It’s normal to have hair on your ears. If you have a lot, you might wonder why, but it’s not really that odd. Almost your whole body has some kind of hair, except for your palms, lips, and the soles of your feet. Your ears have hair both outside and inside, and usually, even a large amount is harmless.
Why Do Ears Have Hair?
Before birth, your entire body, including ears, was covered with lanugo hair. It can take weeks for it to disappear, especially in premature babies. As people, especially men, age, they may get more ear hair. Doctors think it could be due to increased testosterone, which makes hair coarser and thicker as it grays. The hair inside your ear, along with earwax, keeps dirt away from your eardrum. Tiny hairs in your ear canals help with hearing and balance by bending when the fluid in the canals moves as you move.
What Causes Excess External Ear Hair?
Doctors aren’t sure why some people have a lot of external ear hair. Once, researchers thought it was passed down through the Y chromosome in men, but recent studies say that’s wrong. Unusually long outer ear hair is rare. It’s more common in men from India and Sri Lanka. Babies of diabetic women sometimes have hairy ears, but better diabetes control during pregnancy lowers this risk. There’s a condition called hypertrichosis where hair grows all over the body. Some cases are genetic, but most aren’t. Other causes include certain medications, metabolic or endocrine disorders, poor nutrition, abnormal growths in ovaries or adrenal glands, and infectious or inflammatory skin conditions.
How Do You Get Rid of It?
Hairy ears don’t pose serious health risks, but if you don’t like how they look or feel, you can remove the hair. You have several options:
- Shave: You can use a razor and shaving cream. But there’s a risk of cutting yourself, and the hair grows back in 1-3 days. The razor might irritate your skin or cause ingrown hairs. Use an electric razor for inside the ear, not a straight razor.
- Pluck: Use tweezers to pull out the hair from the root. It may take 1-8 weeks for the hair to grow back.
- Wax: Use cold or hot wax. Spread it on, let it solidify, and then use a paper strip to pull it off along with the hair. It can keep the hair away for 2-8 weeks.
- Hair Removal Cream: Also called depilatories. Apply it only to the outer ear area. Check for allergies to the ingredients before using.