Dear Brad, You Are Not Alone!

In a comment today on Bock in SecondLife; Eddi Haskell dropped the bomb that even Brad Pitt, the most beautiful man in the world, has problems with nasal hair.

I have touched on this irritating affliction for men, nay mankind, in a previous post, Top Ten Reasons For Being A Male Avatar. So let me just take a moment to share with Brad: You are not alone you-sexy-studeliscious-hunk-of-male-beauty-you! Indeed I myself, and most adult men (and even some women I should think), suffer with you.

Wikipedia has this to inform on the subject:

"Nasal hair or nose hair is the hair in the nose. Adult humans have hairs in the anterior nasal passage. Its function may be to keep insects and foreign particles from entering the nasal cavity." (...) "A number of devices have been sold to trim nasal hair, including miniature rotary clippers, and attachments for electric shavers. The trimmers shorten the hair to such lengths so that they do not appear outside of the nasal passage. A pair of tweezers can be used which facilitates removal and an antiseptic cream applied after treatment on the end of a cotton-bud to reduce the risk of infection and soreness."

Not much help there, huh?

I first started noticing my nasal hairs when I had turned thirty, before that age I cannot remember ever being bothered by them. Since then I have tried a range of methods to remove them, all rather tedious, painful and/or unsuccessful.

1. Pulling
This procedure is extremely painful and takes a long time because you have to pull out each strand of hair individually. It is also a sorry sight to watch yourself weeping from the pain it causes.

Pulling can be done either with fingers or with tweezers. In both cases it is difficult to get a firm hold of the hairs and my nostrils aren't wide enough to allow two fingers to reach the the hairs that don't protrude and those that are too far inside the nasal cavity.

2. Cutting
This procedure can be done with scissors or a knife. I firmly recommend using a nail scissor.

This method allows you to shorten the hairs and you can take several of them out in one clipping. Alas you usually do not cut low enough and there is still the problem with the ones that are deep inside the cavities. There is also a risk of clipping into the membranes which is extremely painful and takes forever to heal. Besides can you imagine how much a cut inside the nose bleeds?

3. Nose trimmers (various models)
These are mostly ineffective, take too long and do not cut short enough anyhow. You still cannot reach the deeper set hairs. Pain occurs if you happen to get the apparatus in a bad angle and it cuts into the membrane.

I have not tried waxing or hair removal yet, because both those methods seem harmful to use on membranes.

As a child living in Pakistan I can remember the barbershops using a method that I have later seen used in Turkey and Greece also, It seemed fast, efficient and painless as far as I could observe, alas it is not practiced in Sweden.

This method consists of singeing the nasal hairs. The barber catches a cotton swab in a pair of tweezers and then dips it into a liquid. He then proceeds to light the swab with a match and passes it under the nose while the customer is careful not to inhale. I would use this method if I could but my problem is I do not know what liquid the swab is dipped in. I should think it could be ether or alcohol, but I am not at all certain.

Come to think of it, why hasn't a modernized version of the age-old singeing method been invented using electricity I wonder? One would (meaning I, me and myself) think that it cannot be that difficult for all the talented scientist and technicians in the world to help mankind with this important issue. Anyone may use my suggestion here royalty free!