Shaving Does NOT Make Hair Grow Back Thicker or More Coarse!
No — shaving hair doesn’t change its thickness, color, or rate of growth.
How did this rumor about shaving and hair thickness begin? It was once thought that hair might grow like a plant. For example, pruning a plant stimulates the growth of new branches, and maybe shaving did the same for hair. However, this is simply not true because hair growth is determined in the dermis, below the surface of the skin, where a tiny tube called a hair follicle is located. The follicle determines a hair’s color, consistency and thickness. People have thicker beards, for example, because they have more hair follicles on their face. Age, genes, and hormones all influence how many hair follicles a person has. Nothing you do can increase that amount.
In a 1928, a study published in the journal Anatomical Record, forensic anthropologist, Mildred Trotter, found that shaving has no effect on hair’s color, texture or growth rate. More recently, research published in the journal of Investigative Dermatology also looked into this topic. “No significant differences in total weight of hair produced in a measured area, or in width or rate of growth of individual hairs, could be ascribed to shaving,” the researchers concluded in their 1970 study.
Instead, shaving only gives the appearance of thicker hair. Hair naturally tapers at the end, so what you typically see are the thinnest portions of your hair. When you shave, however, you are crossing the mid-shaft and exposing the thicker part of the hair, making it seems as if each individual strand is taking up a little more surface area. The stubble feels stronger because its shorter and cut straight across giving it a blunt tip (body hair feels softer as it gets longer). Even the apparent darkening of the cut hair is an illusion. It appears darker because the stubble may stand out against the normal color of your skin. Also, hair that grows in after you shave in the summer time, may indeed be darker but that’s because it has not yet been exposed to the lighting effects of the sun.
For more information about hair growth and how to permanently rid unwanted hair, contact Limoges Electrolysis.
646-205-8741
ElectrolysisEmily@gmail.com