to approximately $18-40 for specialized tweezers.

Tweezing is convenient and can be done in the privacy of your own home.

What are the cons of tweezing?

It's slow, tedious and somewhat painful (particularly in sensitive areas such as the nipples or ears). Tweezing is not recommended for large areas of hair.

Improper tweezing may cause ingrown hairs and puckered skin. Infection from unsanitary tweezers is also possible, though uncommon.

For people with sensitive skin or hair follicles, tweezing may cause a bit of blood or redness to the area that was tweezed.

For some skin types, tweezing can cause pigmentation discoloration. Fortunately, discolored areas will usually fade with time. To minimize risk, avoid nipping or tearing the skin. Slanted tweezers help.

How should I go about tweezing?

First, disinfect the tips of your tweezers with rubbing alcohol.

If you have sensitive skin and find tweezing to be painful, consider taking a warm bath or shower prior to tweezing. Alternatively, soften skin with a lukewarm washcloth.

Make sure you have good lighting.

Brush target hairs in the direction of their natural growth.

Isolate the hair you wish to tweeze while holding the skin taut to prevent excess pulling.

Pull just one hair at a time, making sure to pull at the direction of the hair's natural growth. Pull gently but with a quick and smooth direction.

If the skin becomes red after tweezing, consider rubbing an ice cube over the area to reduce swelling, redness and/or pain.

For women, avoid plucking 1-2 days before your menstrual cycle until 1-2 days after as additional pain and discomfort may be felt at this time.

Any other tips or precautions?

Avoid using tweezers to pluck delicate nose hair or hair growing out of moles due to risk of infection. Nose hair removal should be performed with a nose hair trimmer with rotating, recessed blades that never come into contact with the skin, while facial hair scissors should be used to remove hair growing out of moles.

Special tweezers should be used for ingrown hairs and splinters. "Point Tweezers" and "Body Waxing Tweezers" are ideal.

Avoid dropping your tweezers as it can dull the point as well as throw it out of alignment.

Eyebrow hair tends to grow back much slower than the rest of your hair, thus making it important to avoid over tweezing.

What tweezers are best?

Slanted tweezers are generally the best choice because there will be less chance of breaking hair before properly pulling it from the root.

The tip is also of importance, details of which can be found below.

Tweezers can be made from stainless steel, metal or graphite. All types are fine; what's important is that the tweezers you select are comfortable for your hands and for the type of tweezing you wish to do.

As for brands, Tweezerman tends to be the popular choice for high-end tweezers, while companies such as Revlon offer cheaper alternatives.

Popular Choice
Tweezerman Stainless Steel Slant Tweezer[Steel]
Colors: Black- Blue Jewel- Pink- Red- Sky Blue

What types of tweezers are available?

There are many types of tweezers available:

Regular Tweezers are primarily used to tweeze eyebrows and other random hairs. They are cheap and convenient.

Slant Tip Tweezers are often used by make-up artists, models and celebrities because they tend to offer tweezing advantages and reduce the risk of nipping or tearing the skin.

Round Tip Tweezers offer the safety of a rounded tip with the precision of a slant tip tweezer and is a good choice for those new to tweezing.

Point Tweezers are incredibly precise and ideal for precision eyebrow work, ingrown hairs and stubble. Unless you are very experienced tweezing, however, it's best to avoid these without proper instruction or supervision from a skin care expert.

Other choices include, but are not limited to, Square Tip Tweezers, Special Purpose Tweezers (e.g. Hang Nail Tweezers), Scissor Tweezers (popular for people that have a difficult time using traditional tweezers), Body Waxing Tweezers, Comfort Tweeze Crab Tip Tweezers (designed specifically for people with sensitive skin), etc.

Hair Removal FAQ