Sooo, I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was going to quit shaving
my body hair for… an amount of time.
At least a month. Initially it was about the
planet and plastic pollution. But I also realised that since
I was 13, I’ve been shaving most of if not all my body
hair, below the neck. Aside from a couple of lazy weeks here and
there, I’ve been in a state of bald or stubbly
for over ten years. I’ve never experienced
what it felt like to just be hairy. On purpose
Without exclamations of
Just totally
So I’ve been on a mission to reclaim my body hair.
Or at least to get to know what being hairy as a
woman feels like for a little while
I know a lot of people find the idea of body hair on a woman
distasteful, gross, unsexy or even unclean
I think you’ll find you’ve learnt to see women’s body hair that way
It’s not an original thought you came up with all by yourself
I was curious to find out where the stigma came from
so I did some research…
In the 1920s as young people did what young
people have always done and rebelled against
the victorian ideals and style of their parents,
fashion began to change. Skirts got higher and
sleeves got shorter. King Camp Gillette, founder
of the Gillette we know today was one of the first to jump on
this trend and start advertising his razors to women.
Part of this involved the subtle or not so subtle,
shaming of visible underarm hair in the adverts
that women were seeing. Including women as part of his
target market would double his profits so it was in his best interests to
sell the idea that body hair was embarrassing for women.
And the idea stuck.
Unlike with armpits shaving your legs didn’t
immediately catch on. I was really surprised to find out that it
appears to be World War 2 that saw the removal of leg hair
becoming mainstream for women. In the 1920s to 1940s, hemlines were
getting higher but most women wore stockings so
no one really cared whether you shaved your legs or not.
Until the war started and there was suddenly
a nylon shortage. More hair removal products hit the market
as women were forced to go bare-legged under their skirts.
Pin-up girls also became popular among soldiers,
with their long smooth legs and what were at the time
quite skimpy bathing suits. Women were encouraged
to keep their legs hair-free to
for the soldiers
missing home. I don’t personally understand how leg hair
correlates to homesickness. But that’s the sneakiness of
the beauty industry for you
Some suggest the trend to
remove pubic hair came with the popularity of the bikini
in the 50s and 60s. However while that explains
increased trimming in that area it doesn’t really explain
the total removal of all pubic hair. Some people blame the
fashion industry and some people
blame porn. The explanation that makes the most sense
to me is that because a full bush was commonplace
in 1970s and 1980s photography and porn,
and high fashion has always liked to shock and be different,
it became the newest ‘thing’ for models to shave.
And as it became more popular in the fashion industry this trickled
down into pornography. As men saw more and more women
with shaven nether regions in porn, and began to associate this with
eroticism and sex appeal and women saw the same in fashion
and the media, having unshaven pubes
went from totally normal, to unfashionable, to taboo
All in less than 50 years. So that’s a very brief history of womens
body hair removal. Ultimately I think
I’ll ditch the leg hair. It’s itchy and just a
bit uncomfortable for me. But I have enjoyed
having underarm hair. I had this preconception that it would be
harder to stay clean and smelling nice but actually I
sweat a lot less and my sweat seems to
smell a lot cleaner. I found over the last month that I felt way
less grossed out by my own hair than I expected to.
I actually feel like letting my hair grow out has kind of
increased my confidence. My significant other
still finds me attractive and it kind of feels defiantly sexy
to just be in my body like this and love it
just the way it is.
This experiment has
definitely made me look at my relationship with my
body in a totally new way