The trimmer that cuts nose hair instead of pulling it

Quick answer: Buy an enclosed-blade rotary trimmer with a rinsable head. Use it dry, once a week, and stop when you can't see hair anymore. If it tugs, the blade is dull or the tool is wrong.

The first time a trimmer yanks a nose hair, you remember it. Your eyes water, you say a word you wouldn't say in front of your kids, and the trimmer goes into the drawer for a year. Then somebody takes a photo of you laughing, the flash hits the wrong angle, and the drawer opens again.

You don't have a nerve problem. You have a tool problem, and almost always a dull one.

Why it pulls

A trimmer should cut hair the way a good knife cuts a tomato, cleanly and without drama. It pulls when the blades can't do that. Three things cause it.

The blades are worn. Small trimmers do tiny work all day with no sharpening. A head that was fine a year ago starts to grab and tug. Most men blame their nose and keep using it.

The design is wrong. Open-blade trimmers, and the old scissor-style ones with a wide mouth, can catch a hair against the skin before they cut it. An enclosed head can't.

The hair is wet. Hair that's damp from a shower or a runny nose clumps and bends. The blade drags it instead of slicing it.

None of these is fixed by gritting your teeth.

What to buy

You're looking for a short list of features. Brand matters less than these.

• An enclosed head. Tiny blades spin inside a protective cage, so the cutting edge never touches skin. The hair feeds in through the openings and gets cut inside. This is what stops the pulling.
• A head you can rinse. Hair packs into the cage. If you can run the head under a tap, you'll actually clean it.
• Replacement heads sold separately. Check before you buy. When the blades dull, you swap the head and keep the body. Otherwise you're throwing out the whole trimmer.
• A body you can hold with wet hands. You'll be standing at the bathroom sink. Slippery plastic is a bad idea near porcelain.

Skip anything that promises to do your nose, ears, eyebrows, beard and back in one gadget with fourteen attachments. One of those jobs will be done badly, and it's usually the one near your nostril. A single-purpose nose-and-ear trimmer is the right size and does both.

A fair concession: a pair of small, round-tipped grooming scissors works fine if your hands are steady and you have good light. It's slower, and one slip near a nostril is a bad morning. Never use pointed scissors in there.

The sixty-second routine

Once a week is enough for most men. Pick a day, the same day, and tie it to something you already do. Sunday night, after the shower, with the bathroom door shut.

1. Blow your nose and dry it. Wipe any moisture from the nostril edge. Use the trimmer completely dry.
2. Face a window or a bright light. Tilt your head back a little. A magnifying mirror helps, but a window is free.
3. Insert only the tip. About half an inch. You're not trying to reach your sinuses.
4. Move slowly. Turn it on, then make small, slow circles. Don't push. Pressure bends hair and invites a tug.
5. Do one side, then check. Look in the mirror. Do the other.
6. Stop early. Take what shows when you look straight at yourself, plus a little extra. Don't clear it out.

That last one matters. Nose hair is there for a reason, mostly to catch dust and grit before they get any farther. The goal is tidy, not bare. If you hollow the whole thing out, you've won a contest nobody was holding.

Ears

Ear hair tends to get coarser and longer as a man gets older. It shows up around the opening and along the rim, and it catches the light in photos taken from the side.

Use the same trimmer with the same patience.

• Hold the ear gently with your other hand to pull the skin taut.
• Trim the hair that grows on the outer rim and the little flap in front of the canal.
• Work outward, from the opening toward the edge, not into the ear.
• Don't push anything into the canal itself. If you feel like you need to, a doctor is the right person to ask.

Ear hair takes about thirty seconds. You'll probably do the whole thing in the time it takes to find your phone.

What not to do

Don't pluck. It hurts, and it's the fastest way to an irritated, inflamed follicle. If you get a painful bump inside your nostril that doesn't go away, see your doctor and don't squeeze it.

Don't wax. Same reason, with more regret.

Don't skip the maintenance. When the trimmer starts to tug, replace the head. Treat it like a razor blade, because it's the same idea.

Don't share it. Not with your brother-in-law, not with your roommate. It's a small purchase, and it's yours.

Leave the sink better than you found it

Whatever you cut has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the bathroom counter your wife or your roommates also use. Tap the head over the trash, not the sink. Rinse it, shake it out, let it dry, and put it back where it lives. Wipe the counter with a piece of toilet paper before you walk out.

It takes ten extra seconds. Whoever shares that bathroom will never know you did it. That's the best kind of courtesy.

The same Sunday, same sink approach works for the rest of the neckup list. If you're already there, your neck line does most of the work in making a haircut look finished, and shaving your neck isn't the same job as shaving your face. Add a haircut that still looks right on day eighteen and you've covered most of what anyone sees from three feet away.

Nobody has ever complimented a man on his nose hair. That's the whole idea. When you do this right, nobody mentions it at all.