Does shaving make your hair grow back faster?
Beginning around 3000 CE, we developed ways to remove hair that was considered unsightly, so all this gibberish has been around for quite some time. If you're still in the game, you might sometimes wonder if your hair removal tactics are really effective or if they actually make things worse, God forbid.Whether you're interested in shaving, waxing, or other methods, the HuffPost spoke to the experts to bust some myths and get some great advice. Here you go:
1. Shaving makes the hair grow back darker and thicker
Not true. And if you think about it, it makes sense. "If that were true, we would shave every bald man's head to get his curls back," said Joie Tavernise, esthetician and founder of JTAV Clinical Skincare brand.According to dermatologist Michael Jacobs, clinical associate professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medicine, this is a myth that needs debunking. "When you shave, you only trim the hair so that the root of the hair is not affected. The thick and dark is caused by your own genetics.”
Dermatologist Rebecca Marcus agreed: “Shaving cuts the hair shaft at the skin's surface and does not affect the hair follicle where the hair is produced and therefore cannot affect hair quality . Hair may appear temporarily thicker as it grows back because it is short.”
2. Your hair grows back faster when you shave
That's true. As you grow, you remove the entire follicle from the root, which takes a while for it to reach the skin's surface once it grows back. When shaving, on the other hand, the new growth has a protrusion on the skin's surface. "Results from shaving can last anywhere from two to seven days, depending on the individual," Jacobs said.Marcus said, "Hair removal should last between three and six weeks."