Vellus hair is that fine baby hair that covers our body and is commonly called “peach fuzz” – the amount of vellus hair on an adult varies from person to person.
This hair is translucent and unmistakably thinner than other hair on your body. It’s follicle is not connected to sebaceous glands – unlike terminal hair (the thicker hairs found on legs, pubis and male facial hair). Due to genetics, some people maintain a larger amount of these tiny hairs after puberty. {Some conditions do spur vellus hair growth.}
Vellus hairs are there regulate your body temperature and help sweat evaporate from your body. They do this by acting as a wick for sweat; When a pore is open, sweat wets a strand of vellus hair and then evaporates. Here’s the thing though, our homeostasis is perfectly adept at doing this and removing Vellus hairs has no impact on biological function.
It is not going to affect your body temperature or your natural form of perspiration. Our bodies have a thermoregulation process that allows our body to maintain its core internal temperature utilising muscles, organs, glands, and the nervous system. So in modern times we do not need Vellus hair for any important physiological process and removal is completely safe.
As mentioned above, Vellus hair and Terminal hair are different, you cannot all of a sudden grown a beard by simply removing hair on the surface of the skin. Just like your hair doesn’t grow back thicker when you shave. So there is no need to fear vellus hair removal!
