Also called plucking, tweezing is a little more meticulous and painful than shaving, but also requires fewer materials and can be quicker and less messy if you just want to do a quick trim or shape.
The short answer is no, it is not necessary to do anything to your pubic hair. Shaving your pubic hair is a personal choice. Pubic hair may help protect your genitalia from infection and friction. Removing your pubic hair comes with the risk of getting cuts or ingrown hairs.
If you've only got one stray hair causing you grief, tweezing it is probably the best option, but if you are looking to cover more ground, and waxing your eyebrows makes you see stars, you're likely better off shaving because plucking can be painful (via Makeup and Beauty).
Tweezing. It's a little time-consuming and can be painful, but tweezing your pubes is a low-risk way to get rid of stray curlies along the bikini line. According to Dr. White, this method plucks hair out at the root without irritating the skin (the way waxing or a depilatory can).
“When done correctly, plucking removes the entire hair from the follicle, keeping it from growing back for up to 6 weeks.
Pros: Tweezing is useful for shaping eyebrows and removing stray hairs on the face and body. Cons: Besides being a slow and painful option, tweezing can break the hair instead of pulling it out, which can cause thicker regrowth. Also, there's a risk of infection if the tweezers are not properly sterilized.
However, repeated ripping of the hair from its follicle via waxing or plucking (which is essentially the same thing, when you think about it) will make hair grow back thicker, darker and coarser… and frequently, more plentiful and faster to re-grow.
Laser hair removal or electrolysis
Laser hair removal and electrolysis are both considered “permanent” methods to denude pubes: both eliminate hair follicles so hair doesn't grow back.
The main difference, perhaps between shaving and plucking is that when you pluck your hair, you tend to get even the hair roots out. Thereby, when your hair regrows, you will instantly see the fine tip of the hair instead of the coarse base that you see when you shave.
Plucking can actually damage the hair follicle causing it to send a message that there's no real need for it to produce hair in this area. The result? Potential bald spots. It can also ruin the texture of your hair and is not a permanent fix.
Pulling out hair by your root may damage your follicle temporarily, but a new bulb will eventually form, and new hair will grow again through that follicle. According to the TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, it may take a few months or more than a year in some cases.
“While there may be some degree of inflammation in the hair follicle from tweezing, generally tweezing is not considered a form of permanent hair removal and a new hair will be produced,” he says.
Ingrown hair
Shaving, waxing, or plucking pubic hairs increases your risk for an ingrown pubic hair. That can cause a small, round, sometimes painful or itchy bump to form. The bump may be filled with pus, and the skin around the bump may also become darker.
Removing pubic hair is a personal preference. Some girls trim their pubic hair, or go to a salon to have a “bikini wax”; others prefer to shave just about every day, but most just leave it alone. It's not necessary to remove the hair in this area to keep your body clean.
You can also use an epilator to remove coarser hair such as heavy facial hair and bikini or pubic hair. These epilators have more tweezer heads and stronger motors to help manage thicker hair. If you use an epilator for pubic hair, test out a small area first to be sure it doesn't irritate your skin or cause a rash.
How often you shave you shave your pubic area depends on how close of a shave you're after. Dr. Kihczak says a close shave typically lasts one or two days and requires upkeep every two to three days.
You must shave in the downwards direction as it protects you from getting razor burns or ingrown hair. Although shaving against the grain can undoubtedly give you a closer shave, it is not something you must follow if you have sensitive skin.
Compared to threading and shaving, hair will grow back slowly because it is removed from the root. But yes, with plucking, you can also witness thicker hair growing back. This is because post plucking, hair which grows back is outwards hanging and it is quite straight.
This response is known as quorum sensing. The plucked, distressed follicles secreted CCL2, a chemical that generates a white blood cell response. This generated regrowth in the plucked hairs, plus stimulated new hairs to grow.
It is certainly possible for repeated pulling to give permanent hair loss. However, in the vast majority of cases where hair is pulled from the scalp, hair grows back. If you or I were to reach up a pluck a hair, it will grow back.
Disadvantages of Tweezing:
Even when tweezing small areas of hair, such as the eyebrows, the process can become tedious and time consuming. Tweezing is not painless. Some individuals feel a sting with every hair that is pulled out of its follicle. Tweezing can also cause scarring, pitting, and ingrown hairs.