I don’t know if no-shave November is still a thing, but I decided to try it out anyways. However, I decided to take it one step further and eliminate all forms of body hair removal from my beauty routine. That’s right—no shaving, waxing, or plucking any body hair for one whole month. I know there have been many women before me who have given up hair removal for various reasons. My personal goal was to discover whether I actually didn’t like body hair, or if I was blindly following beauty standards. Along the way I learned a few important lessons about self-confidence, body positivity and personal comfort levels.
1.) Ignore the haters:
I would definitely have to reevaluate any relationship with someone who hated on my beauty routine. Thankfully, that’s not something I had to do. But I did have to endure a fair amount of skeptical looks and wrinkled noses from some especially honest friends. I even got a teasing, “that’s gross,” from my sister. As annoying as it was, I recognized that until visible body hair becomes less of a statement for women, eyebrows will be raised. As a result, for a couple weeks I had to learn to find the confidence to continue with my little experiment despite whatever anybody had to say. This mindset reinforced a lesson every woman should know by heart: my body is my body. If I want to let my hair grow, then so be it, nobody has the right to tell me it’s not ok.
2.) Embrace your body:
I think this lesson was key for my fulfillment of lesson #1. Having hair grow in places I had religiously kept bare since middle school forced me to face my body in its natural and unmade state. I didn’t necessarily have to like all of it, but since I knew this experiment was meant to last a month, I had to accept my new body and find peace with it. This acceptance even led to a newfound love for my new armpit hair. As someone who danced ballet throughout high school, my underarms were contantly shaved. Once I stopped dancing, the habit stuck. This month was the first time I ever let my armpit hair grow, and I found that it actually helped me feel more sensual and feminine, quite the opposite of what I expected.
3.) Do what makes you comfortable:
Despite my newfound appreciation for my armpit hair, by week two I succumbed to the desire to clean up my eyebrows, and by the end of week three, I decided to quit this experiment all together. Ultimately, I decided that I really don’t like having leg hair or a unibrow. I take pride in having bushy but groomed brows. And I love the ritual of shaving in the shower and silky feeling of legs my freshly smooth legs afterwards. Perhaps both these grooming habits were encouraged by arbitrary standards of female beauty, but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is that I am comfortable in my own skin. As long as hair removal is a part of my comfort, I will always reach for my trusty razor and tweezers.