Female Body Hair and Other Fascinating Subjects

Um, mine doesn't.

If I wait week, it might be back to the same length. But, if I wait a month...

Phoenix - first of all, you need something else to think about. :wink:

and, how do you know it grows to the same length? I've never really studied my leg hair, so I wouldn't know how long it grows; I just know that it grows continuously like the hair on my head.
Possibly it only reaches a certain length/point and since it's so fine, it just starts to split and break due to constant contact with stockings/pants.

something to do with body temperature phoenix? I dunno just guessing when the body senses that skin temp is right the hair stops growing.

Hair doesnt know to stop growing. It just keeps going on and on..

Your jeans, skin, and basic friction on the skin are what work the hairs down to a certain size.

I am willing to bet you that the hair on the backs of your legs are a much diffrent length then the hair on the front of your calves.



ohh.. and we DO have hair follicles on the bottoms of our feet, and the palms of our hands..
you just cant see it with the naked eye, and constant friction stops it from really getting past the skin.
we are literally covered with hair..

Hair on any part of your body grows in stages Phoenix. There's a growth phase, a dormant phase and a shedding stage.

At any given time, all your hair is at any given stage, independant of the others.

The growth stage varies on different parts of your body. The growth stage on your head may be years, the growth stage on the top of your big toe may be a week.

This is why, when you go for laser hair removal, you need to to several times, spaced a number of weeks apart. You can only zap the follicle when it's in the growth stage, and it takes time to catch all of them when they are growing.

So, the hair on your legs is only obeying its follicle command to grow for a certain about of time, then it stops growing, finally, it falls out as the follicle begins to produce another hair under the skin.

Chai- OK- But the hairs are all in different stages of the cycle. Then a person shaves them off, all at once, and they all grow back, at the same time, to the same length they were before she shaved them. THAT'S what I don't get!!!

My nose hair grows particularly fast and I usually have to trim it when it starts mingling with my moustache, which is about three times a month.

Do any of you ladies have that problem?

(And, yes, for sake of convenience I will thrust dadpad into the lady category. Sorry, old boy.)

If Phoenix starts talking about her fingernails and toenails and wonders why they grow back to the same length, well, at that point I think we should all jump on her, tie her up, and gag her until she settles down.

Jesus Friggin Christ.

See what us old broads, who have nothing to do but contemplate their navels, do for fun?

('nother old broad, who has often wondered the same thing, wades in...)

I read somewhere (so it must be true!) that our body hair is designed not for warmth but to prevent friction. It's concentrated in the underarms and groin so that when you walk you won't squeak. The lighter, sparser hairs on our arms and legs are more of a sensory thing -- detecting the direction of the air, etc. Therefore, hair only needs to be so long and no longer.

So maybe a better question would be: Why does the head hair, including men's beards and Gus's nose hair, continue to lengthen?

Tico - As far as men's hair is concerned, that is regulated by hormones.
For those who are interested (ya listening' Gus?) I once read somewhere that men with eyebrows that grow straight across without a break, or are particularly bushy, have higher levels of testosterone than average.

Anyone have any more info on that?

My eybrow grows in a continuous circle around my head.

It looks like Jesus's ring of thorns or whatever they called that thing.

I was always under the assumption that tico was some sixteen year old Peruvian kid.

I'd better start paying attention. I'd hate to miss out on some of these old broads.

Ah...but there's the problem!

The hairs you are shaving off are NOT ALL growing back.

Only the hairs that were in the actual growth phase grow back. The hairs that are dormant don't grow, the hair shaft below the skin surface just lies there, dormant. The hairs that were in the shedding stage don't reappear either.

The thing is, the growth stage is the longest of the stages, so more hairs are in that stage at any given time.

If you were to mark the spots on your skin where the follicles are, then shave that area, you'd see that not all of them would grow back. Most, but not all. If you let the area alone, you would see after a while that hairs are starting to grow out of follicles you hadn't even marked. There's just so many of them it looks like they are all growing back.

The hair on your head is a good example, because it's grow phase can be years. However, when you brush your hair, you see that you lose a bunch of hairs every day, yet you do not go bald. There's always hairs that are just starting to grow, to replace the ones that just shed.

I guess that's why, if you never get your hair cut, it starts looking shaggy or fuzzy, it better shows that there's hair of all different lengths all over your head. Keeping your hair trimmed hides that.

Chai- Thanks. That sounds like a reasonable explanation. And no, I do not plan to mark off where I have shaved my legs.

And now I really want to know about Gus' eyebrows! :wink:

Yeah, Chai's got it I think.

The only thing I'd add is that I think all hair has some sort of terminal length, that it just won't grow past. I mean, you don't see chimpanzees that look like Cousin It. I think various hairs on our bodies are "preset" to grow to a certain length, and that the lengths vary not only by body part but by person.

That's related to what Tico already said. I also read that in addition to controlling friction it's supposed to hold scents, in the pheromone/ attraction sense. Sounds gross to us, but evolutionarily-speaking...

I know that some people's head hair has a terminal length, too. I had a friend when I was a kid who desperately wanted long hair, but it just wasn't happening. It tapered off to a sad little stringy end just past her shoulder blades, and wouldn't get longer than that. (The longest ones would fall out, new ones would grow to about that length and then fall out, etc.) I saw her about 5 years ago and was shocked at how thick her hair was -- she'd accepted nature and had a (very flattering) short cut. It was just the stringiness for the last 5 inches or so that had made her hair seem so thin when she was a girl.

Hey this is interesting, I was checking whether chimpanzees actually have hair or fur, and found this:

http://mednews.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/4405.html

Evidently the hair on our bodies is basically fur, if sparse, and then the hair on our heads is something else.

I have always wondered about that!!!


Thanks Soz.


Man, we're a weird looking animal.

Aw, with you it's the ears that are a standout!

Coming from a semi naked ape, that didn't dent the armour.