Did you know you have two kinds of nose hair?

This is for all the guys like me, over 30, who will wake up one day to discover your bodies are in active rebellion. You no longer metabolize beer like water.

Your knees ache for no good reason. But the worst? Your nostrils, a place that never even considered growing hair, have decided to sprout.

Maybe you’ll do what I did. Try to pluck, end up sneezing and crying at the same time, and invest 10 bucks in a nose hair trimmer. You think it’s under control, but then you’re sitting in a meeting, like, one day after you’ve given yourself a routine nasal buzz cut, and you feel a tickle on your septum.

“Are you kidding me?” you say to yourself. “How did this grow back overnight?”

Answer: It didn’t grow. It unfurled.

You have two types of nose hair, and one is sneakier than the other. Type I—the one you know about—stands straight and proud. He willingly submits himself to the periodic threshing of that ten-dollar blade. He probably wouldn’t venture outside your nose even if you let him grow.

Type II is on a mission of surprise. He wants to disgust the romantic targets that thought you were “30ish.” Type II flattens himself against the inside rim known as the alar-nostril sill. Type II avoids the blade the way Keanu dodged bullets in The Matrix. (As I said, I’m over 30.)

When you least expect it, a solo Type II hair will unfurl like a puma unfolding itself from a rocky ledge to go in search of prey. What’s a man to do? There’s only one way to be completely sure you’ve tracked down Type II nose hairs. It’s called nostril waxing, and please don’t be fooled into thinking this is painless.

The simplest way to describe it is: It feels like all your nose hair being torn out at once.

So let’s not give up on trimming; instead, just nail down the right tool and technique.

A great go-to weapon: the Panasonic ER-GN30-K Wet/Dry Nose & Ear Hair Trimmer ($10, ). You can actually run water through it to rinse it out, which gives you the satisfaction of viewing the terrible crop you’ve harvested. Another great pick is the ear and nose attachment on the powerful Wahl Lithium Ion Stainless Steel Groomer ($60, ).

The technique: T.R.I.M.—Twist. Rotate. Inspect. Maneuver. Start by using one hand to twist your nose right and left to get a peek inside. Just the change in vantage will reveal hidden culprits.

Then trim gently, keeping the trimmer in constant rotation around the inner edge of each nostril. These trimmers aren’t made to do much while standing still. It’s the motion that brings them into contact with hair.

Inspect. Tilt your head back and look down your nose. Tweak the tip of your nose to see into those two deep caves at the tip. Re-trim as needed.

Finally, maneuver the un-gettable hairs into a better position. Use a balled up stub of tissue to towel off the inside of each nostril. Then, use a similar stub to poke inward, herding any strays upward instead of outward. I mean it. You’re a busy man—if you can’t get ‘em out, push ‘em back in.