13 year old girl and facial hair

[cordobasarah]

Hi, My 13 year old daughter has just horrified me by telling me she has removed some (fairly invisible!) facial hair with a razor.
She really doesn't have any noticeable facial hair at all but has removed some light hairs around her top lip. She also has a mole (Marilyn Monroe style) above her top lip and she has removed some hairs from this.
I am very fair skinned and have little facial hair - I don't have to pluck my eyebrows even - so haven't ever in my life removed facial hair.
I feel totally unequipped to advise her on what to do, as although the hair is not visible, she obviously feels it is very visible, and she is going to end up obsessing about it unless I give her a safe way to hide/remove it which will not cause her problems in the future.
Can anyone give me practical advice on this? Much appreciated!

There are facial waxes and creams (Nair is good, as is Jolen) either for removal or bleaching. However I avoided these in my teens due to huge potential for disaster not clumsy, me, no and have long found facial hair trimmers to be the easiest and most foolproof. I've never known anyone to cut themselves or slip and lose an eyebrow. Philips do one, its like a wand, battery powered, about £5-10. I bought one on Amazon a couple of years back and it lasted ages until I broke it whilst moving.

Alternatively she can pluck them but this can take ages if there are a number of little hairs as the others seem to become more visible (noticeable) as you go! If she does or will pluck eyebrows then it would be good to have decent tweezers, such as Tweezermans, I had scabby brows at 14 when using cheap tweezers

I've also found that none of these options have led to ingrown hairs or stubble or extra growth. I do exfoliate regularly though so perhaps a good idea to recommend/make sure she lightly exfoliates once a week if she doesn't already. I use a soft face brush, about £3 from Body Shop, and can be used with any cleanser or soap rather than spending lots on expensive scrubs.

Also, best to do it at night as the skin can go a little red then calm down.

PS best to ask a doc re mole hairs, I knew someone who was told to leave well alone due to potential for problems but others for whom it wasn't apparently an issue. Find out first though, what's done is done and you won't want to freak her out voice of bitter experience.

Oh dear, if she has shaved it may only get worse.

I totally sympathise. At 16 my Mum paid for me to get fortnightly electrolysis sessions as I was so self conscious about the dark hair above my top lip. That really worked, but it's very sore so probably a bit young at 13?

Lasers seem to be the latest thing but I have heard they are extortionate and are not a quick fix.

I would be bleaching until she was a wee bit older then choosing electrolysis.

I'm dark haired and lazy so go for hair removing cream on my top lip and side burns as theres not much scope for going wrong and accidently removing hair you wanted, (superdrug used to do a good facail cream, or avon).

Eyebrows - threading is good as you can go somewhere and get them shaped properly, look carefully at the lady doing it and explain you want tidy, not invisble/startled. I find this a lot less painful than waxing and you can keep it tidy by plucking a few straglers over the next weeks to delay when you need to go back.

shaving makes no difference to hair growth rate and will not worsen anything - any more than cutting head hair makes any difference to its growth. It may feel more noticeable as shaving leaves a blunt end to the regrowing hair.

bleaching is good for facial hair, although she does need to know that EVERYBODY has facial hair if you look closely enough. Also make sure she doesn't denude her eyebrows - repeated plucking does damage follicles and she doesn't want to end up with the no-eyebrows look.

Threading can also be done for all facial hair, it is very fast, if you can find somewhere you wouldn't be too embarrassed to get it done. I'm sure you've already told her that most women feel that they have to do these things. Dreading this with dd as I'm a bit of a gorilla :)

I've waxed my upper lip for years, to get rid of my distinct mustache, and this is great - do it in the evening though, when the skin might flare up a bit. Use witch hazel to minimise post-wax zits! The only downside is that you then need to wait till the hairs are 3mm+ before you can wax again, but if she continues to wax the hairs will grow back more sparsely, and easier to rip out.