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Saturday, December 19, 2015

Hair Removal Options: Women & Shaving

Please first read Thoughts about Hair Removal Options for some important preliminary information.

We all know about shaving. Using a razor, the hair is basically chopped off on top of the skin, leaving a smooth, hairless surface in its wake—albeit for a very short time. Everyone’s hair grows at different rates, but shaving offers the shortest amount of time between the removal and the regrowth of hair.

Men generally only shave their faces, whereas women shave many different parts of their bodies. The most common areas for a woman to shave is her legs (some women only shave the lower legs, others shave the entire leg—upper and lower), the underarms, and sometimes even the bikini line. And then there are those of you ladies who shave your face.

Shaving the face should be left for the men of the world—only. Let me reiterate that point: If you are a woman, do not shave your face! There are many articles on this blog that contain alternative techniques to remove unwanted hair on your face. If you start (or continue) shaving, you are only going to be ensuring the need to do it forever.


Shaving is a relatively inexpensive way to quickly get rid of hair virtually anywhere on the body, and it is generally painless. If you aren’t paying attention, shave too quickly, use an old or dull blade, or if you have problems with your skin, it can preclude a smooth shave. 

Does hair really grow back darker if you shave?

It is my experience that once a particular area has been shaved (and I believe this holds true for waxing as well), the hair does grow back darker and possibly thicker than it was before. Some reports dispute this, but use your own experience as a measure of the validity of my observation. Perhaps for some people the hair grows back as it was prior to shaving. This has not been the case for me, however, nor most people I have spoken with. So in essence, once you shave an area, you will eventually become a slave to shaving it.

Usually women start shaving their legs as teenagers, many times as proof of maturation—a sort of rite of passage. I know this was true for me when I was a teen, around 13 or 14 years old. Like a young man shaving the peach fuzz off his face, I started shaving my legs long before I needed to. I was simply removing fine (and unnoticeable), light-colored hair from my lower legs. At this young age, noticeably dark hair had not become a problem.

I don’t remember specifically when I noticed the hair growing in darker and coarser, but it was. The hair also seemed to grow in quicker, probably due to the darker color being more noticeable. Now, of course, I can’t go for more than a day or so without shaving, lest the dark hairs scare off my clients! The point is, don’t remove peach fuzz from anywhere on your body unless you just want to speed up the process of being a slave to shaving. 

Prepare or despair. Preparing your skin is of the utmost importance when it comes to shaving. For men, if you can shave in the shower, it will greatly increase your ability to get a clean shave, as well as make you less susceptible to irritation and razor cuts. The steam coming from the hot water does a great job of warming your skin and making it smooth, so the razor just glides right over your face. The same shower technique goes for women and shaving. Shave your legs in the shower to ensure your skin is “warmed-up” for the process.

If the skin is dried out and flaky (dehydrated skin), it can cause irritation anywhere on your body you are shaving. So in order to ensure a smooth shave, you’ll want to incorporate these three components: Exfoliation, using a good shaving cream, and using a triple (or more) blade razor, which will be discussed in future articles. For now, see: