Shaving to Grow a Thicker Mustache? How about a Cousin It Mustache?

Question: If I want to grow a thicker beard/mustache should I shave what I have and start from scratch?

The answer is no.

There exists a pretty in depth article on this at http://www.zapahair.com/pages/article_02.html.  It basically says that shaving is a form of cutting and has no affect on growth rates. 

Pop quiz:

Which is correct?

When compared to 3-week old freshly grown mustache starting from a cleanly shaved face, a mustache that is trimmed to a 3 week length will be:

1. Thicker than the new mustache.
2. Equal in thickness to the new mustache.
3. Thinner than the new mustache.
4. It depends as it will vary from man to man.

The correct answer is 1. – thicker than the new mustache.  The reason is that at any time, different hairs exist in different growth phases.  When starting from a freshly shaved face, only hairs in the anagen (or growth) phase will be visible.  An existing mustache, however, will not only contain these but also those that are in the catagen phase (where they are being cut off from the blood supply and stop growing), and the telogen phase (where they are in a resting phase before the are ultimately shed and eventually replaced).  If allowed to continue to grow, eventually the new mustache will catch up, but it only after follicles in non-growth phases cycle though and reenter their growth phases and resume hair production.

So the moral of the story is not to shave to thicken hair.

Hair growth phases and their effect on growing out an existing mustache

When starting to grow out a shortly trimmed mustache to a longer one, a man should expect that some hairs will be in each of the growth phases, and therefore, not all trimmed hairs will grow to the same length or at the same rate.  Approximate uniformity will not occur until all hairs have completed their growth and replacement cycles with no grooming differences based upon age.  You can know this has happened when no whiskers remain that have trimmed ends (assuming that you are not trimming). This is also why a new handlebar mustache will continue to fill out long after its maximum possible length is reached.

I said “approximate uniformity” in the previous paragraph because not all hairs in a mustache grow the same.  Hairs centered over the lip remain in the anagen phase for a shorter period of time and thus have a shorter maximum possible length than those toward the mouth corners. I guess that we are designed to never have a long mop in front of our face that would make any functions requiring the use of our mouth extremely difficult.  As a result, a man can grow a “Walrus Mustache” of a couple of inches, but he may never grow a “Cousin It Mustache” extending any longer than that.

Picture from http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/addams-family/images/5684028/title/addams-family-cousin-itt-photo?ir=true