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And It's Not a Full Moon

Something may be accelerating by beard growth. I still think it was a Gillette Fusion cartridge getting duller, but last night I noticed more stubble than usual after a three-pass DE shave. As an experiment, I broke out my old Sensor and used it this morning. It's now only about nine hours later, and I have heavier stubble than I used to have with it. Have made no significant changes in face prep or shaving cream/gel/soap. As a point of reference, my finger nails are not growing any faster.

Anyone else ever run into something like this? I thought of making use of it to grow a beard, but my wife doesn't like the idea.
 
Not for me. Something is de-accelerating my beard growth. I think it's age. My beard grew fast when I was in my 20s through 50s. Now at 60 (and grey) not so fast.
 
From snopes.com:
Claim: Shaving makes your hair grow back in thicker, faster, and fuller.

Shavers and clippers take heart: in your quest for tonsorial perfection, you are not creating a larger problem for yourself through your efforts. Cutting does not stimulate new growth. (If it did, those going bald would be shaving afflicted areas to encourage regrowth of what they’re losing.) This belief probably stems from the perception that short hair seems to be tougher than longer hair. Hair expert Philip Kingsley recommends thinking of a bamboo cane: a long cane flexes easily, but the same cane cut short feels harder and tougher. Another reason for the belief resides with the naturally finer ends of uncut hair: compare the end of a long-lived hair with that of a hair recently cut or shaved, and you’ll see the one is thicker than the other. That could lead the less-than-careful to conclude that the whole of the hair’s shaft became thicker as a result of the hair’s being cut (which it didn’t) rather than to realize that shaving or cutting results in a blunt termination, whereas natural outgrowth concludes in a tapering.
Other mistaken hair beliefs include:
[snip]
Moon phases should dictate timing of haircuts.

It was long believed hair snipped during the waxing of the moon would be quick to grow back, but hair trimmed when the moon was waning would stay short and lose its shine.
 
With a DE you're probably using less pressure which may have caused you to use less pressure with the cart then you use to use.
 
How are you "measuring" it? Does it look darker, does it feel rougher, or both?

Rougher. Not just feeling stubble, which is going to happen hours after the best of shaves, but visible and with noticeable length. It's gone from sandpaper to wire brush. End of shave was DFS, which I tend to get out of the Fusion and Sensor, but by evening it's way beyond shadow.

It was so bad last night I broke out one of the Bic Sensitive Skin razors I still have and did a quick, out of the shower, one-pass shave. Not fancy, just to knock it down. This morning confirmed something I suspected, that my beard grows faster when I'm awake than when I'm asleep, but I had rough, almost wire brush, stubble on my neck. Considering it was just a quick shave, that's probably not surprising. Not quite five o'clock shadow level stubble on my face, also not surprising. Did a three-pass this morning with a DE, with special attention to my neck. It will be interesting to see how it looks twelve hours later. OTOH, a three-pass always leaves me with less stubble than a one-pass with a cartridge, so it would be comparing three-pass with previous three-pass shaves.

Most strange. I really hope I don't have to shave twice a day. OTOH, if I do, I'll probably back off to one pass for both shaves.

Which brings up how it's changed in just a few months. I had gone to one-pass DE shaving, then back to two-pass, then back to three as the late afternoon stubble increased. Yet it didn't really hit me until this week just how much faster my beard was growing now. Being a daily shaver pretty much since I started decades ago, I don't think it's the old myth about shaving making the beard grow faster. Whatever it is, it's a bit disconcerting.
 
With a DE you're probably using less pressure which may have caused you to use less pressure with the cart then you use to use.

This is true. That said, I tend to use cartridges when pressed for time, and haven't had this extreme an experience before.
 
I may well be headed that way. Had less stubble with DE, and thought I had nailed it with one pass DE. Alas, it was only just better than a cartridge. Had stubble entering the wire brush territory late yesterday, and my wife said "It's about as bad as last night."

Three-pass shave while 1/4 asleep this morning, with a slight nick on the chin due to pressure. Will see how it holds up today. If it approaches wire brush length, then it's two shaves a day.
 
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