what is Pseudofolliculitis Barbae?


Simply put, they are 'razor bumps'.  But what are they and why do they appear to affect Black men more than any other?

The answer is; our hair type.  Most people of African descent have curly hair.  When you shave incorrectly with a razor, the hairs of your chin become sharp at the tip like needles.  This isn't a problem on the first day when the hairs are short, but as they start to grow, they curl and point back towards the skin. Some of the hairs that are sharp enough pierce the skin surface and grow into the skin. This is known as 'ingrown hairs'.

There are two types of ingrown hairs;  Extrafollicular and Transfollicular.  Extrafollicular are the hairs that grow out of the skin first before growing back into the skin.  This usually happens when you don't shave often enough, so you leave the hairs enough time to grow long enough to pierce the skin.  Transfollicular is when the hairs never make it out of the skin, but grown back deeper into the skin.  This usually happens when you shave too close [with a razor] or stretch the skin when shaving, causing the hair to be cut lower than the surface of the skin.

The skin reacts to ingrown hairs as foreign objects and initiates what is known as the 'inflammation reaction'.  This is your body preparing for war effectively, by gathering all the bodily weapons to the location of the foreign object.  It is the same reason your skin swells when you have an injury or insect bite.  Sometimes, the area then becomes infected with bacteria causing it to look like pimples and become itchy.  That infected itchy pimple-like thing on the chin is what is known as Pseudofolliculitis Barbae.

I have examined various treatments of this condition which I will write about in this blog.  Subscribe to the blog to get the latest as it comes out.

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