Myself, I'm an armpit shaver (mostly).
Mr Coffee is not. Yessir, I've seen the evidence. In fact, Mr Coffee claims that he has never shaved or plucked his armpit hair his entire life.
I think to myself, "My Lord! His armpit hair should be streaming to the ground by now! He should be Rapunzel from the armpits! We should be weaving ropes from his armpits and asking him to raise him arms and let us swing from them to amuse young children!"
The truth of it, while unruly, his armpit hair isn't even the length of a standard ruler.
Hmmm Hmmm.
On the other hand, if you ask most shavers of their armpit hair, it's a daily dilemma. Shave often. If you don't, it grows back and quickly. It's bristling at around a centimetre long if you neglect it for a week, and then you have to chop it back! And then the next week, another centimetre!
Oh damnation! If hair grows that quickly, the person who doesn't shave should have 50cm growths in a year and should have metres in 10 years!
But they don't. Not that I've seen. Mr Coffee tells me "Oh, after a while it seems it just stops".
Well, I've thought about it and thought about it.
Thought One
Human beings have a set amount of armpit hair they can grow. After a while they've met their quota which accounts for armpit hair just stopping.
But this would mean that after a while shavers, after having cut off a whole lot of hair, just STOPPED having to cut because there was not any more to cut. Not my experience, so far. Maybe I haven't reached my quota yet.
Thought Two
Maybe armpit hair just knows it's getting too long and stops. It thinks "what, I'm 8cm long now? time to stop growing!" But if you lop it it keeps growing.
This seems to be the experience most congruent with the experiences of shavers and non-shavers.
That the hairs have little demon minds that every so often think "What, I got CUT! Dammit, I will grow more! Darn YOU! I'll show you who can make 8cm - will, I will!" And keep pushing their little determined ways past your skin and getting longer and longer each time, whispering encouragement to their friends to FIGHTBACK!
But if that's so, does that mean each of your hairs is a little organism with an independent mind of its own (because by golly, my brain didn't give out those orders, I'm telling you) - and am I amputating living thinking creatures each time I cut a hair - are beauty salons and hairdressers really in the business of amputation, torture and decapitation?
If anyone has any thoughts on this, would like to know.
Meanwhile, I'm going off to shave.
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6 comments:
An astute dispute for the acute hirsute to refute!
Toot! Toot!
I just wish to add, I had some idea of not shaving one armpit and shaving theother. Or perhaps only shaving the half of each armpit. Partially in scientific experiment. I'd write up my findings in a journal and I don't know what it would prove or disprove but the photos would look very interesting. And that's very much what the scientific journals are about now, I think, especially if they've got glossy colour pages and charge $18 a copy or something similar.
And partially because, well, a change of hairstyle might just suit me.
I'm still considering it.
This is a very interesting question you ask, Maria. I don't know the answer, but it might shed some light on the matter to point out that once an armpit hair gets to its ultimate length, it sits around for a while and then IT DROPS OFF. As any inspection of an armpitster's bathtub will reveal.
part of me thinks you're completely serious, part doesn't...
it's to do with protein required to grow and maintain hair.
once it gets to a certain length, the protein that was being used to make it grow is now solely being used to maintain it.
you picking up what i'm putting down?
The things young people worry about. When you are old and decrepit the hair will magically disappear and if it doesn't it will politely turn white so you don't notice it.
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