Occasional Mutant Facial Hair?

[W_B_K]

It seems that there are two kinds: the "rootless" kind that slip out easily, and the Pili multigemini, which hurt.
-- Sean

I get both as well. Both types appear consistently and I get a fair amount of them... probably why blades only last about 2 shaves for me! With the pili there are usually about 8-10 all together. Those rootless ones... man I can't believe how thick they are!

 

[WinstonSmith]

Ever seen the movie, "Tetsuo: Iron Man"?

*shudder*

 

[bishop]

I pull a couple of these out of my face/neck at least twice a week. Very thick and almost like a metal wire in some cases. Definitely multiple hairs. Some hurt, some don't. My wife calls me a mutant. Glad to see I'm not alone.

 

[Gaston]

Hey, if you think that's something, wait until you get old and the megahairs start growing out of your nose and ears!

I don't have fused hairs often, but about every 3-4 weeks I find a beard or eyebrow hair that's grown 3 times as fast as the rest ... or, I'll get one jet black coarse hair in my salt & brown sugar beard.

 

[Monkeydad]

Last week, I tweezed a pure white hair from the exact center of the goatee on my chin. Perfectly centered. It was a weird hair other than being white...it was thick, much thicker than my other hairs, resembled plastic thread.

I showed it to my wife and blamed her for it. I just turned 31!

 

[Trawlerman]

Interesting thread.

I suffer from these multiple hairs regularly. I have noticed that mostly I get x2 or more hairs from the same follicle. They don't appear on my face or neck too often but do occur in my nether regions quite frequently. Mostly they just get an angry bump at the base of the hair. Pulling them with tweezers is a little painful but less so than if it left to its own devices.


What I do see quite a lot though are odd hairs on my forehead that seemingly sprout up overnight and are often an inch or more long before I see them. They are very fine and just single hairs that pull out very easily. Just weird to see them.

Nose hair is the worst for me. They grow wild and are very thick indeed and really take some removing.

 

[shmeegs]

I have a spot on my neck where the growth turns into the dreaded tornado where no matter what direction I go, it never gets BBS. I just have learned to get it smooth enough so that most of the time when I rub it, it's smooth.

 

[bhayn007]

I get these hairs all of the time. They are always around my chin and jawline. Man, they can be annoying! Sometimes they'll even be grouped up! Good thing to know I'm not the only one.

 

[wolfmanxiii]

... those are some horror stories. To bring a little light and reason to the subject, I think the condition is called Pili multigemini. From Wikipeida:

Pili multigemini hair follicles, also called compound hairs, are considered rare although there have been no studies to define the actual frequency in the general population.

The name describes a condition where several separate hair fibers bunch together and emerge from the skin through a single hair canal. The hair looks like a bunch of flower stalks in a vase. Pathology shows that deep in the skin several dermal papillae are closely situated with each producing a fiber, but these separate hair follicle bulbs combine together into one hair canal towards the skin surface. Folliculitis can sometimes be associated with this condition.

There is very little information published on the treatment of pili multigemini. Plucking the hair seems to be very difficult as the hair fibers are deep rooted and difficult to extract, plus it does not stop the hair growth anyway. Shaving the hair may stop any associated folliculitis and electrolysis has been suggested for permanent hair removal, but no studies have been published to show how effective shaving or electrolysis would be. Cryosurgery has been suggested to remove the follicle(s) entirely.

Thanks for the info! This thread caught my eye because I used to get these too, but not anymore!

Now...if I could only figure out what the hell it is when your finger nails do the same thing. Yes, I have one finger that seems to grow two nail tips from one nail. As in I will have my regular finger nail and if it gets long I will notice that under it there is another nail growing. Weird huh? And no I don't live next to a nuclear plant either!

 

[ty33]

Wow! I, like many of you, thought I was the only one with the megahair. I have the type that easily come out as if they have no root. I discovered something about them when trying to tweeze one a couple months ago. My wife was trying to tweeze it for me and I was squeezing the area around it like a zit so she could grab it easier. That helped. So I saw one coming in the other day and decided to give it a little squeeze before talking to my wife to see if I could get it out enough for her to grab with the tweezers. No kidding, the megahair came out about 1/4 to 1/2 and inch and stayed out. It was still kinda connected and it was like it instantly grew that long. FREAKISH! I went upstairs to show my wife and she was able to just grab it with her fingers and easily pluck it out.

 

[DrColossus11]

Yay! I'm not alone. I get these ALL the time. I even get them on my chest and arms.

 

[DaveNJ74]

I had a pimple on my right nostril about 10 years ago or so. It stayed there for about a week and was getting bigger by the day. I got so frustrated with it one night before I went to sleep I squeezed it until it started t really hurt and out came this thick, long, black what seemed to be plastic bunch of hairs that were all stuck together.
I have never seen that again since but was very weird.

 

[Argonaut]

I get these hairs all of the time. They are always around my chin and jawline. Man, they can be annoying! Sometimes they'll even be grouped up! Good thing to know I'm not the only one.

This is me, at least once a week. I'll rub my face and feel a needle like appendage stabbing at my hand.

 

[Go West Young Man]

I had a pimple on my right nostril about 10 years ago or so. It stayed there for about a week and was getting bigger by the day. I got so frustrated with it one night before I went to sleep I squeezed it until it started t really hurt and out came this thick, long, black what seemed to be plastic bunch of hairs that were all stuck together.
I have never seen that again since but was very weird.

That's what's known as an 'ingrown hair'.
Now you know why guys who are prone to them complain about it so much, it's a pretty gross problem.

 

[AmishFury]

i've actually been meaning to ask the very same question the OP asked

i had a megahair so thick that no matter how close the shave it was still visible...

 

[Jiddy]

So I'd had one of these before, but didn't think much of it. It was kinda "flat" when I yanked it out off my jawline. Recently I found another on my chin, which was monstrous. It had slightly ingrown, but made it way out fine. Came out easily, and probably 4-5 times thicker than a regular hair. If its several hairs, they've long fused together into a high tension cable! Seeing as no one has yet, figured I'd upload a photo for comparison in case anyone like me who was a little worried, stumbles across this thread!



I consider myself to have some pretty serious mediteranian thick black hair, but that sucker is insane. Next to is one of my regulars for comparison. Would love to know what causes them actually. It certainly seems correlated with me taking up the DE and getting a little obsessed with BBS. Hair follicle gone mad indeed!

 

[tml]

This is also what let me to wet shaving. I was getting these more and more often over the last 3 years and started to think they were related to my electric. Since switching to my DE this summer, I've only had it happen once or twice.

 

[Skyrider55]

I've had this happen once... Got one growing in my goatee. Your right, it was literally the thickness of probably 3 of my normal hairs. It was like a piece of wire, plastic, something... Very strange indeed. I yanked the sucker out and it's never grown back since (well, i'm sure it's grown back, but apparently grown back at normal size). I dunno what causes it or why, nor why it would apparently be occuring so frequently in you. Maybe ask a dermatologist. There might be something to reduce or eliminate whatever it is.

This... It happened once to me about 25 years ago but never had a repeat. Freaked me out a little. Reminded me of that movie The Fly with Jeff Goldblum.

 

[imfallen_angel]

Last week, I tweezed a pure white hair from the exact center of the goatee on my chin. Perfectly centered. It was a weird hair other than being white...it was thick, much thicker than my other hairs, resembled plastic thread.

I showed it to my wife and blamed her for it. I just turned 31!

Welcome to old age...

I get just about all my white beard hairs on my chin. Much rougher/thicker than regular hairs. Same with the top of my head, the white ones are coarser and look all frayed.(jagged) But the cool part about them is that they aren't white, they are actually transparent but until you pluck them out and look at them, they look white.

 

[gibbled]

My mutants are usually thick and corkscrew shaped...