We’ve entered an age where men shave not just the pubic area, but also the chest, arms and legs. Those men against shaving arms, legs and chest refer to it as unnecessary “hyper grooming” while others complain of the additional itchiness shaving these parts creates. Those in favor, though, are men who don’t like the look of excess hair on their arms, nor the feel of it, especially in the heat of summer. For the men in the second group, there are dos and don’ts when trimming the arms. Here is a complete guide for how to trim your arm hair.
Not all men are alike. Some men have a lot of body hair, especially on the arms and the legs, and some even have excess amounts on the chest. These men may have once thought society frowns on men who shave their arms, but those days are no more, if they ever were. It is a man’s personal decision what he does with his body, regardless of society’s conventions. If you choose to shave your arm hair, then you should just do it!
Before you begin reading about how to trim your arm hair, ask yourself if you want to merely trim it down or remove it altogether. A complete shaving will likely result in itching for a period of time afterward, and it’s likely you’ll need to shave your arms often to keep that bare, shaved appearance, perhaps as often as once every two weeks.
The Philips Norelco Body groom body grooming razor is a great tool for trimming and shaving all the parts of your body covered with hair. We’ve recommended this advanced-tech razor and trimmer in another men’s body grooming article because of the great feedback we’ve read about it. The body trimmer gives you five adjustable lengths so you can easily trim your arm hair to the length you desire.
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Should Men Be Trimming Their Arm Hair?
While trimming the chest, back, abdomen and pubic hairs is more common now for men than ever before, trimming arm and leg hair is still catching up. However, trimming arm hair may be the right thing if you have coarse body hair that is thick and darkly contrasts with your skin color.
Some men have a lot of arm and leg hair, but little facial or chest hair. For others, it can’t be assumed that a hairy chest, back and abdomen automatically means long or thick arm hair. We are all different, and in the end, trimming arm hair is a personal choice.
If you do decide to trim the hair on your arms, consider also trimming your leg hair if they have the same thickness or appearance you’re not pleased with. You might want to have uniform hair length on both of these sets of appendages. But it’s not a requirement to shave both areas.
If you decided to shave your arm hair completely, it doesn’t grow back faster, despite popular belief. Your hair will grow back to its genetically predetermined length at its normal rate of growth.
If you like the look and feel of smooth and hairless arms, no matter if you have long, coarse or thick hair to begin with, then shaving the arms might be right for you.
The Benefits That Come With Shaving Arm Hair
One of the biggest benefits you will notice is that your arms and body will be cooler. Body hair holds onto moisture and makes osmosis more difficult. Osmosis is the exchange of air and sweat in and out of the body. By removing arm hair, moisture flows into, and out of, the body normally, so you’ll remain cool
Swimmers, both amateur and professional, benefit from shaved arm hairs because hair gives resistance when swimming. Bodies free of hair help the swimmer swim faster and can shave off precious seconds in a competition.
Even if you’re not preparing for a swimming competition, shaved, even trimmed arms, can be an advantage when it comes to perspiration. Hair holds in odors from perspiration, and body odor can become noticeable after a vigorous workout or after working outdoors and sweating a lot. Hair is porous, meaning it can absorb sweat and hold onto it, until it’s rinsed off by taking a shower. Arms free of hair will give off little to no body odor.
Many men desire the feel and appearance of arms without hair, or even short hair instead of long hairs. For this reason alone, many men choose to shave their arm hair.
The Evolution Of Body Hair
The gene that controls skin color, it has been found, is the same gene that controls hair growth. There are many theories to why primates – our human ancestors, began to evolve towards hairlessness.
One theory states that as primates crossed the African savannah, hot and dry, their bodies could remain cool without carrying excess hair. On the opposite end, less hair meant the body absorbed more heat.
A more plausible theory states that humans lost their body hair to ward off parasites that clung to the body’s hair, especially the arms and legs. These parasites were the blood sucking variety, like lice, ticks and fleas. These insects infest fur and can cling to the hairs above the skin before burrowing in.
Natural selection produced bodies with less hair, and hairlessness was a sign of fitness and was sexually attractive to females, an important factor in preserving the species.
Today, women and men more and more, go to great lengths to keep their bodies free of hair. This may be an “echo” of a previous age when less hair meant better fitness and greater attractiveness. In other words, the revival of an ancient instinct.
Humans are believed to have been hairless for at least 1.2 million years, when there were a mere 14,000 individuals. Our drive to complete body hairlessness has begun, and the day will come when men have hardly any hair on their bodies, matching women’s general bodily hairlessness.
Generally speaking, our early ancestors hardly wore any clothing, and hair protected the skin against the elements. Today, men wear clothing that is sophisticated and designed for breathability and offering warmth or helping keep the body cool. We do not need all the hair we have on our body, but evolution and natural selection takes millions of years for change to occur. Trimming and shaving speed up the process.
The Best Ways To Trim Your Arm Hair
Now that you’ve decided to trim your arm hair, it’s best to get started using the right tools for the job. The Philips Norelco Bodygroom men’s shaver is in the more advanced type of body trimmers. This product is dual sided, one for trimming and one for shaving, and has five adjustable lengths, so you’ll be able to trim your hair to the shortness you wish without a problem.
Having a good trimmer and razor can help prevent unwanted side effects such as ingrown hairs form shaving, skin irritation or razor burn.
It’s okay to leave about a half inch of arm hair left after trimming. In the end, it’s entirely up to you.
You can shave your arms while manscaping, including your chest, under the arms, back and groin area. The best thing about a higher tech product like the Norelco is that you can easily adjust trim settings as you move from one part of the body to another.
When trimming your arms, the skin should be clean and dry.
First, snip your arm hair using body grooming scissors. Comb through arm hair and lift it off the skin between your fingers. Then snip it off. Cut your forearm hair in sections in this manner until all your hair is trimmed down as evenly as you can make it.
Next, take your trimmer/razor, and choose a setting that you like. The Philips Norelco Bodygroom has five different settings, so choose the setting that goes lower than the length of the hair cut with the grooming scissors.
Test the length on one area of your arm first to make sure you have the right setting. It is okay to trim arm hair shorter, because it will grow back and you can try a different hair length.
If you are in a hurry, you can use the body hair trimmer and trim off the tips of your arm hair. Trimmers are meant to shave off only short hair, so you can try trimming first at the tips of the hair, then moving down gradually to get the length you desire.
You can trim your hair entirely with scissors, but the combination of comb, scissors and body grooming trimmer will provide the fastest, most effective job.
Removing Hair Completely
Some men wish to cut their hair all the way down. What’s nice about cutting arm hair is that no matter what you do, the hair will always grow back, even when the hair is removed from the follicles.
If you’re cutting away your hair completely, you can shave your arms using either hair conditioner or shaving cream. Or, you can use hair removal cream. These creams are effective in completely removing hair without the use of a razor.
Remember a razor is like a knife, except much smaller and thinner. It is easy to cut yourself while shaving your arms, but the risks are less than if you shave your groin area. However, note that you can get razor burns from attempting to shave your arms. In addition, ingrown hairs can develop because some of the hairs turn back into the hair follicle and continue growing under the skin.
You can avoid ingrown hairs and razor burn by simply applying hair removal cream to remove all of your arm hair.
However, be aware of a few side effects from using depilatory cream for hair removal. One of them is that there can be an odor coming from the dissolved skin hair. Simply bathe again after using cream to remove these odors.
Remember that when using a hair removal cream, your hair will grow back at its normal speed, so be prepared to apply the cream often.
Another method is using a hair removal pad. These pads remove small sections of hair at a time, and there’s little to no soreness after using the pad. Keep in mind, though, that this method is time consuming.
Another method for how to trim your arm hair that is popular among women and that removes all your arm hair, is waxing. This approach to complete hair removal has gotten a bad reputation for how painful it’s supposed to be. In truth it is not that bad, especially on the arms, where skin is thicker than other areas of the body such as under the eyes and in the crotch
Seek out a professional for waxing. It will be more painful the first time than in subsequent waxing sessions. If you are seeking complete body hair removal, or you just want to wax your arms, consider getting your legs waxed in the same session.
A great advantage to waxing is that it lasts longer than using creams or shaving. Arms that are waxed can remain hairless for up to three weeks.
Consider waxing if you have dark and coarse hair against lighter skin. There will be a marked contrast in appearance for men with this shading of hair and skin from waxing.
An epilator can be used at home to cut hair down to the skin. Epilators are like mechanical tweezers, the grabbers of the device pull only at the hair and not the skin. It is much faster than tweezing manually, and it lasts about as long as a waxing session does. There are waterproof epilators that you can buy that will work in the shower.
Permanent Hair Removal
Some guys seek permanent hair removal from their bodies. If you are looking to get rid of hair permanently, plan on making a larger investment in the process. There may come a day when all men will opt for permanent hair removal. For now there is electrolysis or laser therapy.
Electrolysis uses shortwave radio frequencies and a small probe to remove hair permanently from the arms and the rest of the body. The hair that remains is removed using tweezers. After a few treatments, depending on the different factors, your hair can almost be permanently removed.
Usually, only a few sessions are needed, and the sessions are short. Redness can occur on the skin afterward, and there is a little bit of pain, but these are temporary. Electrolysis fees range from $25.00 to $90.00 per session. Make sure you only receive electrolysis from someone certified to perform the procedure.
Laser therapy has become more and more common because of how well it works, and how quickly and painless it is. In laser therapy, highly concentrated beams of light focus on individual hair follicles and destroy them. After anywhere from five to eight sessions, hair stops growing back permanently.
There is a little pain involved in any hair removal procedure, because the hairs are literally torn out of hair follicles. However, laser hair removal is considered one of the most painless.
How To Treat Skin After Hair Removal
Lots of guys don’t consider that they need to be more careful with their arms after the arm hair is removed.
If you live in a sunny climate, it’s imperative you wear sunscreen to cover and protect the newly exposed skin. Your arms will be sensitive to sunlight now that there is no hair to filter light before it touches the skin.
In general, the skin is more sensitive to bruising once it is completely shaved off. The hair does a great deal to absorb shock and protect the skin in general.
However, you will feel cooler, especially if you shave off leg hair along with arm hair. You will feel cooler by merely trimming arm hairs instead, rather than shaving them off. It is also believed to be more hygienic to have less body hair.
Your choice to trim or cut your arm hair is a personal decision based on your own choices. You should not do it merely to please women. But here are some results you may find interesting.
There have been studies of women’s feelings about men’s body hair, including the chest, arms and legs. Overall, more women find chest hair more attractive than having no hair. And the verdict is pit regarding hair appearing on other parts of the body. Some women like men who shave their arms, but not both their arms and legs. Others like hair on the arm. Generally if a woman you date does not shave her own arm hair, they would not appreciate their man doing it.
In the end, regardless of survey results, some guys have real issues with arm hair, especially if it is thick, coarse and dark, in contrast to light, almost white skin. And it really just comes down to what you like and what you want to improve upon when you look in the mirror.
No matter what your conclusion is about yourself, remember that you inhabit your body, and no one else. If you choose, just know how to trim your arm hair right. You can experiment with different lengths, or cuttin it off. With the exception of laser therapy and electrolysis, any approach you choose can be reversed: your hair will grow back so you can try another way, or just leave it as it is.