The Shocking Thing People Are Using For Hair Removal & If You Should Try It

Scroll through the social media app and you’ll see videos of people scrubbing their legs and arms with sheets of sandpaper—quite aggressively. And shockingly the hair starts to shed off. Magic? Trickery? No, according to board-certified dermatologist and mindbodygreen collective member Whitney Bowe, M.D., it works! But that doesn’t mean you should do it.  

“It’s trending because it works. But do I recommend it? Absolutely not,” she says. The sandpaper works by essentially exfoliating the hair and skin away. In her video, she breaks down what’s happening to the skin in the process—and the side effects. “If you do this, you’re doing three things that you don’t want to do.