Although you might think your hair is thicker after you shave, it really isn’t. And this is true regardless of whether you shave your bikini area, legs, arms or armpits. When you shave, your razor cuts away the hair from the surface of the skin, but it does not remove the hair entirely, just part of it. The rest of the hair strand and root are still underneath the skin’s surface.

Once the hairs start to emerge back through the surface of your skin, they may look and feel thicker due to the blunt end from where the razor cut the hair, but they really aren’t.

The act of shaving does not make your hair grow back faster, your genetics do. Hair texture and regrowth are determined by your gene pool. Some people have more hair than others; some people have thicker hair than others; and, everyone’s hair grows back at different rates. For instance, a person with fine, fairer colored body hair might not have to shave as often as someone with naturally dark, thick body hair.

Just like how body hair grows back at different rates for different people, the hair on various areas of your body also can grow back at different speeds. For example, armpit hair generally grows back 50 percent quicker than the hair on our legs. This is why if you shave both areas, you may shave your armpits more frequently than your legs.

Since shaving only cuts away a portion of the hair, other hair removal methods may keep hair from growing back for longer periods of time. For example, waxing works to remove hair from the root, which may result in hair taking longer to grow past the skin’s surface. Epilation, which removes hair mechanically, and laser hair removal are both longer lasting solutions.