Can I shave my arms or is there a better way for a guy to get hair-free?
Sure, you can shave your arms…but why would you?
There are a number of reasons you might want to shave your arms and go hair-free. Maybe you just don’t like hair on your arms and want to get rid of it. Perhaps you have more hair than you’d like to have. Maybe you have a tattoo(s) that you want to show off. Or you just joined the swim team.
Whatever the reason, there are several options to get rid of hair on your arms, including shaving them.
Before You Shave Your Arms…
Before you do anything and get the razor out, keep few things in mind:
Are you generally hairy? If you have hair on your chest and legs, you’re going to look a bit odd with a hairy chest and bald arms. Take into consideration what the rest of your body looks like hair wise before doing anything.
Can you handle prickly hair? Once you shave your arms, the hair will begin to grow back within days. You will have a prickly feeling on your arms as the hair begins to grow back. Eventually the hair will grow long as it was before, unless you decide to shave your arms on a regular basis. Which is what you’ll need to do to keep your arms hair-free.
Are you in the for the long haul? As mentioned, shaving your arms is a temporary solution and needs to be done several times per week at least if you want the hair-free look to stay.
With that in mind, let’s look at a few popular options for hair removal. They are ranked in terms of cheapest to most expensive. Not surprisingly, they are also ranked from shortest to longest in terms of how long the hair is gone from your arms.
Shaving
When you shave your arms, you’re be hair-free for hours. As in by the next day, you’re probably going to feel the prickly feeling on your arms as the hair is already returning. Just like you do when you wake up in the morning, rub your face and feel the hair growing back from the day before.
Shaving your arms is the quickest and cheapest way of removing hair from your arms and it’ll quickly grow back if you don’t like the look. Which is why it’s the cheapest option.
Waxing
Having waxed my arms one time (I have no idea either), I can tell you from memory the results last several weeks but I was glad when the hair grew back. I cannot recall exactly why I decided to do this. I certainly didn’t fall into any of the reasons mentioned above. I’m quite hairy – chest, legs, arms – and I guess I figured I’d see what I looked like hair-free on my arms.
But as I also mentioned above, it’s not a great look when you have a hairy chest and legs and suddenly have bald arms.
Waxing hurts. I got used to the pain while I was doing it. But it also made my arms very red for a day. And I really don’t have easily irritated or sensitive skin.
And I got quite a few ingrown hairs and zits on my arms as the hair grew back. Did waxing once. Wouldn’t do it again.
Waxing does not make your hair grow back thicker, FYI. For me, I didn’t really notice anything different when the hair grew back. It grew back in the same thickness, amount and color.
Laser/IPL Hair Removal
Laser and Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) offer more permanent or at least semi-permanent reduction of hair. Although I’ve not tried laser hair removal, I did have a number of IPL sessions for my back. I had back hair I wanted to get rid of. Although costly – I was paying around $300/session many years ago and that was cheap back then – the results got better over time.
With these two options, they can offer permanent reduction of hair as each effectively kills the hair. After each session, the new hair tends to grow back thinner and less in amount. So a reduction of hair is noted. Whether you get permanent 100% removal is questionable. Only electrolysis can offer that and that’s very time-consuming for removing larger areas of hair.
More On Laser and IPL Hair Removal
Since these two options offer the longest term results, let’s look a bit closer at them.
What’s the process?
I went to a plastic surgery office who happened to offer this service. With IPL, a clear cooling gel is squeezed onto the skin to be treated. The IPL wand is then placed against the gel, a pulse of energy is transferred onto the skin through the gel and you feel a flicking sensation on your skin.
I was told beforehand that it’s akin to someone flicking a rubber band against your skin. From experience, I certainly felt some rubber band-like flicks. They were easy to tolerate.
I also experienced some very painful ones, particularly in areas with more hair to be removed and around bones. Even with the gel, I remember going home and feeling a bit of a sensation – think a mild sunburn – on parts of my back. This cleared up in about 2 days.
Years later I still have very little hair on my back. Certainly much less than I had before the procedures. I eventually stopped doing the IPL treatments when the doctor I went to put the price up and then I moved away.
Conclusion: Can I Shave My Arms
- Can I shave my arms? Sure, but the results don’t last long and hair grows back quickly.
- If you have a hairy chest and legs, having bald arms will look odd. How much hair do you have elsewhere and will you remove that hair too?
- Waxing produces better results in that you’ll be hair-free for longer. Waxing does hurt and in my experience, it made my arms red for a day and I got ingrown hairs as new hair grew back.
- Laser and Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) treatments are more expensive than shaving or waxing but give you longer periods of being hair-free. They both may offer permanent hair reduction. Each session tends to kill off hairs so that less, thinner hair grows back.
- We’ve previously spoken about shaving your armpits in case that’s under consideration.
- And what if you miss some hairs while waxing? Can you shave them?
Have you ever shaved your arms or used another hair removal method such as the ones listed above? Let us know in the comments below!