How to Get Rid of Underarm Hair

In western culture, underarm hair is considered smelly and unattractive. As you age and enter puberty, whether you are a boy or a girl, you will begin to grow underarm hair. This hair will be thicker and coarse than the hair on your head, and, unlike the hair on your head, it will not grow unchecked until you trim it, but will stop usually stop growing once it reaches a length of about three inches. Many men leave their underarm hair alone, but it can significantly increase your body odor. Women in western cultures nearly always keep their underarms smooth or nearly so both as a cosmetic ritual and also to limit body odor and increase the effectiveness of deodorant. However, since your underarm hair is real, growing hair, you will have to take some steps to get rid of it either temporarily or permanently as it will continue to grow back each time it is removed.

While most men do not shave their underarms, most do still trim or otherwise regulate the hair growth in this area.

Probably the most common way to remove underarm hair is with a razor. Using a handheld razor and either soap lather or foam, shave the area under your arms. You should raise the arm that you are shaving under as high as possible in order to make the area under your arm as smooth and flat as possible for shaving. Also, if you have allowed your hair to grow more than about half an inch long, you may need to clip it before shaving so that it does not become tangled in your razor and cause the underarm area to get irritated. For perfectly smooth underarms, you will need to shave under your arms every day, but you can go for up to a week at a time with only a little stubble using this method. It also takes about ten seconds in the shower, so it is pretty time-effective and very cheap since you can use a disposable razor to do the shaving.

If shaving is not for you, but you still want to get rid of your underarm hair by yourself at home, then you might want to try a chemical depilatory. This is a cream that you apply to your underarm area and the hair that is growing there. The chemicals in the cream soften the hair and cause it to fall off without shaving or any other type of treatment. However, these treatments only impact the hair that is above your skin, so they must be repeated on a regular basis. However, chemical depilatories do last longer than shaving, and you can usually go a week to two weeks without repeating the process. Some of these creams can be extremely inflammatory, however, so you should definitely test the results on a small patch of skin before using them on your entire underarm. If your results are good, then you can use the depilatory to get smooth underarms that have no trace of razor bumps or ingrown hairs – common side effects of frequent shaving. However, if your skin becomes red or itchy, then you should not apply the cream to the sensitive skin on your underarms.

If you want long-lasting results and are not interested in getting rid of underarm hair on your own, then you might want to give waxing a try. While you can do this at home, it is a relatively risky operation since you are working with hot wax. Usually, it is better to work with a trained professional who understands exactly how hot the wax needs to be and how to apply it to best effect. You can go to almost any hair or nail salon to have your underarms waxed. Make sure that the person doing the waxing has been certified by your state’s board of cosmetology before you allow them to perform the procedure. If they have not, you run the risk of serious burns just as you would if you attempted this yourself. Waxing can be extremely painful, but the results are smooth, hairless underarms that remain that way for two to eight weeks depending on how fast your hair grows. This is because waxing pulls the hairs out by the roots and it takes a lot more time for hair to grow back when it has been removed entirely rather than simply cut off at the surface of the skin. However, your underarm hair must be at least one fourth of an inch long in order for waxing to be successful.

If you are looking for something more permanent than any of these options, then you are also in luck. You have two different treatment options that will leave your underarms permanently hairless. One is laser hair removal, in which a small laser is used to literally fry the hair follicles under your arms. This permanently damages the follicles and prevents them from growing hair ever again. Usually the first laser treatment does not permanently disable the hair follicle, and you can expect to need three to five treatments for permanent results. Electrolysis uses an electric current to destroy the hair follicles instead of a laser, and requires a technician to insert a small instrument into each hair follicle in order to “zap” it. Both of these procedures can be mildly irritating to extremely painful, and they usually cost between 100 and 200 dollars per treatment. However, once you have completely healed, your underarms will be permanently free of hair. Never get either laser hair removal or electrolysis from anyone who is not licensed to perform these procedures.

Regardless of which option you choose to get rid of underarm hair, make sure that you do some research before you start using that strategy. The skin under your arms is extremely sensitive and can easily become inflamed. The most common effect of this inflammation is painful itching, which can be embarrassing and problematic. You might want to start out by removing only a small portion of the hair under your arms using a new strategy and seeing how your skin responds. If the technique is successful and you experience no bad side effects, then you can fully implement the new process and start enjoying smooth, silky underarms.

Perfectly smooth underarms make every outfit better looking.