Well, let me just relay some information about how I epilate after letting my hair grow after no epilating or shaving for a while.
First of all, epilating is best done on short hair, probably no more than 5mm in length. My epilator, the Braun 5270 comes with a trimmer with this very length in mind. Anyway, when I let my hair get that long, which isn’t on purpose, (I usually epilate as soon as get stubble…doesn’t hurt that way), I do get some red bumps and a bit of mild swelling around the follicles.
What to do? Quite simply…Rubbing alcohol (or perhaps Witchhazel). Does it burn? Yeah, at first, just like applying alcohol to any inflamed/cut area. But it’ll make the redness and bumps go away in within hours.
For example, within the last few months, I went without an epilator for quite some time. I just reverted back to shaving. So all my hair was pretty much growing back in at the same time. When I decided to repurchase an epilator, I let my hair grow for a couple weeks. By the time I got the replacement, my hair was probably about optimal length for epilation.
I received the new epilator and proceeded to go to work (on my hair). It took me a couple of hours to re-epilate my entire body. The most sensitive area is the arms. They of course start to turn red and burn/sting a bit. But slap a bit of alcohol on them, and before I got home from work that evening (8:30pm), the redness is gone.
It seems that what you have done is allowed your freshly epilated arms to get infected.
Not showering is probably the biggest no-no here. And I try to stay as far away from Neosporin as I can. That stuff seems to be worse that what it’s trying to cure, simply for its oily nature. That’s probably where you got your whiteheads from. You clogged up your pores.
Hope my simple tip helps with further experimentation with epilation. Remember…alcohol…works wonders…it really does.