Well, I’ve lurked on these boards for a few weeks now and I can see that it seems like someone here has an answer for just about anything. So, here’s my question/problem:
I’m a male in my early 20’s. Over the past few years, I’ve started growing a bit of hair on my back. Its not ridiculously hariry or anything, but there is definitley a bit of hair, generally concentrated on the upper part and shoulders. I would really like to get rid of this. What can I do?
-I’d like a solution that I could hopefully do myself. I’d really feel funny trying to get a friend or something to help me with this. I guess I’d consider it if it were 100% necessary.
-I’d like a permanent solution if possible, but I’d be willing to do something that I had to repeat periodocally I guess.
How come hair on the back is so damned unpopular all of a sudden? The Washington Post ran a whole investigative article last year on this new twist of fashion. This is so unfair to most men! I guess it’s payback time for all the years that women felt compelled to shave their legs, wear high heels, pluck their brows, wear girdles, and all the other uncomfortable things they were forced into by fascion*. (Incidentally, I prefer natural women who don’t do any of those artificial things.)
My advice, brother, is just to love yourself the way you are and don’t feel you need to change for anyone or anything.
Unless you’re a swimmer; in that case, I bet the speed swimmer community has plenty of tips for achieving 100% hairless bodies.
I’m a man and I have hair on my back and I’m happily leaving it in its natural state. Anyone doesn’t like it, fine, keep your opinions to yourself. I guess I’m a little sore about everyone dissing back hair these days. Even in the SDMB’s IMHO. “What turns you off?” “Men with back hair EEEWWW GROSS!!!” So go date a swimmer with no eyebrows! That should please you just fine!
Did you know that in 17th-century France, “back beards” were in style, and men competed to see who could grow the furriest?
*Fascion is a portmanteau word I just coined, combining “fashion” and “fascist.”
You are in your 20’s and already developing more hair than you’d like. What to do?
The condition will ‘worsen’ (if that is your opinion) with age. In other words, you will more grow more, and denser hair over the next 30 years (not overnight!).
You could:
Hormone treatment - absolutely WORST option (IMO) - will not dicuss further
Electrolysis - insert an electrically charged needle into each and ever follicle, then zapping (and killing) the follicle - expensive, but permanent - FOR ONLY THE FOLLICLES TREATED - as you age, additional follicles will come online, and need to be dealt with.
Shave - much harder for males than female, btw
Depilatory - “Nair” - many women use this to remove arm/leg hair - kinda unpleasant - research!
Forget electrolysis, think laser hair removal. It really works, although it may take several treatments till every last follicle is dead. It’s also hellishly expensive - you’d really have to be quite rich to do your entire back effectively - and very painful. But the thing is, it works.
It’s not done one hair at a time, either - each “zap” gets many hairs.
Nair works too. My old roommate used to use it on his back.
Yeah, I betcha that on a back, a depilatory would work great. The trick is being flexible enough to put it on, or have someone do it for you…or maybe you could use one of those long wooden spoons…(I’m being totally serious. Spread yourself down like it’s icing on a cake)
I remember a gay friend of mine had a hairy back, knew that i had recently got NADS, and asked if I could come over and sugar his back hair off. It hurt, but we still got the giggles over the absurdity of it all. You know, hetero woman pulling hair off a gay man’s back. It didn’t grow back for awhile. So you may want to try waxing or sugaring. It worked for my friend. But you’d need another person there for the actual work.
Save it and later on you could transplant it to your head. I am said to have a very hairy back and so what? Look around the world and realize how utterly trivial your “problems” are.
My FAA medical examiner has posters in his waiting room for laser hair removal. (Hey, I’ve got to read something while I’m waiting for my little piece of paper that says I’m unlikely to snuff it at the controls!) IIRC, the posters said that laser hair removal is permanent.
I started shaving my head 8 years ago. Last year my chest hair started invading my shoulders, so I started shaving them too. I guess that in another few years I will have trouble reaching all the way down my back to get all the hairs, but I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it. I know women who dig a smooth scalp, women who dig a hairy chest, but I have yet to meet a woman who digs a hairy back. My opinion is the same as furt’s on it.
I have seen a product on TV called eppel-stop, just spray on and wipe off. They showed a demonstration of some guy with a very hairy back. But this will not be perminent. And remember that if you shave it will grow back thicker.
i’ve talked to several people who’ve used epil stop-and-spray.
it didn’t work. for people who didn’t have sensitive skin, it did squat. for people with sensitive skin, it severely irritated the skin, and a couple of them had chemical burns. :eek:
You got a cite for that? I believe this is an old wives tale.
Anyway, the laser is probably the fastest permanent solution. It is a bit expensive though and probably overkill for your situation. Electrolysis is a bit slower, but it’s the only other pemanent moethod of removing hair. I’m guessing you would need 1-2 hours to clear the whole area but for a small area it’s less expensive than laser.
You can expect to pay $45-$80/hr for electrolysis and you may need 1 or 2 followup visits.
I tried a hair removal cream on my legs. Most of it worked okay, but a few dabs got on the backs of my knees, where I got a painful chemical burn. Owowowowow. For four days I couldn’t sleep on my back, I had to be very careful sitting down, and was stuck wearing one pair of very loose-fitting pants. What would you do with a burn like that on your shoulders and back? If you do decide to try something like this, do a sensitivity test first and follow the directions carefully.
But better yet, don’t do anything - I like fuzzy guys!!
There’s a massive, multi-billion dollar industry designed to make people feel inadequate about what is natural. Look in any women’s magazine, and you’ll see ads everywhere - body hair removal, skin cleansing, etc etc etc. Jomo Mojo’s new word “fascion” is brilliant. The industry sells extremely expensive solutions to non-existent problems. It preys on fears that it creates.
When I first lived in Asia nearly all the girls I dated had (to take an example) un-shaven underarms (and un-shaven down there, too). Normal. Put there by mother nature - and, in my view, rather fetching. Since then, the fascion industry has done a serious hard-sell in Asia, warning women how terrible it is to have body hair, to have anything more than a 24" waist, etc etc. So now girls spend half their income on ridiculous creams, lotions, and all the other garbage.
Amazingly, having saturated the female market, this industry is now targeting guys. I am often approached in shopping malls by women sales reps in white coats trying to interest me in men’s perfume. HUH??
And now we have poor r-Damon thinking there’s something wrong with hair on his back. It’s normal. Natural. Why did Sean Connery get laid so often in the early James Bond movies? Because of the hair on his back! Drives women wild. Relax.