Answer From Mary Marnach, M.D. There's no medical or hygienic reason for removing some or all of your pubic hair. But the removal process can be painful and cause many side effects, including: Genital itching, sometimes severe.
Trimming or shaving your pubic hair, for instance, may increase your chances of contracting STIs like herpes, HPV, genital warts, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and even HIV, according to a recent study from the University of California at San Francisco.
It is more hygienic not to shave it (although depilation does make pubic lice homeless). In removing their pubic hair, most women will get cuts or ingrown hairs, and some will develop inflammation of the hair follicles or hyperpigmentation.
Your Pubic Hair Serves a Purpose
It provides protection against friction that can cause skin irritation in this sensitive area. It helps reduce the amount of sweat produced around the vagina. It helps block your vagina from the following bacteria and infections: Sexually transmitted infections.
Long pubic hair
Pubic hair holds on to residual urine, vaginal discharge, blood and semen. Bacteria line up all along the hair shaft just lunching it up and creating odor. (Very appetizing, I know.) Trimming your pubic hair reduces that surface area for bacteria, thus reducing odor.
Removing pubic hair may therefore make a person more susceptible to common infections, such as UTIs, vaginitis, and yeast infections. Hair removal can also irritate your skin, leading to skin infections such as cellulitis and folliculitis. In other cases, grooming-related injuries, such as cuts, could become infected.
When the hair wicks sweat off the skin (to keep you dry and cool), it collects, along with pheromones and bacteria, in that area. "The hair traps the smell," Michael Cackovic, M.D., an ob/gyn at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, tells SELF.
Answer From Mary Marnach, M.D. There's no medical or hygienic reason for removing some or all of your pubic hair. But the removal process can be painful and cause many side effects, including: Genital itching, sometimes severe.
A combination of polls shows that 80 to 90 percent of women prefer some amount of grooming for starters. Only 10 to 20 percent prefer guys with a completely unkempt bush; this means that going wild below the waist is not the default look. It may require less work, but you're not playing the odds.
Keeping it clean can help prevent odor. In separate studies, 59% of women and 61% of men stated that they groomed their pubic region for hygienic purposes. However, there is currently no scientific evidence to suggest any health benefits associated with removing pubic hair — other than the removal of pubic lice.
Removing pubic hair may therefore make a person more susceptible to common infections, such as UTIs, vaginitis, and yeast infections. Hair removal can also irritate your skin, leading to skin infections such as cellulitis and folliculitis. In other cases, grooming-related injuries, such as cuts, could become infected.
Sixty-two percent reported removing all of their pubic hair. The majority of women (59 percent) said they groom because it's "hygienic or cleaner," while just 21 percent said it's because their partner prefers it.
The Hollywood
It is completely bare from the front to the back, including the underside. This look is popular for both women's and men's pubic hairstyles. The Hollywood is one of the most high-maintenance pubic hairstyles. If you want to go for the full smooth skin look and feel, give this one a try.
In Ancient Egypt, body hair, especially pubic hair, was a symbol of the uncivilized, depicted as dirty and unhygienic, hence why many women opted for hair removal. They also followed the trends set by Cleopatra, who removed all of her body hair, including from the top of her head, to signify social class.
Less chance of razor bumps.
The hair can still grow back into the skin without shaving it, but you'll have much less likelihood of getting bumps or ingrown hairs from trimming alone. However, the shorter you trim it, the more your odds go up for getting bumps (see bump-fighting products).
To keep the pubic area smooth and hairless, you'll need to shave regularly, even daily.
With the introduction of the bikini in 1946, the stage was set for women to start trimming pubic hair as well. In the 1950s, Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine introduced clean-shaven, scantily-clad model—sexy, lingerie-draped women who became benchmarks for the ideal look.
As you age, your pubic hair will thin naturally. If you're losing large amounts of pubic hair and you don't think it's attributable to aging, it could be the symptom of a serious condition. Make an appointment with your doctor so they can diagnose the underlying condition and recommend treatment.
We know a lot about changes in pubic hair with the onset of puberty and about complications associated with pubic hair grooming, but less about changes with aging and menopause. The scant data we do have suggests that the growth rate and density of pubic hair decreases with age for both women and men.
Yup – pubic hair trends are making a comeback. While most women have groomed down there before, a study reported on Telegraph found that most women also feel there's too much pressure to remove pubic hair.
The issue with shaving all the time? "If you do remove hair too frequently, you can end up with something called folliculitis, which is an infection of the hair follicle," Dr. Metz says. Basically, the act of shaving poorly can damage the follicle and cause inflammation.
Everyone has some hair in the area between their butt crack. This hair wicks away moisture and protects the sensitive skin around your anus.
Like other parts of the body, the skin of the areola contains hair follicles. These can be affected by the fluctuations in hormones during times of significant hormonal change, such as puberty, pregnancy, and menopause.
DEAR READER: Thinning of scalp and pubic hair in older adults is simply the result of aging - and hereditary factors are largely responsible. However, some of the thinning may be caused by loss of tissue (mostly made up of collagen, a protein in the skin) that supports the hair follicle.
Does pubic hair cease growing once it's reached a certain length? All hair grows at a contstant rate, but eventually falls out. With body hair, which typically does not grow as long as head hair, the rate at which it falls out is greater. This results in hair that appears to reach a certain length then stops growing.