I know I am not alone in
this. I HATE SHAVING. My personal preference is to let it grow free and
wild. Up until September, I shaved my
legs a handful of times a year (mostly in the summer months… also known as July
and August ONLY here in Canada), my armpits once a week and nether regions
rarely. I have not touched them since then.
I am fortunate enough not to
have a whole lot of body hair. You can barley tell I do not shave my legs
because of how blonde my hair is.
I realized a few months ago,
when the cold weather started to roll in, that there really was no reason to
shave my legs. I wear tights when I wear skirts majority of the time and my
“uniform” consists of leggings, boots or flats, a tank top and a cardigan or
sweater. I also stopped shaving my armpits
because I have incredibly sensitive skin and would have horrible razor burn,
regardless what special shaving cream or razor I used.
The longer I let it grow, the
more confident I felt. I have worn sleeveless tops with my hairy pits (New
Year’s Eve specifically). I wore a skirt with my fury legs. And here is the shocker. NO ONE CARED. No one
said, “maybe you should shave” or “eww look at all that hair”. I danced with my
arms above my head as my friends and I rung in the new year and not a soul
commented or seemed to notice my fury pits.
Why do people find women’s
(and some men’s) body hair so offensive? Why does anyone care what I do with my
body? Why are shaven legs, armpits and hoo-ha synonymous with cleanliness and
femininity in today’s society? I decided to do a little research into the
history of, mainly, women’s shaving to answer some of my questions. Here are
the results.
-The first thing I read but did not see a reference to
after this one article was that in the early 1900’s Gillette decided to market
a women’s razor to make more money. So basically, they told women that their
armpit hair was unsightly so they could make more cash.
-There is proof that women were using scary things such
as arsenic and quicklime to remove body hair as far back as 4,000 B.C.
-The most primitive “razor” was used by Roman women in
approximately 500 B.C. They used pumice stones to remove unwanted body hair.
-Ancient Egyptian women and men both removed all their
body hair. The main reason wasn’t necessarily because they liked that
clean-shaven look, it prevented the spread of lice, diseases and other nasty
things.
-In terms of modern history of women’s shaving, we can
pin point it to the exact day. In the
1915 May issue of Harper’s Bazaar, an add was run showing a woman in a
sleeveless dress with her arms over her head, sporting some sleek armpits.
-To the modern day woman, this seems quite commonplace.
But this was incredibly scandalous at this time. Even the word “underarm” was
seen as improper.
-Up until the first quarter of the 1900’s, there was no
need for underarm grooming because no one wore sleeveless garments.
-The ever-present desire of majority of women to be
trendy is what helped this “armpit campaign’ succeed. Sleeveless and sheer
dresses became popular and readily available. Suddenly, everyone had shaven
armpits, sleeveless dresses and the underarm was welcome into society.
-Sears Catalogue featured razors marketed towards women
for the first time in 1922.
-The leg-shaving phenomenon was much slower to catch
on. Hemlines were still quite long apart from the brief flapper phase in the
1920’s where hemlines got quite short. But they soon lengthened again, so it
was almost a moot point.
-When World War II hit, an iconic picture of Betty
Grable was published where she had long, smoothly shaved legs. Hemlines began to rise in the 1940’s and more
and more women shaved their legs.
-I did also learn that some religions require women and
men to completely rid their bodies of hair as a sign of purity. Muslim women,
in much of the Middle East and North Africa, and predominantly brides-to-be,
removed all body hair and continue to do so after marriage.
One question I asked myself
throughout this research was “Is there an evolutionary reason for armpit, pubic
and leg hair and lack of hair in other regions of the body?”.
A popular theory for under
arm hair is that it acts as a protective barrier to prevent chafing, which
makes sense. Another reason for armpit hair is to help excrete pheromones. The hair grows on top of sweat glands and
that helps expose the body’s natural smells, good and bad.
There is an obvious reason
for public hair. It provides protection from bacteria as well as a cushion
against friction. It also helps release
pheromones, just like armpit hair.
The reason for leg hair is to
keep you warm and protection. To warm
you up, your body develops goose bumps (or as my mum has said” There is a goose
walking over my grave”) and this allows more air to move through the hair. Your
body heat warms it up and creates a protective little hair/air blanket. Hair is
also on your legs to protect you against the sun. Hence why people from
Mediterranean areas generally have darker, fuller hair and Northern Europeans
have less, lighter hair.
So it appears from my
research into modern hair removal, the main reason as to why women remove their
body hair is more in relation to fashion and social pressure than for health reasons.
Society has been brainwashed
into thinking that body hair is unattractive and masculine. When you get down
to the bare bones of it, a magazine editor in 1915 published a picture, told us
that under arm hair was unsightly and we all said “okay”. That’s how it began.
In my honest opinion, to each
their own. If you want to shave your whole body, GO FOR IT! If you prefer to
grow it out, GO FOR IT! If you want to shave your legs but not your armpits or
pubic region (or any combination of the three), GO FOR IT!
They beauty of the 21st
century is that there is so much information out there and such an incredible
array of looks and styles. In the year 2015, I hope we become even more
accepting of people doing what they want (as long as they are not hurting
others) and being who they wish to be. Bottom line is, it’s our bodies. We
should be the ones making those decisions for ourselves.
