Shaving hair (wherever on the body) ultimately causes thicker hair growth. Does waxing have the same effect?
Your wife is wrong. There is no scientific evidence despite repeated studies that demonstrate shaving off hair causes it to grow thicker. Waxing would not do it either. Visible hair is dead tissue. Cutting off dead tissue could not stimulate the hair follicle to grow any more than if you caressed that hair with a 10 dollar bill. The razor is not some magic wand that waved over a hair follicle produces some unique reaction.
Shaving doesn’t cause thicker hair growth. It LOOKS like the hair is thicker, especially when it’s short stubble, because its flat at the end not tapered (so each hair is a flat-ended cylindrical shape rather than a long thin cone). Waxing probably doesn’t have the same effect as it takes the hair right out, so the follicle is starting again with a new, tapered hair.
OK, this is how I understand it. Shaving does not cause more hair growth but with repeated shaving over time it can cause the hairs to become coarser and possibly cause re-growth to become faster due to stimulation of the follicle. The reason that hair shaved just once or twice seems coarser when it re-grows is not down to stimulation of the hair follicles but because you see the blunt cut end re-growing and not the natural pointed tip which comes back after waxing. Just thinking “aloud”, it would be interesting to study pairs of men preferably closely related and close in age (to at least partially eliminate genetic and other variation), one who never shaved his face and one who had been shaving for years to see if this bears out in reality. Is male facial hair naturally coarser, thicker and faster growing than elsewhere on the body or is it down to constant shaving? I have read that waxing can, in some individuals, increase hair growth but I don’t know that’s more hair, faster or coa
