The Vine: May 18, 2007
Dear Sars,
This sounds a lot ickier than it is. I have a small raised mole on the side of my face, near the hairline. It’s not some giant monstrosity; I’m used to it, and having had problematic moles removed in the past, I’d rather have the mole than the scar.
The problem is, the thing grows hair. Thick, dark hair that, from the looks of things, grows faster than the hair on my head. Gross, right? And it’s not close enough to my hairline to just let it go.
I can shave it every day, but it’s kind of a pain, since it’s not flat (and women aren’t supposed to shave their faces, anyway, right? Because of the stubble or something?), and I’d like to try something more long-lasting. But hair-removal creams don’t really work on me, the waxing kits I’ve tried all say “Do not use on raised moles,” and it’s not really in an easily-accessible place for tweezing.
Sars, do you think you and/or the readers can keep breakfast down long enough to offer some ideas?
Thanks so much,
English + Irish = Pale And Spotted
Dear Spot,
I’d try tweezing again; get a vanity mirror, and rig it up with the mirror over your bathroom sink so you can see what you’re doing, and pluck away. The mole is small, so it’s probably not generating more than a few hairs at a time — you won’t have to spend much more than ten minutes a month on “upkeep.”
Readers, feel free to chime in.
Tags: Ask The Readers health and beauty
First things first: it’s not nearly as gross as you think it is. No, really. I’ve got one exactly like what you’re describing, except on my jawline. It produces three or four coarse black hairs (I keep plucking them so I’m not sure how many total).
If it’s impossible to get your eye and the mole lined up in the mirror, try asking a friend to tweeze it for you. (S/he’s not going to barf. I promise.) If there isn’t someone you’re comfortable asking, go to a beauty salon. Get a manicure and a facial and oh, can you pluck some extraneous hairs? Great way to pamper yourself every month or so and get your tweezing needs taken care of.
If neither of those appeals as a long-term solution, consider something like laser hair removal (check to make sure it’s safe on moles). I’m planning to get that done on my toes… remember the line from Xander’s and Anya’s song in “Once More With Feeling”, where they are listing each other’s faults, and he sings, “Her toes are kind of hairy”? Mine…. aren’t kind of. I have nasty!toes.
If Pale and Spotted is looking for a more permanent solution, electrolysis may be the way to go. It’s not cheap, but it won’t take many sessions to deal with so few hairs.
Maybe you could try electrolysis? I know it’s kind of gone by the wayside since laser hair removal came along, but it’s ideal for this type of situation, since the surface area you’re trying to cover is so small. I’m no dermatologist, so I don’t know if that’s a no-no for a raised mole, but it’s worth a shot. I think you can see either an esthetician or a dermatologist for treatment, and after a few sessions, it’s permanent.
Otherwise, perhaps you could get someone to tweeze it for you? When I go to get my eyebrows and lip done (I know, ew), they always use tweezers for cleanup. If you ask, they might be willing to pluck your unreachables.
Good luck!
Threading! It’s not painful, relatively inexpensive and really works. It will probably cost about 10 bucks each time but it lasts as long as waxing.
I’ve got a similar mole, only with Cindy Crawford placement. That sucker grows some of the biggest, blackest hairs I’ve ever seen. Much like Spot, I’d rather have the mole than the scar.
The only solution I’ve found is, you guessed it, tweezing. I’ve also looked in to laser hair removal, but some won’t do it on the mole, and others won’t do it on the mole only, which means I’d have to do the whole upper lip several times and I don’t have the moolah for that right now.
I have a similar-sounding mole on my chin that does the same thing (except said mole is pink and my hairs are strawberry blonde), and I’ve been plucking for about 10 years now. It’s not thinning out, nor is is growing slower, so I’m seriously considering electrolysis. Maybe that would work for you. :)
Electrolysis is the best option. It’s relatively inexpensive and they’ll do it wherever. Laser hair removal works best when the skin is light and the hair is very dark – probably won’t work for a mole.
Have you considered having the mole removed by laser instead of the typical electric knife type thing that dermatologists use? It may be a bit expensive ( I had a small one removed for about $200), but it most always leaves no scar; just a little bruising and scabbing (not as gross as it sounds) that can easily be covered up by makeup and in about 1-2 weeks it looks as if there was nothing ever there.
Like I mentioned before, laser is probably not covered by your insurance so it can be slightly pricey, but I absolutely love the results I got when I had the laser work done. Ask your dermatologist about options, because the price is totally worth it if it means never having to worry about the mole again.
I had a mole on the left side of my cheek that grew some HUGE nasty hairs.
I, also, am used to going to a dermatologist to get moles hacked off.
I now live on a small island in Alaska. The dermatologist no longer comes up here, but the plastic surgeon does. I had her take a few off… and no scar!
I can now show you a huge raise ugly scar from 14 years ago on the inside of my arm, and a barely noticible white line on my neck from 6 months ago.
Just saying, don’t throw away the option of mole removal. I hardly have a mark on my cheek. (And, for the few w/ medical insurance, mine covered both drs at the same rate!)
If you can get someone to do laser hair removal on the mole, it may not be as expensive as you think. I am having it done now to my whole face and it was only $540 for the full treatment (i.e., 4-6 monthly sessions), including brows, upper lip, and chin. I can’t imagine that just a mole would be a bankbreaker…if you can get a technician to tackle the job. Also — the new lasers are (fairly) painless, and I didn’t even have any redness after the treatment. I went right back to work. Yes, I am a believer!
Another English/Irish girl! I’ve known dermatologists who won’t electrolysize moles; I just tweeze ’em. I have one by the corner of my eye; the flat one on my jawline … just get shaved. Unless I get really annoyed, and then it gets tweezed, too. Believe me, you do it long enough, you’ll be able to do it primarily by feel. Use a magnifying mirror (or two), if you need to, and pluck away.
Honey, I have three wild black hairs growing just above my right nipple. (Does that make you feel better? It could be worse!) I pluck ’em -ouch. There’s lots of info on that locateadoc link.
Danielle, I googled threading. Never heard of it before. Maybe I’ll try that…verrry carefully! Thanks!
I’ve got a dark, raised mole on my left cheek, too. I generally tweeze it, although I do admit that, occasionally, I just trim them as close to the mole itself with a pair of nail scissors if, for whatever reason, my tweezers have gone AWOL on me.
Nor is this the only mole I have (just, y’know, the only one that’s both hairy and in a spot where it’s not normally covered by anything). I’ve got another on my throat, a flat and hairy one on my upper left arm, one on my back, and one in my right armpit – which bugs. I may or may not have others elsewhere that I just haven’t found out about yet.
Yes, I’m a very mole-y person.
It’s been suggested to me, now and again, that I could always have the cheek mole removed. I haven’t really considered it, but more because the idea of going under the knife makes me more than just a little nervous, than for any other reason.
I’m English-Irish as well, and it is SO TRUE. My mole? Same placement, paler mole and hairs. Plucking is the best I’ve come across. I considered depilatories but Anglo-Celtic skin also has sensitivity issues (um, bleeding from every affected pore? No thank you). If you’re really brave and confident you can keep it from getting on your hairline, maybe give it a shot.
I wouldn’t get the mole “lasered” off…the reason most dermatologists and other doctors are reluctant to do destructive techniques to moles is that no one knows the long-term safety…god forbid moles + lasers= activation of melanoma or something down the road…they probably do that kind of thing in medi-spas where they have no idea if they’re doing something dangerous or not. If it’s by your hairline, it’s easy enough to have it surgically taken out and replaced as a fine line scar that will probably fade to invisible in time.
I’m with Sars, tweeze it. I’m surprised she got scars from other moles, though. I had two on my face, one that was very deep, and I have no scars from either of them. However, one always had coarse hairs growing out of it (blond though, so they show up less now that my mole it gone) and those continued to grow even over ten years after the removal. So, I still pluck and yeah, it’s like ten minutes a month once you get used to the angle you need to do it. Personally, I don’t care how cheap the other options are, that’s money I could still be spending on something else for as little time as plucking takes.
I have a mole on my leg that I shave pretty much every other day – the hair on it is thicker and darker than my leg hair, and it just annoys me. I can’t stand plucking from a sensitivity standpoint, but I’d do it if I could.
Just wanted to make sure someone said it: shaving is not bad for you – not your face, your legs, your anything. It won’t grow back thicker or darker or anything; that’s just a myth.
I have a couple of hairy moles under my chine. I just pluck them. I can’t see them either I go by feel and guesswork. Try feeling for the hair with one hand hold your finger over it then move the tweezers to where your finger is with the other hand. It takes a few goes but it does work.
I would stick to plucking them if I were you for another reason. As long as moles are growing hair they are pretty much healthy. If they stop growing hairs out of them it can be a sign of dodgy mole health such as cancer.
I have a big mole in the small of my back that grows big scary hairs too. I usually tweeze the best I can during swimsuit season.
I might have some bad news though – I had a similar mole removed from right below my ear, and even through the mole is gone, the hairs still grow. Now, I had the mole removed back before lasers, so I don’t know if that might make a difference. But if you are thinking of having the mole removed because of the hairs, mention it to the dr. and see if he thinks the mole removal will be the solution.
I cut my nasty mole hairs closely (and why can’t my head hair grow that fast?). I’ve always been leery of plucking because my mother pounded it into my head that it could cause cancer – unlikely, I know, but we all have our little paranoias.
Shaving, on the other hand…my dermatologist nearly had a heart attack over that. Cutting or irritating a mole is a bad idea, and it’s easy to do when shaving. Or at least it is when you’ve got the fine motor skills of a gorilla, like I do.
I, too, am English-Irish.
I also have PCOS, one side effect of which can be hirsutism so I shave, using a Panasonic women’s razor similar to this one (I used tinyurl on a loooooong link from Amazon): http://tinyurl.com/2twgul.
Tweezing from my mole(s) is too painful.
Re: the person who thinks doctors won’t laser off a mole for fear it could “activate” melanoma. Yeah, uh, biologist here and I double checked with a physician: not actually possible. Now you could, possibly, already have melanoma and if they didn’t remove ALL of the mole, you’d still have cancer and not know it and might not ever think to check it, but most physicians will do a biopsy before they remove any mole anyway.
So, yeah, fear not Spotty. Lasering your mole would have to cause DNA damage to cause cancer (which, it probably could), but frankly, the whole point is to cause enough damage to KILL the cells in the mole, so… No.
If any of you have a problem with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), vitex (chasteberry) is worth a try, according to Dr. Nancy Dunne. She has a very detailed description of chasteberry and how it can help with PCOS, infertility, and restoring normal cycles. Her article lists several interesting medical studies on vitex. Her article is here:
Chasteberry
Hi everyone, I came across an article that might be relevant and helpful. It says that women with PCOS had a reduction is excess hair production by drinking spearmint tea during the first half of their cycles, according to Dr. Nancy Dunne’s article.
“It won’t grow back thicker or darker or anything; that’s just a myth.”
Is it? I wish someone would tell that to the hairs on my face that I’ve been tweezing for years, which have become thicker and darker. Not thicker as in “there are more of them” but thicker as in “where once was a hair is now something resembling black wire.” Ditto the hair on my legs, actually, although the problem’s not as acute there.
This is the downside of tweezing: if you’re not careful, you grab the hair you want to pluck and a smaller, nearly invisible one next to it and a few months later you have two dark hairs you want to get rid of… and so on, ad nauseum. The upside is that tweezing (and waxing, and threading – basically anything that pulls the hair out by the root, i.e., not shaving) will discourage growth so eventually a once-a-week ritual becomes once-a-month.