A lot of men are confused as to whether or not they need to shave their chests. Is this a tactic that will make them more attractive or will it turn them into a smooth-chested tweenie? I have struggled with the prospect of shaving my chest for years now. My problem is that I have so much chest hair that tight t-shirts have a puffy, lumpy look to them around my upper chest area.
Do you really need to shave your chest? It depends on how you will feel about having a smooth chest. Will you like yourself more, or will you be stressed out knowing that when it grows back in that you will have to deal with itchiness and ingrown hairs. In general, completely shaving your chest is not a good plan, a quick trim is fine.
Shaving Chest Hair Side Effects
The reason that I feel that you should not completely shave your chest is because of some of side effects. Now, of course if you are careful and diligent you are going to lessen these strange side effects. Nevertheless, you need to aware of what can occur if you constantly shave down your chest to make it super smooth.
I am not saying that every man in the world should not shave his chest. There are certain situations where it is advantageous. For instance, if you are a professional bodybuilder, having a smooth chest is going to highlight your chest muscles and it will affect positively your placements,
Another profession is that of a pro swimmer. It will reduce the drag that chest hair could have caused while swimming. Swimmers neat to glide through the water and any body hair at all will affect their speed.Here are the side effects that can occur by shaving down your chest:
Here are the side effects that can occur by shaving down your chest:
Stubble that Causes Itchiness
You may think that you are removing completely chest hairs by shaving with a sharp razor. Actually, this is not possible, there will be tiny fragments that remain that will sprout from your chest in just a few days. When stubble appears, you will experience itchiness since your shirt will be rubbing against this area constantly. I guess that you were to go shirtless for a few days that you could by-pass this stubbly period, but that is not a practical option for 99 percent of the population.
Ingrown Hair Due to Shaving Your Chest
I actually have to deal with ingrown hairs on my chest even though I rarely trim my chest. Just imagine how many inflamed follicles I would have to deal with if I were to start to regularly shave my pecs.
The reason for the ingrown hairs on the chest is due to the fact that chest hairs are curly. Once you have chopped off a curled hair, it may start to grow into the skin. The point on a shaved hair is very fine and most likely is it not split at all, making it possible for the hair to grow into the skin once it starts to be pushed out of the follicle.
Another reason for the ingrown hairs is simply because people tend to scratch away at their chest while the stubble is growing back in. While scratching, you are bending the hairs and you may be pushing them back into the follicle which increases the chance of them becoming ingrown.
Redness and Inflamed Follicles
Besides forcing a hair to re-enter the follicle by scratching your chest, you are also introducing bacteria into the hair follicles. Even though you may feel that have super clean fingernails, we all have bacteria that survive underneath the fingernails just because of daily exposure to germs.
When you scratch your chest, you are exposing your follicles to this fingernail bacteria. Your follicles are probably already sensitive because of your recent shaving. Believe it or not, shaving is not a natural thing for anyone to do. How many apes have you seen at the zoo that have a nicely shaved chest?
Also, just by tearing away at your chest, you are creating red welts that are not the look that you were aiming for. Personally, I know that I tend to scratch away at my shaved neck while sleeping. I sometimes notice claw marks on my neck while shaving in the early morning. In other words, just be aware that you are increasing the sensitivity of your chest hair follicles by shaving and that you may have to deal with a lot of redness, at least during the first few days.
How will your Potential Partner Feel About Your Smooth Chest?
I know that you are questioning whether or not this shaving of the chest plan is going to push away a partner or a potential significant other. It seems as if since around 2012, that media is pushing the smooth chest down our throats. For instance, just look at the underwear ads that were made using David Beckham, and the popularity of the hairless chests of the band One Direction from the UK.
What you really need to be concerned about is how you personally feel about your chest hair. You are not going to be able to please or attract everyone that you find attractive.
If you are ok with your chest hair and you feel as if it matches your personality, by all means, stick with it. Nevertheless, if you find that you have patchy growth, such as having longish hairs growing around your nipples, do a quick trim if it will make you feel less self-conscious.
Personally, I do not let media dictate my length of chest hair. Do not develop the ‘cookie cutter’ mentality where you follow blindly what others are doing.
Nevertheless, if you are in love with someone, and they ask you if could trim down your carpet, maybe you should do so. If you are super hairy and someone demands that you must shave daily your chest, maybe you are dating the wrong person since they are trying to turn you into someone that you are not.
I not saying that you need to be a dating rebel, but you need to be able to draw a line from time to time. Lots of people do not realize what is involved with maintaining a shaved chest when starting with a shag carpet.
One person that I was interested in stated that they only date men with a smooth chest. I had been wearing a shirt that was buttoned to the top button at the time and my chest hair was not exposed. I know right away that if this person had zero chest hair on their ranking scale, that getting romantically involved with that person would be a big no-no. Nevertheless, we became friends.
How to Shave Chest and Stomach
Let us say that you have decided to shave your chest and you were wondering how to get even further and shave off your stomach. Having a shaved chest does require a shaved stomach unless you are looking to keep a happy trail. A happy trail is just a thin line of hair that starts from just below the belly button that trails down to your pubic hairs.
Here are some steps that you can follow for the first section, which is your chest:
- Take a quick hot shower. This will loosen up your chest hair follicles and it will add some moisture to any patches of dry skin that you might have. When you dry off, do not scrub away at your chest. Doing so can irritate it. Simply pat dry your chest with a fresh towel in a gentle way.
- Using a trimmer that is designed for body grooming, trim away just the top layer of chest hair. Make sure that you take care not to scratch your nipples with the trimmer since your nibbles are using very sensitive. Nevertheless, if there are long hairs surrounding your nibbles, trim them back. Check out my top body groomer picks by clicking here.
- The next step involves removing the guard from your trimmer to get an even closer shave. Now you should be left with very short hairs on your chest, but your chest will not be smooth yet.
- Again, be very careful around the nibbles. Just trim as close to the contours of your nibbles as possible.
- Now we are really getting down to business! Apply some shaving gel to your hands, stir it around to get it to foam up, and apply the foamy gel to your chest in circular motions. Make sure that you do not cover your nibbles, you need to know where they are at while shaving.
- Pull out a clean razor that has multiple blades. Do not use a razor that you have been using for more than a week already. You need to ensure that it does not contain a lot of bacteria or that it is full of grim. If this is your first time shaving your chest, your follicles are going to be extra sensitive which means that they can become easily irritated. I use a Gillette Mach 3 Razor, click here to view it on Amazon.
- Make a past with your razor going with the grain of hair growth. You can determine the direction of the grain by rubbing a group of hairs to see which direction has the least sensitivity. Ensure that cover all areas by shaving like you would be cutting a lawn of grass.
- Splash some warm water onto your chest and reapply some gel.
- Shave your chest going against the grain of hair growth. Jump into your shower and quickly rinse off your chest with warm water. Step out of the shower and pat dry your now smooth chest.
- Your skin will not be lubricated with its natural oils. Add some skin moisturizer to your chest. This cream will also help to reduce any redness and irritation. Congratulations, you have now joined the smooth-chested club!
- Now you are ready to shave your stomach. This area is going to be more sensitive than your chest just because of the texture of adominaux skin. This skin has a dermis that is thinner and it can be nicked easily.
- Use only your body groomer on your stomach. A razor will just create a series of small cuts as if you had been attacked by a gang of barbies bearing swords.
- Ensure that you shave right up to the border of your ribcage. If you only shave your belly, you will end up with an area that looks as if it is separate from your pecs.
Related Questions:
Should You Shave or Wax Your Chest?
The popularity of body waxing has increased over the last 5 years or so. Also, the advent of movies depicting comical waxing scenes is rampant. Furthermore, women have been waxing for years, and now men are seeing that this could really reduce down hairs, even the portion of a hair that is anchored in a follicle.
If you are a bodybuilder and complete hair removal on your chest is a must. waxing is an option. Yes, you can get a close shave with razors on your chest, but sometimes, based on your genetics, your skin can easily become irritated. Also, pulling a blade around that is not 100 percent sterile may cause your follicles to become inflamed and red in color.
You probably feel that waxing is going to be extremely painless and I not going to lie to you and say that it is painless. Nevertheless, the ripping pain lasts only a few seconds. A bad shave can cause lingering pain for hours, especially if you have large pectoral muscles.
Also, a chest wax can relieve a lot of stress. After shaving your chest with a razor, you may have to redo it in less than a week. With a good waxing, you will not need to touch your chest for weeks!
Do Guys Shave Their Armpits?
Do you really think that a lot of men are shaving their armpits? Personally, I have never shaved mine, but I feel that most men do, or at least they massively trim down their hairy armpits.
At my local gym, I have never seen another man that had a full mane as long as mine underneath their arms. Unless I am far from the norm? Hard to say.
A study conducted by Menshealth concluded that 68% of men shave their armpits. I personally, feel that that is much higher since a lot of men might feel embarrassed about revealing that they secretly shave their pits.
I did some further research to see if could figure out the purpose of armpit hair. The genetic reasoning is funny actually. We developed a long matted mass of armpit hair to attract mates. The hair traps sweat so that others will flock to us because of the yummy odor.
How Do I Stop Hair Growth on My Chest?
Should you Shave or Wax your Chest?
If you have become frustrated with constant shavings of your chest or you have a fear of pulling off your skin through multiple waxings, you do have a few options for eliminating your chest hair.
Tweezing Your Chest
You could go the route of tweezing off your chest hairs. This tactic is fine if you only have a small patch of hair in the middle of your chest. Otherwise, you could be spending countless days plucking away at chest hairs.
Nevertheless, ensure that you sterile the tweezers beforehand so that you do not end up inserting bacteria into your follicles. Click here to view the are a great pair tweezers by Apex (link to Amazon).
Electrolysis to Get That Silky Smooth Chest
This routine is going to be a permanent solution for you. Just take into mind that there will no turning back. If you are a bodybuilder, just realize when you retire, you will have trouble re-growing your chest hair.
Electrolysis involves zapping the follicle with an electrical shock to kill it off. Each hair has to be done separately, so for a person with a fluffy chest, will have to deal with a huge bill since this tactic is best performed by a professional. Lasering off Those Hairs
Lasering off those Hairs
Another permanent method is laser hair removal. This option involves less pain than electrolysis. The light from the laser enters into the follicle and burns it out eliminating its ability to produce a hair. What is good about this treatment is that is can be done rather quickly. The laser can kill multiple follicles with one pass of its beam. The overall cost will end up being a lot less than electrolysis.
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