What Effect Does Shaving and Plucking Have On Hair Regrowth? Myths Debunked

once you reach a certain age unwanted hair start to sprout out of your body it might be on your face your legs or any number of other intimate places that you'd rather keep bald there's just a slight snag most people believe getting the razor out and shaving them off will just cause them to grow back even faster thicker and darker than ever and what about the solitary stragglers if you take the tweezers to those little suckers then lots will sprout back in their place but is there any evidence that this is really the case I'm Stu this is debunked and we're here to sort the troops in the myths and the facts from the misconceptions first let's take a look at shaving something I gave up a while ago the concept that shaving causes hair to grow back mightier than before was put to the test way back in 1928 by forensic anthropologist Mildred Trotter four men shaved a portion of their faces under controlled conditions the naturally regrown and shaved hairs were then compared and the study concluded that shaving had no impact on regrowth in a more recent study published in the Journal of investigative dermatology doctors conducted a study where five healthy young men shaved one of their legs each week for several months the other leg remained hairy and untouched as a control for the experiment other than looking rather stupid in the summer months shaving was found to have no significant impact on hair regrowth so where did the belief originate well it often starts during our adolescent years when our bodies are changing and puberty begins to kick in always begin producing the first evidence of facial hair in the US and I believe they call it peach fuzz well us Brits prefer the slightly bizarre term bum fluff either way after their first hazard a shave takes place the hair usually grows back fuller and before you know it they've got a full face of hair but this is simply a coincidence because the time you start shaving is also when your body is going through a series of natural hormonal fluctuations which lead to the development of adult facial and body hair the actual act of Shaving has no bearing on this and this process will naturally occur at different rates for everyone the fresh hair growth can also appear to be darker because it's yet to be exposed to the Sun or the chemicals and pollutants of everyday life that make your hair lighter the darker appearance can also be an illusion as you are now seeing hairs dotted against the backdrop of your normal skin color so moving on from PT bum fluff what about shaving body hair now this can be a concern for both sexes because when you first see the way unwanted hair on your legs back pits or chests then the regrowth appears to sprout back coarser and thicker than before this occurs because point shaving you are blunting the end of the hairs you see a human hair is naturally tapered at the end meaning the most visible part is the thinnest part when you shave you are cutting the shaft of hair at its thickest point and so blunting the end so it now temporarily appears to be thicker with the hairs now sticking straight up from there follicles that clasp firmly around them they also seem to be much coarser than before you're all stirred chief physician at the Oslo University Hospital uses this analogy if you shave off a hair it does of course get shorter and a shorter hair is like the stub end of a rope it's stiffer than a longer segment of rope if you let it grow out again you'll see that it's just like it was before being shaved and in fact the portion of hair that you shave off is not alive meaning it can't sending the information to the follicle to tell it that it's been cut so the follicle just continues functioning as before although methods like plucking and waxing pull the hair straight out of the follicle so how does this affect regrowth I found a gray hair I was going to tweeze but if you pluck it six more what comes with funeral the fact is one hair follicle produces one hair if it appears that two are sprouting out from the same point then it's likely to hair follicles have merged together waxing can also change the appearance of hair regrowth as repeatedly ripping out the hair from your legs and arms changes the actual direction of the hair follicle by pulling it away from its natural grain this can result in regrowth appearing fluffier than before plucking out or waxing the hair will not cause more to grow back in its place surprisingly it can do quite the opposite the act of plucking or waxing tears the hair from its root and doing this repeatedly can traumatize the follicle on the human head if a hair is continuously pulled from an area then after a while a message will be sent to the follicle that its services are no longer required it shrinks and then stops growing hair which could unfortunately lead to a bald patch on a more positive note according to cosmetic scientist Randi Shula plucking out a gray hair could if you're lucky lead to the replacement one being less gray as the process that creates your hair color is not totally consistent from hair to hair but generally the safest thing to do in order to avoid damaging the hair follicle is to carefully snip it off or dye it ultimately if you're in your adolescent years then I'm afraid that all that unwanted hair will just keep coming back but shaving it off won't turn you into a Bigfoot I hope you learnt something new and if you did don't forget to hit subscribe and maybe even share our videos if you want more myths and misconceptions debunked then click on the video playing on screen now thanks for watching the effects of exposure to space differ greatly depending on which movie you're watching

Channel: Debunked

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Keywords: debunked, myths debunked, mythbusters, myth busters, common myths, misconceptions, common misconceptions, shaving, shaving regrowth, shave or wax, shave or pluck, hair regrowth, beard, beard trimming, beard growth, leg hair, hair regrowth women, hair regrowth treatment, balding, plucking hair, hair follicles, hair follicle pluck, myths explained, monobrow, unibrow, hair loss, hair loss treatment, science myths, myth, facts, animation, infographic, theory, explained, puberty, pubic hair

Id: dZXuYoLOw3U

Length: 5min 44sec (344 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I prefer to pluck my nose hairs because it feels good