Are No-Shave November and Movember the Same, and Should You Care?

The short answers are no and yes.

Movember is a month-long campaign to raise awareness and financial support for men’s health issues like prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health. It is specifically affiliated with movember.com, started by the Movember Foundation in Australia in 2003.

No-Shave November is similar, but unrelated in terms of organization. No-Shave November also raises awareness and money for men’s health initiatives, but this focuses only on cancer awareness and cancer prevention. Matthew Hill passed away from colon cancer in 2007, and his family founded No-Shave November at https://no-shave.org/

Either way, we are 100% behind raising awareness AND money for the prevention of cancer!

All cancers are terrible, but specifically, why should we raise awareness for prostate cancer? Did you know that 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer sometime in their lifetime. Think about that. One. In. Seven. That’s a whole lot, and worthy of letting ALL MEN KNOW.

The great news is that prostate cancer is absolutely curable when caught early, which means that once a man turns 45, he should be getting his PSA level (prostate-specific antigen) checked annually. If there is history of prostate cancer in the family or is African-american, he should start at age 40.

Back to raising awareness for men’s health. Here’s how it works – those that want to observe and take part in No-Shave November (or Movember) are encouraged to grow a mustache during the month or really any combination of facial hair – mustache, beard, etc. (by using the No-Shave November mantra, women can participate too) 

Ideally, you want people to ask “Why are you growing a beard, or lamb chops, or goatee” The answer of course is in support of men’s health awareness. You can always point them to our website where you can donate to help support our research initiatives!

We’d also love people to think of donating to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Chicago to help our mission of awareness, education and innovation in trying to beat this disease!