I am planning to shave my head this weekend. Yesterday, two separate people told me that sometimes when you shave the head completely, some areas might never grow back. This was followed with a lot of suspicious sounding junk about follicles. But it has made me nervous to follow-through on the all-out bald look, I may be downgrading to a very close buzz cut.
Can shaving really create more patches or dead spots or anything like that? What’s the Straight Dope?
I think you are being whooshed. Strictly speaking for me; yearly deployments to the desert, I shave it all off every year around May and keep it off to the end of September. If anything, it’s more luxuriant after seven years of doing it. Showers and drying off are quick, no hassle with combs - 'cept the handlebar mustache.
FWIW, I’m now on the “built for comfort, not style” side of fifty.
My hair is short (started getting thin in my 20s, I keep it buzzed to 1/4" now) and that doesn’t seem to have impacted it. It certainly has made no difference to the other parts of my body that I shave. Never heard that story. I have friends who have shaved (or keep shaved) their heads and when they stop it grows right back. Movie stars who shave their heads for a role don’t seem to have any issues with bald spots developing as a result.
I think unless you are actually hacking chunks of flesh off your scalp you’ll be fine.
Never heard of this theory. You mean shave with a razor? I’m pretty sure it’ll grow back as usual - my beard certainly does.
I cut my hair with a trimmer on different very short positions (1 to 4 mm or so) for years and didn’t have problems growing it back.
Hair follicles are below the surface of the skin. I cannot see how shaving your head could damage them, unless you are using a chainsaw to do it.
It probably got started by someone who was balding, shaved their head for awhile, then let their hair grow back and discovered they were more bald than before. They would have lost that hair anyway.
I’m female, have been both chemically and razor-induced bald, it always grows back in full, no bare spots, no significant changes. Personally I loved it from a grooming standpoint, esthetically, not so much. Man, showers were fast!
Anecdote – I’ve completely shaved my head maybe 10 or so times in my life, buzzed it down with electric clippers and then finished the job with the same brand disposable razors I use on my face, and it has always grown back exactly as before.
Funny. I’ve always heard it the other way around – that if you shave all the way down, the hair grows back fuller and thicker. Anecdotally, it makes no difference in either direction. I’ve shaved my hair all the way down to the scalp several times in my life, and it’s grown back just the way it was before.
That would be the Seinfeldian theory, yes. 
As would that.
Thanks much. Sounded like an old wives tale to me, but hearing it from two people independently made me nervous.
Never shaved my head, but I’ve alternated between having a beard or being clean shaven umpteen times over the years. I’ve never had the impression that a year of daily shaving has made my next beard any less full than the last.
It has, however, seemed to cause an increasing amount of gray in each new beard I grow. So be careful about that side effect.
Plucking hairs (waxing, epilators, tweezing) can damage the follicle enough that not all may grow back, but you should be fine with shaving. Years of shaving my legs did nothing to halt any growth, but using an epilator for several years has stopped some of them.
This urban legend seems prevalent in the Mexican community in SoCal- you see lots of Hispanic kids getting their heads shaved bald by moms & grandmas who are convinced it will get them better hair.
From the personal experience file, I shaved my head and when it started growing back I discovered a bald patch at the back that I wasn’t previously aware of.
It doesn’t grow back “wrong”, but six inches of tightly-curled hair is nature’s own combover.
You have to do it under the right moon, of course.
I shaved my head and when I started growing it again about 9 months later my hairline had started to creep up near the temples, where before I had no indication whatsoever of it. It may have been coincidental and would’ve happened anyway, but I don’t know.