The Department of the Air Force is limiting medical shaving profiles to a maximum of six months, down from the previous limit of five years, and will soon require Airmen and Guardians with profiles issued in the last 10 months to be reevaluated as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s crackdown on grooming standards.
“Effective Jan. 31, 2026, all shaving profiles issued before March 1, 2025 are invalid,” the Air Force Surgeon General’s office said in a Dec. 15 memo and press release. Profiles issued after March 1, 2025 remain valid until the expiration date.
“Airmen and Guardians who have medical shaving profiles issued prior to March 1, 2025, should schedule an appointment with a military health care provider for further evaluation before the January deadline,” the release added.
Individual medical shaving profiles can now also last no longer than six months. The Air Force Surgeon General previously authorized profiles of up to five years in 2020.
The new guidance comes several months after Hegseth directed a review of standards across the military and directed unit commanders in an Aug. 20 memo to “initiate separation of service members” who require a medical shaving waiver lasting longer than one year.
The Air Force memo directs unit profile officers—a physician with experience in military and occupational health—to review all profiles. A senior profile officer must review all profiles for more than 30 days. Unit commanders must then approve or disapprove all profiles via electronic signature in Aeromedical Services Information Management System within seven days, the memo states.
Beginning Feb. 1, 2026, Airmen and Guardians who accumulate more than 12 months of shaving profiles within a 24-month period will be referred to their commander, who has final approval authority for medical shaving profiles.
The new memo replaces Air Force guidance in a January 2025 memo designed to assist health care providers in evaluating Airmen and Guardians for Pseudofolliculitis Barbae, also known as PFB or razor bumps, a skin condition caused by ingrown hairs that makes shaving painful and can lead to scarring if skin is not given a chance to heal. That memo differentiated between shaving irritation and PFB and provided criteria to distinguish between mild, moderate and severe cases of PFB.
Airmen and Guardians who have or are at risk of getting PFB will be given preventive education on appropriate shaving hygiene, the Dec. 15 release states. If needed, additional care will be provided such as medication, a consultation with a dermatologist, or a recommendation for laser hair removal.
The Dec. 15 memo is intended to ensure the Air Force complies with Hegseth’s guidance on enforcing grooming standards to “minimize harmful effects on operational readiness,” according to the release.
After his Aug. 20 memo on grooming standards, Hegseth released implementation guidance in a Sept. 30 letter specifying that beards, goatees, and other facial hair that could interfere with a proper seal on a chemical protective mask or firefighter respirator were prohibited.
Cases where Airmen and Guardians have a permanent skin condition that prevents them from shaving “will result in evaluation for administrative separation,” the Sept. 30 memo states.
The Dec. 15 memo does not apply to shaving waivers granted for religious accommodations. Sikhs, Muslims, and other religious groups have been permitted to wear beards under religious accommodations since 2010, but Hegseth’s Sept. 30 memo on facial hair directs all services to create mandatory annual training that requires all personnel to validate a proper seal on either a protective mask or respirator.
“Noncompliant personnel—due to refusal, exemption denial, or failed tests—will be flagged as non-deployable in the appropriate military service personnel system,” the Sept. 30 memo states. Airmen and other service members placed on non-deployable status for 12 consecutive months are tabbed for administration separation.
The Pentagon directed the Air Force and other services to submit an implementation plan for new standards for wearing beards under religious accommodation by Nov. 30, but the 43-day shutdown delayed that process, according to an Air Force official.
