Does Hair Grow Faster After a Haircut? Myths a Barber Hears in the Chair

Faster and thicker: why it looks that way after a cut

No, cutting your hair does not make it grow faster. Hair grows from the follicle under the skin, and scissors and clippers only touch the ends, which are already dead, so the follicle never finds out. Growth rate is set by genes, age, hormones and general health, and neither frequent nor rare cuts change it. The impression of speed comes from the fresh cut: the length is even, the split ends are gone, and a fortnight of regrowth shows clearly against a clean outline. Why does hair look thicker after a cut? A cut end is blunt and wide, while a natural tip that has never met scissors is thin and tapered. The number of follicles and the thickness of each strand stay exactly as they were. Stubble after a shave pricks for the same reason: the cut is blunt, and the hair itself has not changed. A haircut does help length in one case, because it removes split ends that break off and eat the length, so growing your hair out with regular trims gets you there faster than skipping them. Short hair needs looking after as well: scalp and hair sweat and gather dust like anyone else's, and a short shape drifts within a few weeks without a visit to the chair.

Is it true you should never pluck a grey hair?

Now the grey hairs. Is it true you should not pluck a grey hair because two will grow back? No, that is a myth. One follicle grows one hair, and the neighbouring follicles do not react to what happens to another. There is still a reason to leave the tweezers alone: the hair that regrows from that follicle will come back grey, because the follicle no longer makes pigment, and frequent plucking irritates the skin and can damage the follicle. It is easier to trim a grey hair short or tint it. Does stress turn hair grey? Greying depends mainly on genes and age. Heavy, long-lasting stress can speed it up, but a hair that has already grown does not change colour overnight. Shampoo has its own legend, that hair gets used to it and the product has to be changed often. A hair is made of dead cells and has nothing to get used to. When a shampoo seems to have stopped working, the scalp has usually built up styling residue, or the water and weather have changed. Pick a shampoo for your scalp type and change it only when your scalp changes.

Shampoo, conditioner, clippers or scissors: what is true

Men need conditioner too: it moisturises, makes combing easier and cuts breakage, especially on long or curly hair. Washing every day does no harm if the shampoo is mild. How often depends on scalp type, how active you are and the environment, so one man is fine washing every third day and another needs it daily. Gels, waxes, pastes and sprays do not damage hair as long as you wash them out and do not layer them onto a dirty scalp. People also say all men's haircuts are the same. The same length on fine straight hair and on thick wavy hair looks like two different cuts, so the barber starts by looking at your hair structure and head shape. Clippers are no better or worse than scissors: the tool depends on hair type, face shape and the result you want, and on crowns and curls scissors often leave a softer shape. At 044 Barbershop in Kyiv we look at your hair dry, ask how often you wash and what you style it with, and only then decide what to cut with. If you are unsure which tool suits you, ask at the start of the cut, not at the end. Arrive with your hair dry and free of product, and the barber can show you on your own crown where scissors give a softer shape than clippers.