Men are from Mars and Women…

My husband and I! Are we really from different planets, I mused one day. John Gray believed so and he explored this facet in his bestselling book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. He said men and women have such different needs and expectations that they may as well be from different planets. This is with reference to the emotional behaviour in relationships.

Both of us are essentially different from each other emotionally as well as physically. Now take the example of our hair, a physical feature both of us have. Anatomically, male and female hairs are similar, yet the two appear to be from different planets.

And that’s because the skin from where they originate or grow are different. The husband has a thicker skin which has larger pores and more active sweat glands as compared to my skin. I remember reading this somewhere that the male hormones or androgens stimulate the growth of hair in both men and women. Higher androgen levels in men make the hair thicker and coarser and also increases the occurrence of hair per square centimetre. While the women usually have less overall body hair and their hair are softer and thinner as compared to men.

All this talk of hair, reminds me of few words written by Samuel Goodman Hoffenstein

“Babies haven’t any hair; Old men’s heads are just as bare;
From the cradle to the grave, Lies a haircut and a shave.”

Shave!! Aah! This makes me wonder, do the differences in the hair of men and women translate in different shaving needs too?

I believe, Yes! Men and Women have different shaving needs!

• For example, I as a woman would be shaving a larger surface area as compared to my husband. That’s because, I shave my legs, arms, underarms, while he shaves only his face!
• Sensitivity of the skin area to be shaved matters too. Many a times, I see razor burns or rashes on my husband’s face if he shaves in a hurry and in the process shaves against the grain. While I can shave against the grain on my legs, as the skin here is less sensitive as compared to the face ingrown hair.
• The texture and thickness of hair is different too. The thicker hair on the beard area is more difficult to remove and the re-growth is more noticeable and more pronounced by evening in husband’s case, while my soft hairs are simple and easy to remove with a razor.
• The technique or the process of shaving is different too and this usually depends on the body area that needs to be shaved.
• The husband needs a ‘close shave’ to get that clean look while I need a shave that glides gently over a wide area of thin hair.

Shaving as an activity, though is same for the husband and me but the process and techniques, reasons and rationale are different for both.  It can be safely concluded that even for shaving needs, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus!!