What is the point of body hair? (2023)

Is body hair necessary in humans?

Human body hair no longer has any survival value, but it still retains importance when it comes to epidermal homeostasis (the maintenance of skin tissue integrity), wound healing, and skin tumorigenesis (the generation of tumors in the skin).

Deciding to remove body hair is a personal choice. Getting rid of body hair doesn't make a person healthier, and you shouldn't feel pressured to do so if you don't want to. Some cultures view body hair as beautiful and natural, so do what feels right to you!

The main purpose of body hair is to help regulate our temperature in addition to keeping dirt out of our body (in areas such as our eyes and nostrils).

Back in the neolithic days, hair would protect the skin from cuts, grazes, and the Sun kept the body warm, and even worked well as camouflage. Through the years, as humans, we have developed through evolution, and our hair waned in texture, thickness and colour, and there are a number of possible reasons for this.

When you're not removing hair, the skin will be softer, more supple, and less inflamed." (When other areas of your skin become irritated, try some of these ​DIY remedies.) Your hair won't really be thicker. That's just a rumor (just like these 6 pubic hair myths you need to stop believing).

In the 1920s, the new fashion for sleeveless tops and short dresses meant that the legs and armpits of American women were now visible in social situations, and advertisers seized the opportunity to encourage women to shave their legs and their armpits.

Marc Glashofer, a dermatologist and fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, claims that the texture of pubic hair tends to be thicker and more coarse than hair on the rest of our body because of its origins as a buffer. “It prevents friction during intercourse that can cause skin abrasion and rashes,” he says.

Many tweens and teens want to shave, and there are no health reasons for them to wait. It's reasonable to allow them to shave when they think they're ready to do so. On the other hand, some tweens and teens will not be interested in shaving at all, and that is fine.

First thing's first: There's no age when girls should start shaving. In fact, girls don't have to shave at all if they don't want to. (And, on the flip side, some boys may want to — and that's OK.)

Shaving anywhere on the body, including arms and armpits, comes with the potential for ingrown hairs, razor burn, and skin irritation.

Is it OK if I don't shave my legs?

So what do you have to keep in mind when letting your leg, underarm, bikini, or facial hair grow free? Honestly, not much. Experts agree that, for the most part, you don't have to put much additional effort into taking care of your skin once you stop shaving. In fact, you might notice some added skin benefits.

Safe Against The Bumps

The skin covering your armpits is loose, wrinkly, and well, just isn't conducive to shaving. Also, if you have been shaving regularly, you may have developed some bumps under your arms, which greatly increases the chances of a cut.

On the other end of the spectrum are American Indians and Asians, who have the least hair on their bodies out of all ethnicities. All of the other races fall somewhere in between. These claims are echoed by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Weiss speculates that one of the main reasons that human beings uniquely evolved a “thick bush of wiry hair” around their genital regions is its visual signaling of sexual maturation. (It also likely serves as a primitive odor trap and aids in the wafting of human pheromones.)

H. Harris, publishing in the British Journal of Dermatology in 1947, wrote American Indians have the least body hair, Chinese and black people have little body hair, white people have more body hair than black people and Ainu have the most body hair.

Then there's the regrowth stage: Shaved hair grows back after a couple of days, and when it does it can be prickly or itchy. This can leave you feeling uncomfortable. There's also a chance some hairs will become ingrown. This means that the hair that's trying to grow back gets trapped under the skin.

If you want to simply trim or style pubic hair, use a pair of scissors, electric razor or bikini trimmers to cut the pubic hair to the desired length. When trimming hair around areas that are not clearly visible, grab a mirror so you can see what you are doing and minimize chances of error, cuts or irritation.

Full Body Hair Removal of the '80s

With more exposure came a growing desire to remove hair around the bikini line, in addition to other areas of the body like the legs and armpits. Brazilian waxes, a beauty treatment consisting of removing all pubic hair, became a standard by the '80s.

It reduces friction

Armpit hair prevents skin-to-skin contact when doing certain activities, such as running and walking. The same thing happens with pubic hair, as it reduces friction during sex and other activities.

Is it normal for a woman to not have armpit hair?

There's no set of “period rules” that say first armpit hair then period, or vice versa. And in some cases women grow very little to no underarm hair at all. That's just what's normal for them. Some hairy divas, like myself, might even consider it lucky!

The Longest Pubic Hair In History Was 28 inches.

Pubic hair and hair on the body doesn't usually grow back after the menopause, this is due to levels of estrogen and progesterone remaining low as we continue to age.

Helps control moisture in the genital area

Pubic hair controls moisture by wicking it up and away from the skin.

Pubic hair of infancy is due to transiently elevated androgen levels in the first few months of life and increased sensitivity of sexual hair follicles to androgens. Precocious puberty can be differentiated by the concomitant appearance of pubic hair with breast development in girls or testicular enlargement in boys.

Yes, it's normal! Let's get straight to the point: butt hair is perfectly normal, just like having hair on your legs and hair down there (aka pubic hair). In fact, most people have hair on their butt cheeks, in between their butt cheeks, or in both places.

Premature pubarche, or the development of pubic hair before the age of 8 in girls or 9 in boys, is most commonly caused by premature adrenarche. Adrenarche is the maturation of the adrenal zona reticularis in both boys and girls, resulting in the development of pubic hair, axillary hair, and adult apocrine body odor.

Some feel as though it's a social construct that they wish to avoid, others simply feel more comfortable and authentic in their skin if they don't do it. But it's not a set formula--not everyone who doesn't shave is a feminist, and not everyone who is a feminist doesn't shave.

According to the book "The body project", women started shaving their legs in the 1920's when skirts became shorter.

Not shaving reduces skin-on-skin contact friction, which means when you do activities that involve arm movement, like running or walking, your skin is much less likely to get irritated by the friction. This might lead to fewer skin issues like rashes and ingrown hairs.

What body parts should you not shave?

Shaving, whether it's your legs, armpits, or pubic area, is a personal choice. You certainly don't have to shave before sex if you don't want to. Shaving pubic hair (or not) is a cosmetic preference, and it does not mean you are "cleaner" if you shave.

Leg, chest and back hair

A quarter (26%) find men's hairy legs attractive (21% of men and 30% of women said this). Among 16-24-year-old women, 57% – a rate significantly more than any other age/gender group – say hairy legs on women are neither attractive nor unattractive.

Body hair is normal, and it exists for an evolutionary reason: To keep us warm. But too much of a good thing can be a sign that something else is going on in your body.

It's caused by an excess of male hormones called androgens. All women naturally produce small amounts of androgens. But high levels of this hormone can lead to hirsutism.

In Europe, women don't shave their armpits. Many actually add hair to their armpits which they have collected from pets and farm animals. On the other hand, all European men, without exception, shave their armpits. They go to a special European barbershop called an armpiterie.

Armpits. Armpit hair can be a friendly forest for odor-causing bacteria, so keep it as short as possible. Trim it every couple of weeks with scissors or a trimmer. If you want it gone, use a razor in the shower, just like your wife does.

Of the 4,044 men surveyed, 68 percent said they trim their armpit hair; 52 percent said they do it for aesthetics, and 16 percent said they do it for athletic reasons. (About 1 in 10 guys surveyed said they never trim their armpit hair.)

Alopecia universalis (AU), also known as alopecia areata universalis, is a medical condition involving the loss of all body hair, including eyebrows, eyelashes, chest hair, armpit hair, and pubic hair.

Human ancestors were able to lose most of their body hair because they had the unique ability to compensate with fire, shelter and clothing. That explains why our human ancestors could survive without most of their hair, but not why it disappeared over time.

What are the advantages of humans lacking body hair?

Humans, by virtue of being able to build fires, construct shelters and produce clothes, would have been able to lose their fur and thereby reduce the numbers of parasites they were carrying without suffering from the cold at night or in colder climates.

The reason for this is not known but it could be due to poorer circulation, lower free circulating hormone amounts or other reasons. Lower amount of body and facial hair in men can accompany sever disorders such as Klinefelter syndrome, hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and XX male syndrome.

This was true of both men and women.> 74% of men chose the completely hairless body or the nearly hairless body. 81.3% of women chose the completely hairless body or the nearly hairless body. The more hair the body had, the less women and men found it attractive.

Fluctuations in hormones can cause a variety of symptoms, including darkening nipple hair. These fluctuations can occur during times of significant hormonal change, such as pregnancy and menopause. Subtle hormonal changes also occur in a woman's 20s and 30s, and they can result in changes in your hair as well.

Fun fact: We have hair follicles covering just about every inch of our bodies. The only guaranteed hairless spots are the lips, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet.

Recently, researchers uncovered a genetic clue about why humans have no tails. They identified a so-called jumping gene related to tail growth that may have leaped into a different location in the genome of a primate species millions of years ago. And in doing so, it created a mutation that took our tails away.

Head hair, meanwhile, became thicker and more luxuriant, protecting our ancestors' brains from the midday sun, and also retaining heat in the cold. Genetic evidence suggests that we became furless around 1.7 million years ago.

Shaving exfoliates by removing the dead cells every time the razor glides across the surface of the skin. Nazarian says that if you stop shaving, you will accumulate a layer of skin at the top of the epidermis, making it a little tougher for products like moisturizers to penetrate and be effective.

Part of the perception that your pubic hair grows much faster than the hair on your head may be due to the growth cycle it follows. With pubic hair—and other body hair—the entire process takes about 30 to 44 days, Dr. Hazen says.

For most women, this occurs sometime between the ages of 44 and 55. When your ovaries stop producing estrogen and progesterone—two hormones key to menstruating—this is when you go into menopause. Estrogen and progesterone also happen to be linked to your hair's health, including its growth.

Do Asians have no body hair?

The body hair of Asians differs from that of other races in a number of ways. Asians have shorter, straighter, thinner, and less body hair than Caucasians and black individuals. Since a case reported by Itin et al. in 1994, research studies of knotted body hair have rarely been reported.