Thread: the more you shave the thicker it gets, the thicker it gets the more you shave???

Originally Posted by KalgoorlieBoi

My lovely wife is supportive but none to intrigued with my little hobby, now the other day I was having a little gripe about how sometimes when I shave (usually only do two passes btw) I can still see my hair foilcles. now I put this down to bad technique on my part but my wife countered with, 'you've started shaving every night now and the more often you shave the thicker and faster your hair grows'!
any truth to this, I'm pretty sure I've heard this before the missus mentioned.
old wives tale or what?

she's just upset cause as far as she's concerned, you're spending too much time shaving don't worry about it!

It's just an old wives tale. The gain of truth in it is that the hair usually appears thicker because as previous posters have said when you cut the hair it gives it a squared off tip instead of the regular pointed tip it has if growing naturally. This can make it both appear and feel courser or thicker. At least that's what I was told by my cosmetologist friend.

Don't shave for a couple of days so that you can get a good grip on a single whisker with a tweezer. Pull that sucker out. You will probably be surprised at the length of the whisker that is below the surface of your skin. The whisker, or hair, grows only from the white root of the hair in the follicle. That is the only part of the hair that has live cells in it and the hair growth occurs only there and pushes the dead hair up and out of the skin. Cutting the upper part of the hair has no impact on the speed of hair growth nor the character of the hair arising out of it. Shave or don't shave, the hair follicle is going to go merrily on its way just the same.