why does my beard stop growing once it gets to about two inches in length?

hair is dead, right? it's made from a bunch of dead cells, right? and because it's dead, it has no way of communicating back to the hair follicles in your skin, right?

so how do the hair follicles on my chin become aware that my beard has grown two inches, and then shut off/go inactive? how do my hair follicles become aware when i trim my beard down to one inch, and then start growing back to the maximum of two inches again?

You probably don't have enough androgen hormones. Maybe?

This is pretty easy to answer with some googling. I'm pretty sure there was a Straight Dope about it. It grows for a fixed amount of time, then starts a new strand. So there is a real limit to how long your hair will grow. There is no evidence that shaving or waxing has any long term change in hair once it grows back.
posted by chairface at 10:17 AM on November 7, 2009


Hair does stop growing. In the active hair growing anagen phase the follicle continues to produce fibre for three to six years. Then, the hair enters a rest phase called catagen for up to three weeks after which the hair falls out in the telogen phase. Normally, at any point in time 90% of your hair is in anagen and the other 10% are in telogen. It's a matter of genes, sex, age and, overall health that determines how much you have and, how long it can get.

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authorizenet
Call Center Pricing

Never knew a women like you could grow beard.

unkempt kid

wth? you're still here? you bastard!

I think part of it is mental too. It's easier to observe our hair grow from stubble or short to long in no time but it's harder to see hair grow from long to longer. Still I think it does have to do with our diet and nutrients and as we grow longer hair, it requires more nutrients to grow which we don't have so it slows down. Actually I think when you die, your hair still grows until there are no more nutrients to help it grow.

Vega Sinclair, Health Insurance Advisor

it doesn't, you can grow a Confucius beard but you'd still be an unkempt kid