Waxing is a time-consuming, painful process, and it can be frustrating to find out that hair is still growing afterwards! If you’ve noticed places where hair is peeking through your wax, you might be wondering, can I shaved miss hairs after waxing?
While you can shave missed hairs after waxing, you run the risk of having the hair grow back in darker due to the blunt ends a shaving razor leaves with the hair shaft. Shaving missed hairs after waxing can also cause stubble to appear after your next wax.
If you’re planning on shaving even after a wax, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages to this strategy. Let’s learn more about why shaving after waxing can be necessary and the benefits and downsides to breaking out the razor again.
Why You Might Need to Shave After Waxing
There are a few reasons hair is growing back between waxes, which may cause you to turn back to your old friend, the razor, for help shaving down hair. Here are some of the reasons you may need to shave after waxing:
- Your wax missed hairs
- You are waxing too frequently
- Medical Causes
Let’s take a more detailed look into the reasons listed above for hair presence after waxing.
Your Wax Missed Hairs
If your wax missed hairs, make sure that your waxing techniques are correct. For example, if you waxed without taking into account the direction your hair is growing and removing in the opposite direction, there won’t be enough power behind the pull to remove hair.
Instead, you may just wind up with broken hair. Be sure to take careful note of which way the hair you’re waxing is growing.
Another reason you may have missed hairs in your waxing process is thanks to hair length. Remember, a wax only works if the hair shafts are ¼ of an inch or longer. Otherwise, the wax won’t be able to get a good grip on the hair it is removing.
Missed hair is a common reason for shaving even after a wax.
You Are Waxing Too Frequently
Waxing too frequently is an issue because hair can grow back unevenly, causing you to miss hairs. Some hair may get ripped out in an uneven wax, as planned, while the late blooming hair hides beneath the surface.
According to experts at Sienna Professional Waxing, to avoid this, make sure to let your hair grow out as long as you can stand it before waxing.
A good rule of thumb is to wait 2 to 5 weeks between waxes, otherwise you’ll be dealing with shaving missed hairs.
Medical Causes
There are a few medical causes that may be limiting the effectiveness of your last wax.
One example of this is a hormonal imbalance, leaving you with too much testosterone, which encourages hair growth in areas like the legs or under the arms.
Another medical cause could be polycystic ovary syndrome, a symptom of which causes thicker hair to grow on the body. These medical issues can leave you with hair that bounces back after a wax, causing some to return to shaving.
Advantages to Shaving Missed Hairs After Waxing
There are advantages to shaving your missed hairs, even after a wax. Let’s go over a few of them in the list below:
- Quick Removal of Visible Hair
- Less Pain
Understanding the advantages to shaving missed hairs after waxing is essential to deciding what to do about them. Let’s look more closely at the details surrounding these benefits to shaving.
Quick Removal of Visible Hair
A wax requires picking out the correct wax, heating it to the necessary temperature, and applying the wax to yourself. It is a commitment! Even choosing to spend money on a waxing service is more time consuming than a simple shave.
Shaving may still be a time investment, but it is faster than a wax. This is especially true if you aren’t going for a complete shave, and are only focusing on missed hairs.
Less Pain
Waxing is a useful practice, but there’s no avoiding one simple fact: waxing can hurt! When you apply wax and rip it away properly, the very roots of your hair are coming out with it.
However, if you are carefully shaving, and especially if the area is not sensitive, shaving is much less painful than waxing.
Disadvantages to Shaving Missed Hairs After Waxing
Now that the advantages of shaving have been covered, it is only fair and useful that we understand the disadvantages to shaving missed hairs. The list below shows some of the reasons why shaving missed hairs after waxing might not be a good idea:
- Shaving Causes Blunt Hair Ends
- Shaving Affects Individual Hair Cycles
Let’s take a look at the details of these disadvantages to shaving missed hairs after waxing so that you can make an informed decision.
Shaving Causes Blunt Hair Ends
Waxing your hair is beneficial because it removes all of the hair from a follicle. That gives hair a clean start when it does grow back, which not only takes longer, but means that the hair which returns is fine and tapered on the end.
This is important to go over, because shaving missed hairs does the opposite. Shaving missed hairs leaves the end of the hairs the razor cuts blunt. That will leave hair that does grow back looking dark and even thicker than it was before.
Shaving Affects Individual Hair Cycles.
Just as improper waxing can lead to variations in hair regrowth times, so can shaving missed hairs after waxing. If you decide to shave spots that weren’t removed by a wax process, you could wind up with different lengths of hair.
It follows that if an effective wax needs hair to be a certain length, differences in length caused by shaving can lead to an ineffective wax. You may even wind up with stubble after you leave your next waxing appointment!
Summary
In conclusion, though shaving missed hairs is possible after a wax, it is important to note the disadvantages. Shaving missed hairs can quickly remove the signs of hair, but may lead to an uneven or incomplete wax next time.
Other articles
- How long does it take leg hair to grow back?
- Can You Use the Same Razor for Armpits and Legs?
- Can Shaving Razors Rust?
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