You’ve probably heard with that if you shave hair, it will grow back coarser, darker, thicker and/or faster. This is an urban legend, and you should ignore others who try to tell you that it’s true. Shaving the hair will never result in coarser hair, but many people suggest that as it starts to grow back it feels more coarse or stubbly.

After you’ve shaved hair and it begins to grow back, it certainly does feel prickly. This is because it is still relatively short. The longer the hair grows, the softer it tends to become. Women may recount how the hair on their legs before they began shaving was relatively soft, and that now it seems to be very hard and spiky. This is generally because once you begin shaving, you don’t allow for the hair to get to the length where it would naturally soften. Instead you continue to shave, so hairs growing in do seem coarser.

The same is true for men when they first begin to shave. Having shaved hair, men notice that new growth is stubble, and if they keep shaving they’ll always feel that the growing hair tends to feel itchy. On the other hand, a man who decides to give up shaving to grow a beard or mustache usually finds that hair gets past the stubbly point and becomes smoother and softer, the longer that hair is allowed to grow.

Some contend that shaved hair comes back darker. There actually may be a little truth to this. First off, as men and women age, their hair darkens. So when they start shaving, the hair that grows in may actually be darker, especially after a long period of time. This is not caused by shaving, but by aging. Second, if your hair is exposed, like the hair on your head, sun exposure will lighten it somewhat. When new growth appears after you’ve shaved hair, it may seem darker than what you cut off. It actually is darker, not because it is shaved hair, but because it hasn’t had time to be exposed to the lightening effects of the sun.

People may also be deeply concerned about plucking gray hairs or whether or not they should shave gray hair. There are various adages about how “killing one gray hair means others will come to its funeral.” If your hair has begun graying, then having more gray hairs gradually show up is not surprising. You have not affected the hair cycle of aging by removing a gray hair or by having shaved hair. Where there’s one gray hair, there are likely to be more in the near future.

Some people may ask then why people who get frequent haircuts tend to end up with thicker hair. This actually has to do with women or men who wish to grow their hair longer. As the hair grows, damage from the elements, brushing, and blowdrying will cause some hair ends to split. When they split, they can split all the way up to the top of the hair and fall out, or simply not grow any longer. By cutting off split ends, hair remains in unsplit and thus thicker form, and actually may grow more quickly, when a minimal amount is trimmed every four to six weeks.