Why do I get ingrown hairs no matter what I do?

Answered by Eva Taub

Women ask me this question all the time, usually after they’ve tried everything they can think of. “I exfoliate.” “I bought a better razor.” “I stopped shaving.” “I started waxing.” “I use expensive creams.” “My friend told me to scrub harder.”

The first thing I usually tell them is this: you probably aren’t doing anything wrong. In most cases, ingrown hairs are caused by your hair’s natural growth pattern — not by poor hygiene or bad skin care.

I see this most often in women with curly or coily hair because the follicle itself is naturally curved beneath the skin. As the hair grows, it doesn’t always travel straight upward. Instead, it can curl back into the skin or grow sideways beneath the surface before it ever has a chance to emerge properly.

Your body recognizes that trapped hair as something it shouldn’t be there. That’s what creates the inflammation, redness, tenderness, and sometimes the pus-filled bump that people call an ingrown hair.

One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is: “I just need to exfoliate more.” Gentle exfoliation can absolutely help a hair break through the surface more easily. What it can’t do is change the shape of your follicle. The follicle that produced today’s ingrown hair is still curved, and the next hair is very likely to follow exactly the same path. That’s why so many people feel like they’re fighting the same battle over and over again.

Another common mistake is digging for the hair with tweezers or a needle. I understand why people do it. The bump is painful, and they want immediate relief. Unfortunately, every time you dig into the skin, you increase the risk of infection, scarring, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. In melanin-rich skin especially, the dark mark left behind often becomes more upsetting than the ingrown hair itself.

Hair removal methods also matter. Waxing and tweezing remove the hair from the root, but they don’t change the shape of the follicle. When the new hair grows back, it often follows the same curved path that caused the problem in the first place.

Shaving gets blamed for everything, but shaving isn’t usually the real cause either. The underlying issue is still the follicle’s natural curve. Using a sharp razor, shaving with the direction of hair growth, and avoiding repeated passes can reduce irritation, but they don’t eliminate the tendency to develop ingrown hairs.

That’s why I focus on treating the follicle itself. Laser hair removal doesn’t straighten the follicle. Instead, it permanently disables the follicles it successfully reaches, leaving fewer hairs available to become trapped beneath the skin. As the amount of hair decreases, so does the number of ingrown hairs.

For many women, the first improvement they notice isn’t that every hair is gone. It’s that they’re finally waking up without another painful bump every morning.

I’ve treated women who spent years believing they simply had “bad skin,” when the real problem was the way their hair naturally grew. Once you understand that, you stop blaming yourself and start treating the actual cause instead of fighting one ingrown hair after another.