The idea that shaving your hair makes it grow back faster and thicker is complete nonsense. Instead, it is merely an optical illusion: the hair that grows back appears darker because of the straight edge of the razor. This means that the hairs get cut off in a straight angle, and grow back lacking the hair tip, which is typically finer and lighter. Hair grows back naturally (i.e. not thicker in any way) after the hair tip emerges. After shaving, the hair is flattened and continues to grow in normal pace.
In other hair removal methods such as epilation, the hair is pulled out from the root of the hair follicles. This means that the hair must grow back completely, including the hair tip. Through this method, it takes longer for the hair to reach the surface and is, therefore, less visible.
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Tags: Body Hair, Hair Care
Ruth is a friend to all walks of life and a language nerd. She studied linguistics and worked as a journalist, editor and translator. You'll find her geared up in regular 80's outfits, with her camera swung around her neck or hot on the keyboard translating. She seeks out true beauty amongst the mundane and finds nothing sexier than someone with good grammar.
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Had some thoughts about it in the mean time, if you don’t mind me sharing it again :). Yeah you used better words to get this message through, I agree as you said, if we think about it it doesn’t make much sense to say hair grows faster after we shave, because how do we even know how fast it grows before shaving for the first time unless paying daily attention to a few shorter hair among most of fully grown ones which maybe don’t even need to grow :D? Hair indeed grows in cycles and sheds as you said,… Read more »
Sorry I couldn’t find this site back for a while. I wanted to compliment your site and your research and info on healhy skin and relative lifestyle, style and hair removal, sharing those amazing facts with us. I wanted to ask, yeah there’s a rotation and hair doesn’t sheds or is lost all at once, But I often wondered that, on a new zone of my body I recently started shaving for the first time, hair was full length and I think, most of it roughly at a similar length before I ran the razor over, but then as expected,… Read more »
Hi, It’s really nice to hear you enjoy our magazine. I also enjoy reading your comments and having a virtual conversation 🙂 Well, if we see it like this, our hair is continuously growing, shedding and regrowing (like our skin too!) And when we shave all the hairs are cut to one length, making them look thick and black because of the blunt top. But as they will continue to grow at the stage they were at, we just see it more obvious because we witness it growing, like grass. When you don’t cut them, your hair is still growing,… Read more »
Thanks for your explanation yeah I knew about that too, it’s true, the complexive hair growth cycles definitely vary depending on the zones of our body, the ones of arm hair is much shorter than that of head hair, undearms are inbetween :D. It’s true, hair really doesn’t shed all at once, but in a time spanning the whole hair cycle, so that the shedding rate matches the “birth” rate across it, in order to assure constant coverage. If I got it, correct, after the growing phase, hair stops growing and rests, it breaks after a while, but it’s still… Read more »
Hey, I really enjoyed reading your comment and the where your train of thought went. Body hair is an interesting one, isn’t it. And that some people grow more or less, thicker or thinner, darker or lighter hairs. And how evolution has given us less and less. But like you, I also see hair as an extension of our sensory ability, the hair follicles are rich in nerve endings. They feel the wind’s breeze or our clothes that touch it But our hair also serves a purpose of maintaining the body’s climate. When it’s cold the muscles around the hair… Read more »
Hi I definitely agree that shaved hair doesn’t actually grow much thicker and not at all if just shaving once or a few times :D, but I’m however curious on how does hair know when to stop growing? If you trim the hair under your arm, how does the root of the hair know that the end has been cut and that it is time to grow again? Thanks so much 🙂
Hey there, that’s a really good question. Thanks for joining the conversation! I think that the hair shedding plays a role in how long it gets, or rather when it stops growing. We are continuously loosing hair and this rotation keeps things in check. All the best, Alana
