BLACK MEN FACE UNIQUE PROBLEM

Detroit mayor-elect Dennis Archer is the latest sufferer to go public with a skin problem that makes shaving torturous for millions of black men.

The usually clean-shaven Archer recently returned from vacation with a beard – the most common cure for a condition commonly called razor bumps.

Archer doubts he’ll keep the beard. Public image, you know.

In fact, dozens of men – police officers, firefighters, soldiers and recently, a Domino's pizza deliveryman in Omaha, Neb. – have sued to win the right to keep a beard because of the skin problem.

"This is the only medical disorder where the most effective method of treatment is growing a beard," says A. Melvin Alexander, a University of Maryland dermatologist who has studied the problem extensively. He discussed the condition and the best approaches to treatment – some of them new – in a seminar sponsored by the American Academy of Dermatology last month.

Alexander testified for the Omaha pizza deliveryman who won the right to wear a beard at work.

Razor bumps, or PFB – pseudofolliculitis barbae (SUE-do fo-lick-u-LIE-tis BAR-bee), its technical name – occurs in 45 to 83 percent of African-American men who shave, says Alexander, a Baltimore doctor who has been an expert witness for men suing to be bearded. Other men, often in the military, needed doctor's written verification to obtain exemptions from no-beard policies.

The problem is caused by the natural curve of facial hair in black men. White males don't develop the problem because their facial hair follicles emerge straight from the skin.

The problem occurs when straight-edged razors leave a sharp, pointed stubble that turns in and pierces the skin if the hair is curly, causing the skin to become inflamed, Thomas and Alexander explain. Sometimes, whiteheads or cysts form. Improper shaving may leave scars, even thick, painful ones, Alexander says. The condition itself may darken skin color, he adds. Growing a beard clears up the problem in as little as a month or two because as facial hairs grow longer, they aren't as piercing or aren't tough enough to penetrate the skin, Alexander says.

"Historically, black men have just suffered with it," Thomas says. In recent years, new treatments and shaving products aimed at black men are helping to solve the problem.

Products and treatments that works, she says, include:

* Inexpensive, disposable razors designed for black men's beards. One is called Bump Fighter. "But you must shave daily with it," she says, and never shave against the direction of growing hair.

* Pulling out ingrown hairs with sterile needles – a technique best done in a doctor's office.

* Shaving creams, after-shaves or steroid lotions, available only by prescription through a physician, to curb inflammatory reactions.

Thomas and Alexander both say electric razors developed for black men don't work.

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