Shaving regularly makes it grow back faster?! Caveman's tale or Truth?

[Claymorez]

Shaving regularly makes it grow back faster?! Caveman's tale or Truth?

Basically I heard ages ago from somewhere and someone that shaving regularly makes your beard or said hair shaved grow back faster and I brought it up in conversation recently and was surprised to find many other guys agreeing and not to my surprise some girls looking at me strangely in response

I am curious, do you believe that shaving regularly makes your hair grow back faster or otherwise and why!?

Personally I am sorta reluctant to buy into it as I am a teenager still in puberty and I would expect as a pre req that as I get older I get more hair. However the wide spread urbanality of this pseudo-science fact is so far reaching I am forced to wonder.

Edit: Damn I just realised that I forgot to add the poll.....:O well we will just have to carry on as is

 

[Jaranja]

It does seem like it would make sense. You hair gets accustomed to growing back and, therefore, grows back faster?

 

[RanD00M]

You hair grows faster when it's hurt.So shaving regularly should make it grows faster.Mine grows faster after I shave it.

 

[CoverYourHead]

Traditional shaving does not affect the hair cells under the skin that actually produce the hair, so they don't even know anything is going on. It's kind of like how dead skin on the epidermis doesn't get effected by light scratching, the skin underneath that actually produces those cells don't have to change or adapt.

So... no.

 

[Disaster Button]

Actually it doesn't.

For hair to grow thicker the follicle must be stimulated, as this is beneath the skin and only stimulated by hormones shaving the hair will not make it grow quicker or thicker.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I think its true to a point, but it only goes so far.

I think it reaches a limit basically.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

It does. Or at least from what I've seen. Hence why people have to shave more frequently as they get older.

 

[razer17]

No it's a myth. It just coincides with the fact that as you age hair starts to grow quicker, nothing more than that. There is no blood or nerves in hair, so when it's shaved off the body doesn't really register. Its just does it's thing.

 

[muckinscavitch]

It doesn't do anything. Research has been done and proven this.

This belief is sort of perpetuated due to the fact that when you are young and start shaving, you aren't growing as much hair as you will when you age. So, as you age, you slowly grow more and more, faster and faster, and most people attribute this to the shaving but it is the fact that at 15 years old, your hair doesn't grow as fast or as thick as it will when you are 25. Thus, it appears to grow fast and thicker, which it does, but due to your body finishing maturation, not the shaving itself.

 

[Nimbus]

Actually it doesn't.

For hair to grow thicker the follicle must be stimulated, as this is beneath the skin and only stimulated by hormones shaving the hair will not make it grow quicker or thicker.

If that's true, then explain why certain hair (eyebrows, lashes, arm pit hair, etc) grows to a certain length, and then stops.

 

[AvsJoe]

I've always assumed it was true. For instance my nails grow a hell of a lot faster now that I clip them regularly than they did when I didn't. Same goes for the hair on my head. The more often I cut it the faster it grows. Heck, it was the same back when I was a kid picking my nose. Boogers appeared a lot faster the more often my finger was up there. So I figure facial hair does the same thing.

 

[SnipErlite]

Apparently it's fake, although it sounds sort of plausible.

I read that over the years its because you are physically older is the reason it grows quicker, not because of all the times you've shaved/cut it.

But who knows.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

I know it grows back faster than from other hair-removal methods, but I don't think it makes it grow back faster, the more often you shave...

 

[Czech Woods]

i dont know if faster, but it will grow back stronger. its like lawn, the more you cut it, the healthier it grows back

strange that girls look befuddled, sure they dont shave beards - but girls shave too:legs, armpits and the bikini zone. i believe most ladies are more experts on shaving than most men

 

[J474]

I once heard that it's not that it grows back thicker or faster, but that when you shave it, it cuts the hairs straight across, so they don't taper and appear fine, but are the same thickness all the way down, and come to a straight finish, making them appear thicker and seem to grow faster

 

[Disaster Button]

Actually it doesn't.

For hair to grow thicker the follicle must be stimulated, as this is beneath the skin and only stimulated by hormones shaving the hair will not make it grow quicker or thicker.

If that's true, then explain why certain hair (eyebrows, lashes, arm pit hair, etc) grows to a certain length, and then stops.

I didn't think they did stop, if they did then why do people trim their eyebrows and arm pit hair? And eyelashes fall out quite regularly so its easy to maintain the illusion of no growth, same with other hairs.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

I know it grows back faster than from other hair-removal methods, but I don't think it makes it grow back faster, the more often you shave...

 

[Shockolate]

As someone who has been pulling his hair out for 6 years, I can safely say my hair has always grown at the same rate it always has (with the exception of the time it takes to reform the root).

 

[Ironic Pirate]

[link = http://www.cracked.com/article_15916_your-mom-lied-5-common-body-myths-debunked.html] Ah, Cracked. So funny, and so informative. [/link]

It's the first one down, although the others are also entertaining.