I’ve not shaved my armpits for more than three years. It’s not necessarily some radical, political statement. It’s not because I’m lazy. It’s not even because I’m fighting against centuries of restrictive beauty standards tailored to the male gaze, or giving the middle finger to the multi-million-dollar wellness industry. Sure, being pro-hair is bound up with those things—but my immediate intentions are far less loaded.
It’s becoming increasingly normal for Gen-Z women to ditch the razor. A study from 2016 revealed that nearly one in four females under the age of 25 had stopped shaving their underarms, and it’s likely that figure is considerably higher now. That’s thanks—in part—to that awful 2019 unicorn hair trend, the rise of movements like #januhairy, and the pandemic offering a temporary reprieve from constantly being judged around our appearances. Around half of my close girlfriends don’t shave their pits anymore, and the other half don’t bat an eyelid at other people’s body fluff, either.
This is a recent development. As a teenager, I had an impressive routine going. I’d exfoliate, slather myself in shaving foam from the eyebrows down, shave, shave again just in case, coat my body in conditioner, shave again, then cocoon my skin in a thick coat of 99p cocoa butter. In summer, I dutifully repeated this ritual at least once every few days. Hair removal felt like a coming-of-age ceremony after years of consuming chick flicks and ads in which razors glided over already silky legs. (The brand Billie became the first company to air an ad featuring actual body hair as recently as 2018.)
I kept versions of my shaving regime up until the end of college, when the pandemic forced me to move back in with my parents and embrace full-on Goblin Mode. If there was ever a time to experiment with body hair (I’d been considering it for a while, simply because I liked the look), I decided, it was during lockdown.
It took several months for my underarm hair to grow from its initial stubble and awkward five-o’clock shadow into anything particularly noticeable. Now, I have little whiskery tufts of fine black hair. Like the silvery stretch marks on my hips and faint freckles on my nose, I’ve grown to love them. It feels like I’m pushing the boundaries of femininity, and it’s given me confidence. In summer, I actually enjoy having my pits on display. In some ways, underarm hair is an accessory: it can make a plain black vest top more interesting, just like a swipe of red lipstick or my septum piercing.
And yet, even though second-wave feminists were calling hair removal a waste of time and an obstacle to gender equality as far back as the ’60s, not everyone is on board with it. Sometimes, my pits have been met with double takes or sarcastic remarks. Other times, I’ll get a weak smile, as though to say: “Good for you, but not for me.” Hygiene seems to be a sticking point for a lot of people. “A common misconception is that long armpit hair smells,” says a close friend who stopped shaving a few years ago. “But, just like any part of your body, it won’t if you look after it.”
With time, I’ve grown to view unshaved pits as a form of social signaling. Seeing someone else with armpit fuzz is like seeing a stranger wearing a Chopova Lowena kilt or spotting someone on the subway reading a book you recently finished. For the most part, the women I know who embrace their body hair share similar liberal standards to my own and carry an infectious, don’t-fuck-with-me confidence that I enjoy being around.
Which isn’t to say that not shaving has to be a question of making a statement. One friend told me she’ll often choose not to shave simply because she has more important things to think about. “I’ll do my bikini [line] and my legs a couple of times a month, but probably my pits once every three months,” she says. “It’s not really a preference, I just can’t be bothered.”
Still, the fact that body hair is increasingly being accepted makes me hopeful that feminist values are becoming more normalized, and that gender expectations are gradually being eroded from every direction. (Interestingly, even as more and more women are giving up shaving and high street brands like Asos and Adidas are featuring women with unshaven pits in marketing campaigns, there’s been an “explosion in popularity” of men’s hair removal.)
In fact, I won’t be surprised if unshaved pits become something of a cliché among my generation as the 2020s wear on. When that does happen—and I truly believe it will—it will be a relief that something as simple as ditching your Venus Divine doesn’t feel so politically charged. Because surely we could all do with one less thing to over-intellectualize and obsess about when it comes to our bodies?