There's really no right or wrong age for kids to begin shaving. It all depends on when their body changes and their interest level. For instance, some girls start puberty as young as age 8 or 9, while boys start puberty a little later.
It's also completely normal if your teen wants to shave places other than their face, such as their legs, arms, or pubic area (aka manscaping). While there aren't any health consequences to shaving, it IS important for your teen to understand that shaving these other areas is different than shaving their face.
“Some girls start shaving their legs as early as age 10 or 11, some girls don't even think about shaving legs up to age 20 and others don't want to shave at all,” Dr. Kronborg added. “The same goes for boys. They may want to try and grow a full beard while others feel more comfortable shaving.”
Your son probably won't have to shave every day, at least for a while. Once a week may be all that's necessary. Encourage him to shave only when needed, to avoid unnecessarily irritating the skin.
Infections. As mentioned above, pubic hair serves a protective function by trapping pathogens that could otherwise enter your body. Removing pubic hair may therefore make a person more susceptible to common infections, such as UTIs, vaginitis, and yeast infections.
Laser hair removal and electrolysis are both considered “permanent” methods to denude pubes: both eliminate hair follicles so hair doesn't grow back.
Benefits of Waxing
Not only does waxing keep hair off long, but it comes in less coarse and thick. Because waxing pulls the hair out with the root, it makes it harder to grow back. Waxing can be better for sensitive skin. Shaving can cause ingrown hairs, reaction to the metal of the razor, and dry your skin.
Whether you give much thought to it or not, hair grows all over your body. Body hair is completely normal, even on your buttocks and between your butt cheeks. This type of hair is called vellus hair, and it exists to protect your skin.
Experts think the urge to pull hair happens because the brain's chemical signals (called neurotransmitters) don't work properly. This creates the irresistible urges that lead people to pull their hair. Pulling the hair gives the person a feeling of relief or satisfaction.
An occasional itch anywhere on the body, even your pubic area, is probably nothing to worry about. Itchy pubic hair that persists, however, may be caused by allergies, damage to the hair follicles, or an infection.
Your pubic hair region is more sensitive than your armpits and legs. So one reason why you might be hurting down there when the hair starts to grow back is because of razor burn, which can be itchy or painful. Another reason why you might be uncomfortable is because shaving can trigger ingrown hair growth.
Plucking your pubic hair can be painful and takes a long time. Plucking can cause redness, swelling, itching, irritation, and damage to the skin. It can also result in ingrown hairs (where the hair curls backward or sideways under the skin) and infection.
Club hairs are an end product of final hair growth and feature a bulb of keratin (protein) at the root tip of a strand. This bulb keeps the hair in the follicle until it sheds and the hair growth cycle starts over.
Some girls have extra hair on their bodies because of genetics — some people have less body hair and others have more, so if your mom or sister also has nipple hair, it may just run in the family. Girls might also have extra hair because their bodies make too much of a hormone called androgen.
Peach fuzz — or vellus hair — is a translucent, soft hair that appears during childhood. We all have it but it is just more noticeable on some people.
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.
A common cause of folliculitis is recently shaved hairs that regrow out of the follicle and curl back around. Time loss. To keep the pubic area smooth and hairless, you'll need to shave regularly, even daily. Consider if this is worth the trouble; it may become tedious after four or five weeks.
Pubic hair removal is common — approximately 80 percent of women ages 18 to 65 report they remove some or all of their pubic hair.
“There is no medical reason that you need to be removing or trimming some or all of your pubic hair,” says Nina Carroll, MD, OB/GYN, of Your Doctors Online. According to Carroll, the risk of infection — be it bacterial, yeast, or sexually transmitted — is not higher or lower based on your pubic hair practices.