Grooming our brows has become an essential part of our beauty routine. Eyebrows play a significant role in framing our face and giving it structure. According to brow experts at Benito, eyebrows should have a natural arch and shape, but sometimes they can become overgrown. To maintain clean and tidy eyebrows that still look natural, we need to remove any excess hair growing around the brow’s natural shape. This process is known as grooming the eyebrows.
As the years have passed and eyebrow grooming has grown in popularity, many new options for removing hair to perfect brow shape have entered the market. Some of these options include threading, waxing, and microblading, but it still seems like tweezing is many women’s go-to method. According to Healthline, tweezing is often more DIY-friendly, inexpensive, and can even yield longer-lasting results. The other methods usually come with more risks, such as irritated skin, ingrown hairs, and possible infection.
Tweezing has its advantages but it also has some drawbacks. Although pulling hair from the root is generally uncomfortable, tweezing can be more time-consuming and prolong the pain. Nevertheless, there are some methods that can help you reduce the discomfort. In this regard, we have put together five tips to help you minimize the pain when tweezing your eyebrows into a perfect shape.
Open your pores
New Africa/Shutterstock
Hot water or steam opens the pores, making it easier to pull the hairs from them. This will cause less pulling and tugging and ultimately result in less pain. Consider taking a steamy shower immediately before plucking to help the hairs slide out of the follicles.
It’s best to take a shower before tweezing as clean skin is ideal for this activity. This will remove any bacteria from the skin that may seep into your pores. If a shower is not possible, Anastasia Soare, the founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills, suggests using a hot compress to ease discomfort and help open up the pores. You can use a warm washcloth draped across the skin for a few minutes before tweezing begins. Alternatively, you can fill a bowl or pot with boiling water, sit with your face over the bowl, and let the steam open your pores.
Use good tweezers
FOTOGRIN/Shutterstock
This may seem like a given, but using great tweezers can make all the difference when grooming your brows. Bad tweezers that don’t grip the hair can cause unnecessary pulling and tugging, resulting in extra pain. Dermatologist Rachel Nazarian tells Byrdie that tweezers should always have a tip that provides a firm grasp “to prevent breakage of hair follicles and ingrown hairs.”
Slant tips are often recommended as they firmly grip the hair from the root, whereas pointed tips usually provide no grip and can make it hard to grasp your thinner hairs. We recommend the Tweezerman Slant tweezers, as they have 4.7 stars on Amazon and have been an Allure ‘Best of Beauty’ award winner every year since 2001. Consumer Lisa Perry left an Amazon review raving about the Tweezerman tweezers, saying that “even a hair that has barely poked its head out of the skin, it picks up and pulls it out from the root.”
Tweeze in the correct direction
Fizkes/Getty Images
There is a proper way to tweeze your eyebrows, even though it may seem like a free-for-all once your tweezers are in hand. Tweezing your brow hairs in the correct direction can make all the difference. According to Healthline, in order to experience less pain when tweezing, you should always tweeze from the base of the hair and in the direction of the hair growth.
If you do not tweeze from the base, your hair could break off, leading to double the work and pain. Plucking from the opposite direction is known to cause more pain and leave your skin more irritated afterward. When you pluck from the direction of hair growth, your hair has a straight path out of the follicle. The opposite occurs when you pull hair from the opposite direction of hair growth, causing unnecessary pain and possible ripping of the skin.
Try a numbing gel or pain reliever
Pavel_dp/Shutterstock
If you are extremely sensitive to pain, a numbing gel can be a lifesaver for tweezing your brows. “Slather on a soothing numbing cream over the area to alleviate pain during your tweeze,” says the founder of Sania’s Brow Bar, Sania Vucetaj, to Teen Vogue – no need for anything fancy, as even Orajel is known to do the trick. Leave the cream on for a few minutes until you can no longer feel yourself pulling out the hairs; this will leave you with a base for a pain-free tweeze.
Be aware, though, as being unable to feel yourself pulling away at your brow hairs can lead to over-tweezing. The last thing you want is to be left with no brows rather than the snatched shape you were going for. If you are worried about over-tweezing with Orajel, take a pain-reliever tablet 30 to 45 minutes before tweezing begins to minimize pain.
Aftercare is essential
Walter Eric Sy/Shutterstock
Once you are finished with tweezing, the area is likely to be sore and swollen. To prevent this and ease the pain, aftercare is necessary. Mona Gohara, a dermatologist, advises that after any hair-removal procedure, a small amount of cortisone should be applied to the area. This helps to reduce irritation on your brows, just like it does with bug bites and eczema. Rub it in well anywhere that you tweezed.
Also, consider using an ice pack after tweezing to reduce swelling and inflammation. However, it would be best not to use a warm compress. Although the two are usually used interchangeably, a hot compress may not work as well for the pain from tweezing. The heat from a warm compress can be great for actual pain in your muscles, but after an eyebrow tweeze, we are more focused on reducing the swelling that causes the pain.
