Nose hair can be unsightly, and it can be tempting to pluck them out in order to look more attractive. However, plucking your nose hair can be very unhealthy and downright dangerous.
While you may have plucked your nose hair in the past, it is not a habit that you should continue. Plucking your nose hair can lead to a plethora of health issues and complications, and there are plenty of easy alternatives to plucking that keep you much more healthy.
If you are dealing with unsightly nose hairs that you want to be rid of, but don’t know what to do instead of plucking, keep on reading. We are going to tell you what can happen when you pluck your nose hairs, what you should do instead, and even give you some of the best tools that you can buy in order to keep your nose hairs at bay.
- The Negative Health Consequences Of Plucking Nose Hair
- Methods For Safe Nose Hair Removal
- How Not To Remove Your Nose Hair
- What Is Nose Hair Good For?
- What Your Nose Hairs Don’t Do
Best Safe Nose Hair Removal Options Comparison Table
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of safe nose hair removal, let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons of the different styles of nose hair removal.
| Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Trimming | Cheapest option | Can be tedious |
| Buzzing | Fastest option | Buzzers are cumbersome |
| Laser Hair Removal | Most permanent | Expensive and time-consuming |
The Negative Health Consequences Of Plucking Nose Hair
If you have plucked your nose hair in the past or are considering doing it, here are the reasons you shouldn’t go through with it. Plucking your nose hair can lead to a plethora of health issues. Nose hair is a natural part of your body and part of your immune system, so you should not disturb your body’s natural functions in such a dramatic way. Here are some of the things that can happen, below.
Ingrown Nose Hairs
When you pull a hair off of your body, sometimes when it grows back, it grows into the skin. While this can happen anywhere on your body, it is a particularly common occurrence with nose hairs. When you pluck your nose hairs out, you are greatly increasing the risk that this will happen.
When you get an ingrown nose hair, you may get tiny bumps filled with puss that develop on the inside of your nose. You may also experience a lot of pain, itching, and redness.
If you already have an ingrown nose hair, don’t fret. There are some things that you can do to help treat it.
First of all, stop removing the hair from your nose immediately. While you shouldn’t be plucking in general, you definitely don’t want to do it while you already have an ingrown hair. Next, use a warm and wet washcloth to clean the inside of your nose in a circular motion. The rough texture of the washcloth and the warm water can help release the hair from the skin.
If this doesn’t work, you can use a sterile needle like a fresh insulin needle to lift the hair from the skin.
If the ingrown hair gets too painful or affects you more than what is tolerable, you should go see a doctor. They should be able to remove the hair and pus in a safe and sterile manner to ensure that you do not experience any infections.
You Can Develop Lung Issues
Nose hairs actually serve a critical function for our immune system and our body’s defense mechanisms. Nose hairs trap the largest particles in the air and keep them from entering our lungs. Without them, we run the risk of developing lung issues that can be dangerous.
Your lung is filled with pockets that expand as you breathe in. If large particles are lodged in this soft tissue, sometimes infections will occur around the particle, which can turn into chest pain, cold and flu-like symptoms, and even result in hospitalization.
Your lungs are not something that you should put at risk, so you should make sure that you are not ridding yourself from all your nose hairs.
You Can Get Sick
Your nose hairs also help you not breathe in large viruses and bacteria through your nose. If you don’t have nose hairs, you are opening yourself up to whatever other people have left in the air around you, which can be very dangerous.
While your nose hairs aren’t going to stop you from ever getting sick, they are helping you get sick less often. Thank them by letting them stick around in your nose instead of being plucked out with tweezers.
You Can Get An Infection
Not only can you get sick, but you can also get an infection from the act of plucking out the nose hairs, especially if you do it with your fingers. Your fingers are usually covered in bacteria, and when you are plucking your nose hairs out, you are directly exposing open wounds to that bacteria.
You see, the area around your nose and mouth is filled with a lot of blood vessels. These blood vessels are important so that we can smell and taste. It takes a lot of different functions to make sure that can happen, and those functions need oxygen-rich blood.
The problem is, these blood vessels lack the protective valves that the ones in the rest of our bodies have. When we are plucking out a nose hair, we are exposing our blood vessels directly to bacteria, with no protective valve in sight.
This area of your face, your mouth and nose, is called the “danger triangle” and is where you are the most likely to pass an infection like meningitis to your brain. When you rid yourself of your nose hairs, you are even more likely to do this. Scary!
Methods For Safe Nose Hair Removal
Now that we’ve convinced you not to pluck out your nose hair, especially not with your fingers, let’s talk about the safe ways to remove your nose hair. Don’t worry, we weren’t going to let you resign yourself to looking like a Neanderthal. Thankfully, the options below are a great way to remove nose hairs and keep you looking sharp.
Trimming
The easiest and safest way to remove your nose hair is to trim them. This allows the nose hair to stay in place and protect you from harmful bacteria and debris while also not being so long that it hangs out of your nose.
To do this safely, you will need a good set of nose hair trimmers. Nose hair trimmers will have rounded tips so that you can’t stab yourself inside your nose. They will also be very small and sometimes have angled blades so that you can easily get to all those hard-to-reach places.
It is best to get a set of nose hair trimmers that are made of high-quality metal that is easily sanitized. You should fully sanitize your nose hair trimmers before and after every use in order to avoid causing any infections.
To sanitize your nose hair trimmer, all you have to do is rinse in very hot water or use a disinfectant like a barbershop disinfectant.
Buzzing
Electric buzzers that are specifically made for trimming your nose hair to a more manageable length are also a safe and effective way to keep your nose hair at bay. This method is quick, painless, and is the fastest method for trimming your nose hairs.
There are plenty of electric buzzers on the market that will work for everyone, so finding a good one won’t be a problem. While this is a more expensive option than buying a pair of trimmers, it will save you valuable time during your morning routine.
Make sure you purchase a buzzer that has a tip that you can sterilize in order to avoid infections. You should also choose one that you can recharge so that you do not have to buy batteries for it all the time, which can be harmful to the environment. Finally, if you have a smaller nose, make sure that you do not choose one that is too large, or at least choose one that has interchangeable tips.
A buzzer is never going to be as easily disinfected as a pair of trimmers. Similarly to toothbrushes, make sure that you are not sharing your buzzer with other members of your household.
Laser Hair Removal
While this is the most extreme and expensive method of safe nose hair removal, some people have a lot of nose hair that they need to deal with, and that requires an extreme solution.
If you are getting older or have hormonal issues, sometimes nose hair can just be way too much to handle. Laser hair removal offers a more permanent and long-lasting solution that can save you time and effort.
However, you should make sure that you are choosing an aesthetician who knows what they are doing and has worked with many noses. Not all aestheticians have done much laser hair removal in the nose, and you want to work with someone who is experienced. The skin inside your nose is very thin, and you don’t want damage to be caused because you didn’t choose someone with a good track record.
When you get laser hair removal inside of the nose, you can not treat the hair all the way inside. Rather, just around the edges. This is the best option as it keeps the cilia you need to stay healthy while getting rid of the nose hair that is going to be the most unsightly.
If you opt for laser hair removal to take care of those pesky nose hairs, make sure that you are using an aesthetician that uses a Splendor X machine for laser hair removal. This is going to give you the least amount of pain.
This method is the most time-consuming up-front and by far the most expensive. However, it is going to give you the most long-lasting and easy-maintenance results.
How Not To Remove Your Nose Hair
Now that you know more about the safe methods for nose hair removal, we should talk about the various ways that you should not go about removing your nose hair. The following methods can cause pain, scarring, health issues, ingrown hairs, and even death.
Make sure to only use one of the three safe removal methods we have mentioned above, and never use the methods we discuss below, even if you have done so without incident in the past.
Depilatory Creams
Depilatory creams are a great option for removing hair on your back, legs, and other parts of your body, particularly if you don’t have sensitive skin. However, these creams should absolutely not be used on the inside of your nose.
Depilatory creams work by dissolving the hair on top of your skin. They will dissolve a little bit below the outermost layer of the skin, but not all the way to the root. For this reason, it is painless unless you have a reaction, and after rubbing it in you simply rinse it off in the shower.
As we mentioned, these creams do cause reactions for some people. This is because they are made of synthetic chemicals that are strong enough to dissolve body hair. People with sensitive skin will have an issue with using these.
However, even if you have used a depilatory cream for the rest of your body, you absolutely should not use one for the inside of your nose. This is because the skin on the inside of your nose is actually quite thin and fragile, so it is going to be very sensitive to this harsh chemical. In fact, exposing the skin in your nose to these chemicals could cause permanent damage.
Additionally, it has been found that depilatory creams disturb the mucous lining when applied to the inside of the nose, which is going to affect your nose’s ability to protect your respiratory system from infections.
If you’re still not convinced, you should also think about the feasibility. Think about it, washing the hair and excess cream out of your nostrils isn’t going to be an easy feat.
Tweezing and Deep Tweezing
We have already discussed the dangers of basic tweezing in your nose, but an even worse offense is taking part in something we like to call deep tweezing.
A lot of men and women will push the tweezers very far back into their nose in an effort to get all of the nose hairs that are bothering them.
No matter what type of tool that you use, when you are removing hair deep in your nasal passageway, you are going to cause damage and potentially pain. This is because you can scratch the inner lining of your nasal passage, which can cause bleeding and even blood clots.
This is also going to disturb the mucous lining in the back of your nose which can harm your respiratory system. The hairs right at the front of your nostrils don’t pose as much of a risk in this regard. If all you have are tweezers on hand, ONLY tweeze the most offensive hairs, and don’t stick the tweezers up your nose.
When you are removing hair from your nose, remember that all you need to do are remove or trim the ones that are noticeable. For the most part, most hairs will not be, and most will not be disturbed if you are keeping your removal implementation out from deep up inside your nose.
What Is Nose Hair Good For?
While we have already discussed some of the negative health consequences when it comes to removing your nose hair, you may be wondering about all of the positive benefits of having nose hair. Below, we will discuss all of the surprising benefits of keeping your nose hair.
Nose Hair Retains Moisture and Warmth
When we exhale, we are expelling moisture and warmth from our bodies. This is a natural process, and we don’t lose either very quickly. However, one of the reasons we are able to retain moisture and warmth is because of our nose hairs.
Our nose hair helps trap warmth and moisture and keep it inside of our bodies, helping us stay healthier longer in dry or cold climates. This is very important when we are in cold weather or in an environment that is very dry, which can cause nose bleeds if you’re exposed to it for a long period of time.
Furthermore, staying hydrated is one of the ways we stay alive in harsh conditions. Having enough hydration is one of the most important factors of our health and longevity.
Another reason this is important is that our respiratory system has to stay warm and moist in order to operate properly. If you think about it, when you are in a very cold or very dry environment for a long time, you likely begin to cough. This is because our respiratory systems are no longer working properly in that environment.
Difficulty breathing and shortness of breath can be scary and painful experiences, so you don’t want to increase your risk of having this happen to you by ridding yourself of all of your nose hair.
When you are trimming your nose hair, keep this in mind. It is very dangerous for you to not have any nose hair at all, so your goal while you are trimming is to make the outermost nose hairs not noticeable, not to remove all of your nose hair entirely.
Nose Hair Filters Out Bad Stuff
One of the most important functions of nose hair is that it filters the air that we breathe in order to survive. The air we breathe is filled with particles, diseases, pollutants, pollen, and other environmental hazards that our nose hair filters in order to keep us healthy.
While some of these things will always get through, nose hair keeps the largest pieces and too much of it from getting to our lungs, which can cause very painful issues with our respiratory system. Our nose hairs will help keep ourselves safe from contamination.
If you are someone who suffers a lot from seasonal allergies, this one is one that you will really want to pay attention to. Nose hairs are very good at filtering out pollen. If you are sensitive to pollen and remove your nose hairs, you are going to find yourself even worse for wear the next time pollen season comes around.
Nose Hairs Protect You
Your nose hair also serves the function of helping to protect the rest of your nose.
While the hair helps to protect the respiratory system, there is also a layer of mucous on the inside of your nose that does this function as well, helping to keep you safe from contaminants. This mucous layer is the most effective at protecting you from airborne illnesses.
When you remove your nose hairs, you are making that mucous layer much more vulnerable. With some methods of removal, you are actually removing the mucus layer itself as well. It is very important to keep this intact.
Because of this, you should be making sure that you are keeping the nose hairs that aren’t poking out of your nose where they are, and only trimming down the ones that are the most offensive to you, unless you have a hormonal issue that is making them much longer and more abundant than they would normally be.
What Your Nose Hairs Don’t Do
You know why your nose hairs are an important part of your body’s natural functions, but do you know about some of the common myths about nose hairs? Just for fun, let’s finish off this article by discussing some of the things your nose hairs don’t do.
Nose Hairs Don’t Help You Smell
Most people think nose hairs help you smell, but they actually do not. In reality, there are small receptors in the lining of your nose that are responsible for the sensation of smell. Nose hairs have nothing to do with it.
Nose Hairs Don’t Make You Sick
Some people believe nose hairs make you sick by holding onto harmful bacteria. The opposite is true! The warm environment in your nose will kill viruses and bacteria, and your natural mucus will help flush them out. This is why we all get runny noses, sometimes.
