The first day I realised I had body hair was the same day I learned to be ashamed of it.
I was 13 and had forgotten my kit for PE. The only bottoms that fit me in the lost property box were shorts, not trousers like I usually wore. Within seconds of joining the group on the field, the boys started pointing, laughing and fake retching. The shorts had revealed dark, soft hairs on my legs, which after a quick glance at the other girl’s legs I immediately realised were unacceptable.
At home, imagining a million hairs glinting in the Yorkshire sun earlier that day, turning me into a social pariah for the rest of my disgusting life, I told my parents. They thought I was overreacting and told me there was nothing to be ashamed of.
Of course, I didn’t listen and stole my dad’s beard razor. In the shower that night, I removed every inch of hair from my legs. When I was done, I noticed my arms had hair too, so shaved those too. Thanks to using a blunt, straight razor on my poor virgin skin, I was finally hair-free but covered in cuts. I can only be grateful that I had yet to develop much pubic hair; I can only imagine the (literal) bloodbath if I’d have clocked that.
Fast forward to the end of my twenties and I feel incredibly sad for that little girl. I ask a few girlfriends about their first experiences with facial, body and pubic hair, and my suspicions were confirmed – my story isn’t unusual.
“When I was 13, I decided to shave my legs so I could look like the women in my glossy magazines,” one friend tells me. “When my dad found out he called me a silly girl and told me it would grow back darker and thicker from then on.
I felt so stupid and ashamed, like I’d done something wrong but also like I couldn’t win.”
For another, the realisation came even younger “aged 11, a girl at school told me I needed to shave my legs, and another made fun of my nose hair. From then onwards, I shaved all my hair everywhere- including my pubic hair- for 15 years. When I turned 26, I finally realised that I didn’t have too. But even now it’s hard to push through and not feel ‘gross’ if I don’t,” she admits.
The idea of feeling disgusting comes up several times. In fact, every woman I speak to can recall at least one mortifying memory of their first signs of body hair.
What society expects from the female body has improved. The top celebrities back then were slim, white blondes with flawless faces; I’m talking Madonna, Kylie, Britney, Christina, Kate Moss. But today they’re joined by a legion of women with realistic features that aren’t just left alone, they’re accentuated and celebrated. Lily Collins has bushy eyebrows, Adwoah Aboah has freckles, and Winnie Harlow has vitiligo – all are successful models.
Meanwhile, we have plus-size mannequins in Nike, cellulite in Little Mix music videos and spots on Glossier adverts. Disentangling those with genuine intentions from those pulling a publicity stunt is tricky. But either way, the outcome to those too young to differentiate is the same; “she looks like me, and she is beautiful.”
But the one thing we seem to still seem to airbrush into oblivion is any hair on a woman that isn’t on her head or part of her eyebrows. So I was actually excited to scroll past a new advert from No7 on Instagram a few days ago. Not only does the beautiful model have hair on her cheeks and upper lip, this hair has nothing to do with the advert itself, which is for an eye cream. It just exists because it exists.
The fact is, women have hair in these places. It’s how our bodies were made. Pubic hair isn’t there by accident – it’s to protect the delicate ecosystem of our vaginas from infection and harm. And as far as I can tell, our journeys to removing it rarely happens in a vacuum. My friends and I had that hair on our bodies before our classmates or friends pointed it. Which means it didn’t bother us until we were told it was supposed to bother us.
That’s why now I’m an Auntie to girls, I deliberately flaunt any inch of hair in front of them. Any time I’d take the eldest Esme to the toilet when she was little, and I had a wee too, she would notice that I wasn’t entirely bare down there like she was. Noticing turned into curiosity, which by the time she was five turned into ‘that’s weird’. I’d been expecting that; after all, she was never seeing it anywhere than on female family members. Where was it on the Taylor Swift – or Little Mix music videos, for that- which she watched so admiringly? She’s seven now and I carry on regardless, whipping off my pants in front of her with aplomb.
Here’s why. One day, she too will see hairs on her own body. The actions of my mum and I today (yes, her Grandma does it too, we have no shame) will mean one of two things happen next. Option one is that she is unbothered by what she sees. Neither horrified or shocked, she’ll deal with it in her own way, with a level head. She also won’t tease girls at school about theirs.
Option two – the more likely one, I’m aware – is that she’ll hate it, and want to remove it immediately. I can only hope that if this happens, either her Auntie Grace or her Nana will pop into her head. She’ll remember that we have hair too, and never hid it from her, and as such, she’ll come to us. When that happens, I will educate her as best I can but also realise that wanting it gone remains almost inevitable, even today. But at least she can do that safely, gently, and with little need for a patchwork of plasters afterwards.
I hope more brands leave facial hair on their adverts like No7 have done. I also hope that brands don’t just stop at a no-retouching policy and continue to hire models with no spots, no wrinkles and no hair instead. Finally, I hope that seeing facial hair in the public eye is followed by body hair and even pubic hair. After all, it is what nature intended, and it is there for a purpose. Maybe, when Esme has her own young, female family members to influence, a different ending will be possible.
