If you’ve ever wondered why consumers spend anywhere from $10 to $20 for tweezers when they can simply buy them from dollar discount stores, one of the primary reasons is a stronger grip on the handle and the tips. Whether you’re getting rid of that pesky chin or nose hair, or arching your eyebrows, the goal is to be able to clip the hair instead of bruising your skin. And sometimes less-expensive tweezer versions can’t do the trick.
Whether you’ve purchased higher-end tweezers or cheaper versions, at some point you’re going to want to know how to sharpen tweezers. If you don’t know how, you’ll just have to keep replacing them. Instead of getting rid of perfectly good tweezers, try these sharpening options instead. Instructions to do so are surprisingly simple and don’t take much time. Read below to find out why they grow dull in the first place, what types of tweezers you should start off buying and how to sharpen them all.
How to Sharpen Tweezers – A Complete Guide
Types of Tweezers
There are seven types of tweezers: slant tweezers (for plucking eyebrows); point-tip tweezers (for ingrown hairs or splinters); point-slanted tweezers (usually the most common version sold in stores and can be used to pluck eyebrows and get ingrown hairs); round-tip tweezers (to pluck at a variety of angles as opposed to diagonally); flat-tip tweezers (sometimes used for applying eyelashes); arched-claw tweezers (for lighter and ingrown hair, and for bikini line trimming); and wide-grip tweezers (to be able to grab a few hairs at once and for more comfort).
How to sharpen tweezers
All you’ll need to sharpen your tweezers are sandpaper or a double-sided fingernail file with two textured sides. (Make sure your fingernail file is quality material and doesn’t easily break. Otherwise you’ll end up trying to sharpen the tip with a dull fingernail file. Bendable fingernail files are not a good option.)
Pinch the tweezers onto the fingernail file a few times back and forth until they are as sharp as you desire. Rinse the tweezers under water, spray with alcohol or antibacterial ointment, and wipe dry when you’re done. Make sure no fingernail file residue is still on the tweezers.
What causes them to go dull
Tweezers, on average, last about six to eight months before they grow dull. As with knives, scissors and other sharp objects, over time and use, it can become less sharp. That doesn’t mean that once it hits the eight-month limit you should throw them away. It just means that you should make sure to have a file on-hand for when it does.
Also, avoid just putting your tweezers into a jewelry box or cosmetic case without properly sanitizing and wiping it down after each use. Also be careful to keep your tweezers away from makeup like eye shadow, mascara and other products that stain or can get caked up on the tweezer material.
Bottom Line
So should you continue to keep sharpening the same pair(s) over and over again? It depends. As long as the sharpening process works, you should be fine to reuse as needed. However, if you find yourself pinching your skin more than you are getting hairs off, it may be a matter of using one of the seven tweezer options for some jobs and other versions for additional hair removal jobs.
Maybe some jobs require less of an angled job while others work better for fine hair textures. Consider testing out a variety of tweezers first before getting rid of them all, after sharpening them. Once you’ve tried both and they still don’t work, then replacements may be needed.
