# Is shaving unhealthy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2015, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453 "2015-01-10T02:35:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/21 "2015-01-11T17:03:20Z")
FWIW there is the item that it can be healthy when one considers that lice and crabs are losing their natural habitat. 🙂 > **[Endangered Species? Bikini Waxes Wiping Out Pubic Lice](https://www.livescience.com/26233-bikini-wax-lice.html)** > > As men and women sign up for Brazilian bikini waxing and other hair-removal procedures, populations of crab or pubic lice are plummeting. > [@](#): > > Pubic lice have plagued mankind for thousands of years, but the itchy pests are now facing a enemy that threatens to wipe them out: bikini waxing. > > Also known as crab lice, the tiny insects lay their eggs on pubic hair. But as Brazilian waxes and other hair-removal procedures become more common among men and women, the bugs’ breeding cycle is interrupted, and populations are now plunging as low as bikini briefs themselves. > > “The ‘habitat destruction’ of the pubic lice is increasing and they are becoming an endangered species,” Janet Wilson, a consultant in sexual health, told Bloomberg News. I remember reading other articles on how biologists are using the disappearance and appearance of the types of lice as markers for humans developing hairlessness and how changes in grooming behavior like shaving is affecting the evolution of parasites and humans. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/22 "2015-01-11T17:47:49Z")
Anecdotal evidence. I stopped shaving 50 years ago and I’m still alive. So there. I hated shaving and always wound up with bloody cuts (not microcuts). I bought the best blades available then and used them only once. Electric razors were brutal. When I started going to a barber for a beard trim, he complained that my beard hairs were like little wires and left his scissors dull. The thought of shaving my pubic area gives me the willies. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/23 "2015-01-11T17:57:50Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > No offense Ambi but that is silly. > > FWIW I actually did have one teen aged girl patient who developed abscesses from pubic shaving that needed pretty extensive incision and drainage. The first time didn’t stop her from continuing the habit and she ended up having it happen recurrently. No immunocompromised state. > > Something else to consider - anal sex spreads diseases like AIDS much more easily than penile vaginal sex - why? The thought is because anal sex is associated with small tears hence not just mucosal contact but direct to bloodstream contact. Sex soon after shaving when the skin does have those very small tears may replicate that circumstance. > > That said I am with **freido** - pretty dang low on the list. > > It does raise the related question though - evolutionarily why has post-pubertal pubic and axillary hair and male facial hair been selected for in humans? > \*\* > I have read, somewhere once upon a time, the speculation that pubic and axillary hair may serve to wick out compounds that serve as pheromones, helping them become just a bit more airborne\*\*. FWIW. That would sound more valid if people ran around naked. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/24 "2015-01-11T18:05:13Z")
> [@DingoelGringo](#): > > That would sound more valid if people ran around naked. Given that I can consciously smell the B.O. of someone fully clothed the concept that loosely dressed Paleolithic humans could subconsciously respond to chemical triggers wafting from each others’ pubic areas and armpits when close to each other seems reasonable. Not proof it occured or occurs mind you. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/25 "2015-01-11T22:18:27Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > No, I am saying that the idea that “exfoliating the skin” is something that is “healthy” is silly fluff you read in beauty magazines and that gets sold by spa services including medical cosmetic services. Maybe there is some short term cosmetic benefit of getting some superficial dead cells off the surface (I hear snake oil is also a marvelous moisturizer) producing a “brighter complexion” but “healthy”? > > You want exfoliation get yourself Staphylococcal Scalded Skin Syndrome; that’ll exfoliate you fine. Ok, fine. The thrust of my original comment was not that exfoliation is healthy; I honestly don’t knowmuch about it. The gist of my comment was simply that shaving _does_ exfoliate the skin. I always just kind of assumed it was a good thing. :o ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/26 "2015-01-12T01:43:08Z")
Exfoliation sounds good if you’re deciduous. I wouldn’t advise an evergreen to try it. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/27 "2015-01-13T04:05:36Z")
I had a dermatologist (with a beard) who told me that shaving is bad for the skin on the face. He did not elaborate as to why. I have been shaving for over 40 years and my skin looks pretty normal. Electric razor instructions tell you it takes a couple of weeks before you get the best shave after switching from a regular blade. I have read this has to do with scar tissue healing. I do not have any firsthand knowledge of whether shaving with a blade in fact creates scar tissue, or that it would heal in two weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Random\_Design](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@Random\_Design](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random_Design)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/28 "2015-01-13T11:36:07Z")
> [@DingoelGringo](#): > > That would sound more valid if people ran around naked. It sounds fine if you consider the time scale for selective evolutionary pressure to work. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/29 "2015-01-13T15:44:40Z")
[5 Men Who Died from Shaving](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/12/09/a-deadly-ritual-5-men-who-died-from-shaving/). ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/30 "2015-01-13T22:13:39Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Humans do not shed their skins. Uh, yeah! Where do you think a lot of your household dust comes from? Our bodies are constantly shedding dead skin cells. One estimate is that it takes roughly 27 days for us to shed a complete layer of skin. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/31 "2015-01-13T22:40:09Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I had a dermatologist (with a beard) who told me that shaving is bad for the skin on the face. He did not elaborate as to why. I have been shaving for over 40 years and my skin looks pretty normal. Shaving technology – despite marketers trying to repackage it in a million different ways over the past century – hasn’t really progressed beyond scraping your skin with a sharp rock. I don’t think it’s significantly _dangerous_, but I can’t imagine it’s all that good for you either. I can imagine a dermatologist being mildly opposed to unnecessary self-inflicted procedures which cause tiny cuts at best and large, bleeding ones at worst. That said, despite my personal belief that shaving is unnecessary and often uncomfortable, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it unhealthy. “Bad for your skin”? In the same way winter dryness is. Nothing you can’t manage with some topical ointments, but not good for you, either. But I never understood what exfoliation was all about either. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/32 "2015-01-13T22:57:43Z")
There must be billions of male beard shaves _per day_ with no medical consequences, so may we please drop them completely from the discussion? (I caught the part about Blacks being predisposed to ingrown hairs, but I have by now looked at millions of male Black faces from all over the world in person and in the media, and nowhere near 1% have had full beards, so I think the sample is representative). As for female leg and p_ssy shaves they have been going on to the tune of billions too (maybe not per day, but how about per year?) since they became fashionable (relatively recently for the p_ssy), and likewise with the disappearingly infrequent medicals. That tells me its OK to shave, shave and shave away, most anywhere you wanna shave, as long as you are not ridiculously careless about it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/33 "2015-01-15T16:38:49Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Shaving technology – despite marketers trying to repackage it in a million different ways over the past century – hasn’t really progressed beyond scraping your skin with a sharp rock. I don’t think it’s significantly _dangerous_, but I can’t imagine it’s all that good for you either. I can imagine a dermatologist being mildly opposed to unnecessary self-inflicted procedures which cause tiny cuts at best and large, bleeding ones at worst. Would it be healthier, then, I wonder, to pluck out the hairs with tweezers? Or to wax? Or use Nair? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/34 "2015-01-15T20:09:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Or to wax? Or use Nair? As a man who’s had his back Naired and waxed a time or two (wife was embarrassed about my luxurious pelt when we were going tubing), I’ll say that compared to either of those processes, shaving sure seems like it’s less traumatic. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453/35 "2015-01-16T00:44:18Z")
All means of hair removal carry some sort of risk or side effect. You sort of have to just choose the less of the evils. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-shaving-unhealthy/709453.md?page=1)