"perhaps, shaving oneself completely bald, head to toe, nook and cranny, and repeating periodically"
Yup. When I said "the obvious experiment", what I had in mind was pretty much what you described here and jmax315 refined: shave bare, wait a day, shave again in an environment that allows for careful capture of all the removed hair, figure out how to separate the hair from skin flakes and shaving aids (water, shave gel, etc.), weigh the results, repeat.
I hadn't thought about effects of shaving on hair growth rate, but with one additional caveat, I see that jmax315 addressed that.
A related question that had occurred to me a day or two earlier would be marginally easier to answer, since one wouldn't have to spend quite as much time shaving or endure the "no eyebrows" look while waiting for stuff to grow back: which removes more skin during shaving, a safety razor, a straightrazoer, or an electric razor? (Not counting nicks, just scraping effects.) What I suspect will be "the hard part" is the same: isolating the substance of interest -- skin here or hair above -- from everything else that accumulates in the sample collection area.
Eyebrows would be tricky devils. If they grew constantly, we'd all have to trim them regularly or they'd be down around our knees by now. OTOH, if you shave them off, they will eventually grow back to their original length and stop. It seems that some hairs (eyebrows, eyelashes, arm hairs) have a fixed length, while head & facial hairs don't.
I admit I wondered myself, as no particular (practical) experiment seemed particularly obvious to me. After some thought, I settled on a wildly arcane idea that would have appealed to you greatly. But 'twas too weird and I lost it.
(no subject)
Yup. When I said "the obvious experiment", what I had in mind was pretty much what you described here and
I hadn't thought about effects of shaving on hair growth rate, but with one additional caveat, I see that
A related question that had occurred to me a day or two earlier would be marginally easier to answer, since one wouldn't have to spend quite as much time shaving or endure the "no eyebrows" look while waiting for stuff to grow back: which removes more skin during shaving, a safety razor, a straightrazoer, or an electric razor? (Not counting nicks, just scraping effects.) What I suspect will be "the hard part" is the same: isolating the substance of interest -- skin here or hair above -- from everything else that accumulates in the sample collection area.
(no subject)
(no subject)
obvious to me. After some thought, I settled on a wildly arcane idea that would have
appealed to you greatly. But 'twas too weird and I lost it.