The Vine: February 20, 2009
Hi Sars,
I’m after advice on a beauty issue that I hope the readers might be able to help me with, although it isn’t as fun as suggesting a new nail polish.
From the age of about 14, I’ve had hair around my nipples. Consequently, it’s made me extremely self-conscious. I’m now 22 and have wavered over the years between plucking them (which results in some nasty ingrown hairs and darker regrowth) and trimming them (which doesn’t really do much in the long run).
I know that on the scale of physical afflictions, this isn’t super high on the horrible list. It’s just that the longer I have to deal with this, the more my self-confidence erodes.
I do have a lovely and supportive boyfriend, but he happens to live on the other side of the world. During the limited time we spend with each other, I have kept the situation hidden by plucking the hairs and keeping the bedroom shenanigans in darkness. This obviously isn’t a long-term solution, particularly in the future when we will be with each other for longer than two weeks at a time.
I know he loves me enough not to care, so this problem isn’t so much about my relationship with men as it is about my relationship with myself and my inability to be comfortable with the way it makes me look. It’s therefore something that I would love very much to change.
I suppose the gist of my babbling is, how do other women deal with this situation? What treatments have they had success with? What treatments should I avoid? I should also add that I’m in Australia, so I’m after general information, not the address of Dr. 90210 (especially because that bloke is creepy).
Thanks,
I really wish I was writing to you with a cat problem; I’ll have to go and buy myself a cat
Dear Cat,
You may want to look into more permanent solutions — laser treatments or something.Yes, those can get pricey, but we’re probably not talking about very much hair, so it wouldn’t cost as much as, say, a leg.
Maybe the readers have some remedies to offer; either way, consider visiting a dermatologist.S/he can advise you on possible treatments that fit into your budget.
Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers health and beauty
Yeah, I think the vast majority of women have nipple hairs. Do what you want to make yourself comfortable but if it makes you feel any better, I definitely remember reading a poem by a dude once (which I’ve actually considered ask the readersing because in retrospect it was probably a really good poem I was way way way too young to appreciate and I don’t remember enough about it to google with any success) where he remembered the nipple hairs of his former (female) lover with a sort of erotic wistfulness, IIRC, the implication sort of being that this was the kind of detail you notice when you’re truly intimate with someone; it was a lovely detail (that my 12 year old mind found incredibly intriguing).
While I don’t have nip hairs, I do have a crazy forehead hair. No where near my eyebrows, white, thick and I swear that sucker sprouts a half inch overnight. Hate when I see it at work… Just to add to the random hair files…
I have nipple hairs too. I don’t know when I noticed them but I can say that I made the mistake of shaving them. What was a minimal problem became a lifetime headache. The hairs doubled in number and are now very coarse and dark. I am very pale and blond but all my embarassing-type hair is coarse and black. I do have to say, I cannot imagine plucking hairs in that area. It makes me cringe just thinking about it. One more thing…I also have an awful chin hair problem. Again, it was made worse by one ill-fated attempt at waxing the area. What was one or two ingrown hairs is now about 20. Has anybody tried that infomercial product where the ad shows the old woman and all her chin hairs? Just wondering if it works.
I sometimes suspect that my ovarian cysts are a signal of hormonal imbalances, because I have random hairs EVERYWHERE. Neck, chin, stomach, chest, butt, and yes, boobs. (And if I don’t shave my legs for a while? Hel-LO, King Kong.)
Try plucking during/immediately after a shower. That seems to help them from ingrowing (is that a word? It should be!) for whatever reason.
Shaving doesn’t change the number or thickness of hairs. Really and truly. That is only an optical illusion.
A normally growing hair has a tapered shape and gets thinner near the top. When you cut it off short with a razor, all that’s left is the bottom, the thickest part of the hair shaft. As that grows out from skin level again, you think it looks darker and coarser, but that is only because it’s no longer contrasted against the long, tapering part. If you compare the shaved hair against an unshaved one under a microscope, they’re identical except that one is cut short.
I wasn’t sure whether to believe my textbooks about this, so I tested it. I plucked some of my hairs that I’d shaved quite regularly for more than ten years, and compared them to hairs from a centimeter away that had never been shaved at all. They were completely identical.
The number of hair follicles doesn’t change either. You cannot make more hair sprout by waxing, shaving, or anything else. If the hairs really did “double in number” then more hair was sprouting at that time anyway, and it was not caused by the shaving.
(If shaving or waxing could make hair multiply and thicken, don’t you think balding men would be taking advantage of that? Baldness cures are a zillion-dollar industry. Lots of men would pay top dollar for a head-waxing if it meant they could shrink their bald spots.)
The commenter that said “thank you, please drive through” cracked me right up!
I too have the nip hairs. I tweeze occasionally, the longest and darkest of them, and don’t worry otherwise. I saw a documentary one time in London, where there were tons of British women interviewed, and they all said the same thing: “My husband/partner doesn’t know that I have nipple hair – I get rid of it all!” I think it’s really very common. Your guy has seen it before, no doubt. And look how many of us wrote in! That is awesome.
Electrolysis is good for unwanted hair, and it’s really affordable for things like that~I dn’t have the nip hair, but I have the huge annoying thick eyebrows~it’s about 25 bucks per treatment, and the more you do it the less you need it.
I’m pretty much blond too. I have hair in awkward places (have experienced the random unicorn hair, Mimi! but it’s been a while… and it DOES come overnight!) I don’t know what kind of nipple volume we’re talking here, but I pluck them after every shower, which winds up being 1-2 every couple days. You can stop the ingrown ones by (lightly) using your regular loofah or sponge or whatever over that area. I don’t have discomfort with this, maybe it’s just something you get used to.
Incidentally, I’ve had too many conversations with my close girlfriends about facial hair, and other hair, either we’re holding ourselves to an unrealistic standard or it’s something in the water and women are actually hairier today than we used to be. Because I know too many women who worry about this or feel unattractive because of it. Maybe it’s the flourescent lighting…
If shaving and plucking don’t work for you, I would look into lazer hair removal.
I don’t have a lot (and more on the left than the right) but they are definitely there and very visible when they get longer. I doubt my BF has never noticed their existence and we’ve been living together for 4 years. I’m not ashamed by body hair but I dunno.. I prefer to remove mine.
I pluck when one gets long enough, but usually I shave and have zero problems. I don’t get any ingrowns IF I use an exfoliating bodywash afterwards, and lotion a few times a week.
Had ’em too. In the past tense! I went to a licensed, certified electrologist and had the hairs zapped. It required a series of visits over a period of months, and isn’t the most fun thing to do. But for me it was money well spent. It was just a nice thing I was doing for myself. I don’t remember it being terribly expensive because the area covered was so small. I believe electrolysis is the only permanent removal method – laser is long term, but not permanent. Every now and then I still find a single hair and pluck it out, but nothing like the daily or weekly plucking I used to do.
I remember about 10 years ago (I’m 31) this being the most embarrassing body-secret I had, then a few girls confided in me about theirs, and now (maybe its an age/getting increasingly hairy thing) I kind of assume most women get the odd nipple hair (chin hair etc). I personally pluck which I realise isn’t actually going to help the poster’s question, but just wanted to emphasise how normal this is! Just hope my fiance doesn’t walk in while I’m typing this . . .
@ mimi,
Oh geez, I thought I was the only one who had one of those. I’ll be doing my makeup in the morning and all of a sudden I’ll catch of a glimse of it in the light. Funny thing is, it doesn’t grow back for a long time after I pluck it but when it does it comes in with a vengeance, growing in at warp speed.
Laser is the way to go! It’s $$ but, as a fellow nip hair (and face hair, and chin hair, and you-name-it-I’ve-got-it hair) sufferrer, it is quick, lasting, and only mildly uncomfortable. I used to pluck and snip around my nips as necessary but a few poorly aimed snips and unpleasant ingrown hair experiences turned me off to the process entirely. OUCH. Good luck!
And there I was being all paranoid! This is just one big hairy nipple love-in!
Don’t worry about the boy. I usually pluck, but sometimes I forget to, and the number of complaints over the years? Zero (although I did read an idiotic article in FHM once about freaky women with hairy nipples, but FHM has problems with concept of ANY women’s bodily hair, so I paid it no heed). Anyway, current young man has not noticed, does not appear to care, appears far more interested in the breasts themselves. Go figure.
I have PCOS and I got a type of birth control from my Doctor that helps deal with the hormonal stuff so I only get the “OMG hair!” around my period. It has certainly made life easier for me in the plucking department though I still have to take care of strays.
I also have this problem with a few very dark hairs. I’m actually suprised at the number of people who have problems with in-grown hair there. Mine actually are really easy to pluck and don’t hurt at all.
Just wanted to chime in that I, too, have nipple hair. I don’t think that any guy worth having would care one way or another about it, or even think it was abnormal/gross. Try letting it grow in naturally and see if your boyfriend even notices…he may even like it. The bottom line is that it really isn’t worth being self-conscious about. If you really don’t think you can take it anymore (and can afford it) it sounds like laser would be a good solution.
Yeah plucking if you can’t laser. It gets easier and less painful if you do it consistently, and after showers. This also applies to eyebrows (suffer from both, and having been married for years, at some point you figure out the guy knows about the extra hair, doesn’t really care, and then you just do it if you feel like it).
Count me into the “weird hair” group. I have one very dark, robust one near my nipple that my husband gleefully refers to as “The Boob Hair!”. I’ll pluck it out and then I swear it goes stealth to gather energy and then grows in all at once — overnight I’ll have a half-inch hair. If I don’t pluck it in time, he’ll spot it and cheer on The Boob Hair! with great joy and enthusiasm until I can remember to snag it.
I guess my point is just that a good guy will take these things in stride and grow to love them. :)
Not so much with the hairy nipples (I’ve plucked … a couple? in my life*); I make up for it with the chin hairs. Die, chin hairs, DIEEEEE!!
Ahem. Just a reminder for the folks exploring laser removal or electrolysis: the reason the doctor has you do repeated sessions is because at any given time, some of those hair follicles are dormant. They will happily nap through your expensive treatment, and wake up in six months or so and then stroll on out themselves – and then you have to zap them again. It’s not that the sessions you had didn’t work – you haven’t had any sessions on the latecomers.
*Instead of hair, I have bright blue VEINS instead. Instead of hair, instead of aureolae. Better to be a mammal with a little fur, I say. Only not on the chin.
I pluck the suckers. I’ve found that if I pluck them out parallel to the nipple instead of yanking the hair upward, it doesn’t hurt a bit.
Believe it or not, plucking doesn’t hurt me any worse than it does my eyebrows. Less, actually! I pluck the long, dark ones when I feel like it. When I don’t, which is often because I usually forget about them, it isn’t a big deal. I’ve been married for 5 years and my husband has yet to say a word about them. I don’t think he even notices. LOL
Just a quick note that if you have blond hair, lasering is likely not an option (unless things have changed over the years and I hadn’t heard). I was thrilled when lasering became available until I was told that it was only for darker haired peeps *insert tormented and oh-so-hairy sigh*
I am loving the random weird hair love in. I have a chin hair, and I finally figured out why it grows in stealthy. The first 1/8″ is blonde, so for a long time I don’t notice it’s there. Then suddenly, it goes crazy black, and I feel like a witch! Once I plucked it, and the root was curly like a pig’s tail, so I felt triumphant. For some reason, I was sure that that curly tail meant the end of the chin hair. Not so.
@Molly: Those extra hairs are a completely normal symptom of PCOS, you got it in one.
@Amy: I read a lot, went to some internet PCOS support groups, and they all seemed to have good luck with metformin (a drug for type II diabetes). I went on that and with that and clomid/estrogen I got pregnant with daughter 1 (five months trying) and 2 (four monthes trying). With just the metformin (although I was planning to go in soon for more) I got pregnant with daughter 3. Look around on the web and you’ll probably find others that agree, but if you have PCOS you should really talk to the doctor about metformin. If you want to talk more about it, email me at the following (sans numbers) holly44444@44444aserve.com
There is a Wireimage or Getty (can’t remember which) photo of Rachel McAdams at the Family Stone premiere. She had a touch of a nip-slip and the extreme high res. of the photo revealed that yes, even MOVIE STARS have nipple hairs. It’s 100% common and normal.
Semi-related – I came across this site the other day – the Normal Breasts Gallery. For the same reason cited above, people think the nudity we see is normal, so tons of women submit themselves here proving they really do come in every shape, size, and colour of the rainbow.
http://www.007b.com/breast_gallery.php
How weird…I’ve been agonizing for weeks over wether to send in exactly this letter. I was the one who wrote in a while ago asking about hair-down-there grooming techniques, and everyone was so awesome and helpful that I was just about ready to broach this subject, which ignorant me assumed was a gruesome and hideous abnormality (hence why I’ve been too embarrassed to ask anyone about it until now). So just wanted to chime in with a heartfelt thank-you to Cat and everyone who wrote in on both my letter and hers – you have no idea how much of a boost you’ve given one hairy brown girl’s self-esteem!
Have you tried a sensitive-skin facial hair bleach?
In college, my boyfriend confessed to me that when we first starting dating, he and his friend (who I had also dated) had gossiped about my prodigious nipple hair. I guess the ‘friend’ WARNED him about my abnormality. I think you can imagine the humiliation and horror I experienced, but perhaps not the sweet, flaming rage that came soon after…
I actually have to thank those two fuckers – because it woke my dumbass self right the hell up about body image and self-worth, and about wasting my time with catty losers who have no respect for women.
I mean, I’m not all “Yay! Nipple hairs are beyoooteefull! Tit handlebars for everyone!” but I pluck them when the bug me, and don’t worry about it . That said, I absolutely caught the Rachel McAdams nip slip pic and secretly rejoiced.
Finally, all these comments are the best, but yeah, tit handlebars is tops in my book.
@lareigna: Ditto to everything you said! Your letter about down-below trimming lead me to buy a trimmer which came just last week (haven’t tested it yet). And while I finally, finally gave up shaving my nipple hair for plucking just a few weeks ago (and fortunately it’s gone well for me), it’s a relief to know I’m not alone. I still hate my furry arms, but I’ve come to live with them, unlike when I was in my teens and hated wearing short sleeves.
I totally agree that most of us have a warped idea about what is normal. I’m in my 30s and everyone’s comments here have been a revelation. I’ve certainly gained some confidence from reading this.
Late to the fray, but I echo the many people who’ve said that plucking is generally not painful. I experience much more discomfort when plucking my eyebrows than I do when tending to the boobular region. (I not only have the nipple hairs, I also have three hairs that seem to have migrated from my pubic region to the undersides of my breasts. Long, thick, black, and curly – thank goodness there’s only three of them and they show up in the same spots every time.) Oddly enough, I find that the lighter and finer the hair is, the more discomfort I feel when I pluck it.
It’s important to grasp the hair as close to the skin as you safely can; that helps pull out the root, which helps minimize ingrowns, though they’ll still happen now and then.
Also seconding what someone else said about tweezing parallel, instead of up-and-out ward. You might have to experiment with the direction, because different hairs grow in at different angles, and if you pull too hard in the wrong direction you’ll just snap it off at the skin.
A word about lightning-fast hairs: I have five follicles on my face that do the nothing-nothing-nothing-FOUR INCHES OVERNIGHT! thing too. My GYN says it’s absolutely impossible, but she’s wrong… I know exactly where they grow, and I check those spots in the mirror *every single day* and they do indeed show up overnight. (Speaking of the GYN, I’ve been tested for PCOS and a host of other things, but do not have any malfunction. The hair issue is not *always* indicative of disorder… Some of us are just born furry.)
Last but not least, every time I think of “tit handlebars” I laugh, because I used to date a guy who thought it was the pinnacle of humor to make “phlrlbrlbrt” noises while burying his face between my breasts. So now I have the image of someone holding on to the “handlebars” of a tit ‘stache and making motorcycle noises, and it’s just the thing to get me through PMS week.
I am available for weddings and handlebar-themed bar mitzvahs.
I have two or three only on the right. Never had a complaint, ever. And what Sarah says is true – if you get the angle right, no pain!
Maybe we should start a rumor that nip hair indicates a strong sex drive, and then they’ll be sexy & everyone will envy us, and the next thing you know Sharon Stone will be getting nipple hair plugs and E! will have a special about it.
Can I ask – have all of us taken birth control pills? Because I never had these sexy little nipple hairs until I went on the pill a billion years ago. I’m just curious!
Nope, I’ve had them since forever. Mine definitely weren’t a result of birth-control. The unfortunate thing about us brown girls (well, some of us) tends to be that the hair is everywhere. If I didn’t defoliate at all, anywhere, for a month, I’d be hairier than most men. That is the self-confidence buster, really – the all-over-ness of the fuzz. Sigh.
Also, ‘tit handlebars’? I haven’t had such a welcome addition to my personal lexicon in years.
Nope, I have the hairs and have never taken BC.
Well, that is not entirely true – I took a 10 day course of something that is used in many BC pills to make my amazing 7-month period stop and to reset my system (which is how the doctor explained it). But the hairs pre-dated that.
I too had hair on my nipples before birth control. I highly recommend going to your doctor if you have PCOS (and aren’t trying to get preggers) and ask for birth control that works for PCOS symptoms. I now have regular periods and my “extra” hair is more manageable, though I can tell when I’m getting my period as my “extra” hair goes nuts. With the metforim and BC I feel more in control of my PCOS.
lareigna – it’s not limited to brown girls; I am a very pale white girl, and I sprout (dark) hair like a Yeti. I blame my hairy dad.
Well there goes that little theory of mine! Thanks for sharing the info.
Dang, Stephanie, SEVEN MONTHS?!?!?! Yeowtch!
I had no idea this was so common. I figured there must be a gorilla somewhere in my family tree, (which would account for my long arms & prehensile toes, too.)
@Margaret in CO – we must be swimming in the same gene pool! I, too, have the long arms and prehensile toes!
And I suspect I had a course of meds similar to Stephanie’s – my period went on for over a year and a half. Yes, that’s eighteen months – time enough to have TWO children. Tomato Nation PSA: it’s a sign that something’s gone really wrong with your plumbing; go to the doctor’s and get it checked, or it could kill you. (It’s not that I didn’t go to the doctor’s, myself; I went to many doctors. They just didn’t figure it out, unfortunately.)
Ok, first, thank god for the anonymity of the internet. And now to our story…
Back when I was single I had a boyfriend with a hairy chest. Nekkidness would inspire some shedding but we’d laugh & brush off his little errant chest hairs.
Except for the time that one of them didn’t want to come off. So he went to pick it away & we both realized that it was still attached…*GASP*…TO ME!
I think I died a little that night.
What a great topic. And how fabulous that everyone is so cool here. I’m sure moderating the comments helps a bit.
Now, on to my two cents. I have nipple hair, like 4 or something. Occasionally if they’re really long I’ll yank ’em but it never occurred to me to even really think about it. I have this guy friend who a million years ago was all, hairy areolas – everyone’s got em! and I was all, really? and he was like yeah. So, I totally stopped worrying there. I’ve also heard that women in particular have nipple hair because it tickles the baby’s face and both directs it to the nipple and stimulates it to do something about the eating…don’t know if it’s true or not but I choose to believe yes.
On the matter of chin hair – AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. These do drive me nuts and they do pop up at about 6 inches at a time. I’ll pluck ’em all at night, get up and look in the mirror and BAM. It’s nuts.
That’s the only one I really fret about though – the chin. Arms-whatever, legs – so sometimes I shave and sometimes (like now, it’s winter) I don’t. Bikini – eh, if the mood strikes me I’ll do a little trim. Eyebrows, usually but not religiously. Nipples, not so much.
I think women are way too sensitive to how they look and this totally proves it. Hell, before WWII women didn’t even shave their legs!
Wow, I had never even HEARD of nipple hair!
Somewhat off-topic, I have never shaved my legs and they are smooth and look completely hairless. Anybody else out there who has never shaved her legs? I’m of mixed northern European stock, with dark brown hair.