THE ANSWER
No. Shaving cuts hair at the surface and does not touch the follicle, so it cannot change hair colour, thickness or growth rate. Regrowth feels coarser because you are feeling a blunt cut end rather than the tapered tip the hair originally had. Clinical studies have confirmed this repeatedly.
Why
A hair has a tapered tip. It grew that way, thinning toward the end. When you shave, you remove that tapered portion and leave the thicker base, cut flat across.
What grows out afterwards is that flat-ended shaft. It feels blunt against your fingers and it looks darker at the surface, because you are seeing the wider base of the hair rather than the fine tip. Nothing about the hair has changed. You are looking at a different part of it.
The follicle, which determines colour, thickness and growth rate, sits well below the surface and is entirely unaffected by a razor. There is no mechanism by which cutting the visible part of a hair could send information back to the follicle about what to produce next.
Let the hair grow out fully and it returns to feeling as it did before, because the tapered tip regrows.
This matters practically rather than just as trivia. It means shaving is the correct way to manage hair between electrolysis sessions, and plucking, which does affect the follicle, is not.
Why does it feel stubbly?
Because you are feeling a blunt cut end instead of a tapered tip. The sensation is real; the change in the hair is not.
Should I pluck instead of shave?
No, particularly if you intend to treat the area permanently. Plucking pulls on the follicle and distorts it over time, making later treatment slower. See why tweezing makes facial hair worse.
Will shaving stimulate peach fuzz to grow darker?
No. The same reasoning applies to fine vellus hair. It can feel different after cutting because the cut end is blunt, but the follicle is unchanged and the hair is unchanged.
What the evidence says
Multiple clinical studies have found no change to hair colour, thickness or rate of growth after shaving. Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic both state this plainly in their published patient guidance. The myth is one of the most durable in the category and one of the most thoroughly tested.
What to do next
If you have been plucking because you believed shaving would make things worse, that belief is the opposite of what is true. Plucking is the one that causes problems for future treatment.
Switch to shaving or trimming between appointments. See how to prepare for electrolysis for what to do before a session, or electrolysis consultation to have the area assessed.