Austin Lewis Staff Writer
November is often thought of as a month of tradition. Many families in the United States gather to celebrate Thanksgiving by cooking turkeys, gathering at the dinner table, telling each other what they’re thankful for, or watching their favorite Football teams on TV.
After Thanksgiving, some people gear up and get ready for a night and day of hardcore shopping in the tradition of Black Friday. On Black Friday, many stores have huge sales where many things get a one-day discount, causing a lot of people to come in to attempt to get all their holiday shopping done in one day, and to save some money too.
Along with these two popular traditions is a fairly new one that’s growing in popularity: No Shave November.
No Shave November runs from Nov. 1 and goes through Nov. 31. During this time, men aren’t supposed to shave their faces.
Participants are supposed to shave on Oct. 31 so they start on Nov. 1 with a clean face. Participants also are encouraged to take a picture of their freshly shaven face and then another picture on Nov.30 so they can compare them both to show their progress.
No Shave November was based off a slightly older tradition called Movember. Movember became popular internationally in 1999, but the difference between it and No Shave November is that for Movember you’re only encouraged to grow a moustache and you’re allowed to shave the rest of your face in the meantime. No Shave November requires you not to shave your face at all.
While No Shave November and Movember have slightly different rules, they both share the same cause. Both traditions exist to promote awareness about Prostate cancer in men, and men’s health in general.
People with cancer lose their hair while doing chemotherapy to treat the cancer. This happens because chemotherapy is using medicine designed to attack the rapidly growing cells in the body. This targets all rapidly growing cells in your body, including your hair cells. Hair on the scalp usually is what falls out most commonly, but there can also be hair loss all over the body. The good news however, is that after Chemotherapy is completed and the cancer is gone, the hair will regrow within around 10 months.
No Shave November supports people in the process of Chemotherapy by growing out their facial hair and donating to cancer the money normally spent on shaving products.
There are multiple sites dedicated to the cause of No Shave November. One popular site, no-shavenovember.com, gives a brief description of what No Shave November is about and asks participants to donate the money they would have spent on shaving supplies to the American Cancer Society to help those fighting prostate cancer. There also are sites where participants can share their progress and brag about your facial hair.
“I’ve been doing this since I was born, it’s for a good cause” said Jonathon Iloka.
While the tradition is focused more on men, women can participate as well by not shaving their leg and/or armpits for the month.
While we might already be in the middle of November, it’s not to late to show support by setting down the shaving tools for the rest of the month, letting their hair grow out, and showing off their manliness.
