What Plucking Hairs Means for Your Body

By now you've hopefully curbed your obsessive tweezing habits, since bold, natural brows are in and brow experts warn against over-plucking between brow clean-up appointments. If you need more hard facts to back up the reason why you should drop the tweezers, here's what plucking actually does to your body, according to science. This might finally convince you, once and for all.

Despite what you may have heard, plucking actually stimulates hair growth. This is based on a study with mice conducted by Dundee University. The study found that plucking 200 hairs triggered a growth of 1,200 replacement hairs. The act of plucking prompts hair follicles to send out "distress" signals to the rest of the body, initiating a surge in immune cells to the site of the hair loss.

So, yes, while this does mean that waxing might be better than tweezing if you want to curb hair growth, it's important to know that there are many contributing factors when it comes to your hair, including diet and thyroid health.

"Body hair growth is influenced predominantly by hormonal and genetic factors," said Elizabeth Cunnane Phillips, according to Huffington Post. Cunnane Phillips is a trichologist at the Philip Kingsley Clinic in New York City, and she's been studying hair and scalp health for more than 22 years.

"Tweezing is not likely to influence or cause diameter changes to hair texture. Hormonal variables and genetic predisposition are much more likely to be at play," she said. But what about that beauty rumor that plucking hair from moles can cause cancer? Consider it busted.

According to Dr. Mark D. Kaufmann, a dermatologist in Manhattan, hairs and moles don't affect one another. “Even by cutting, you don’t change the behavior of a mole.”

So there you have it. Plucking isn't all the evil it's been made out to be! Still, don't go crazy with those tweezers. If you still have unanswered questions about tweezing or are unsure whether you're committing the common tweezing mistakes preventing you from having on fleek brows, look no further than all of our tweezing content. Good luck and godspeed!

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