I sort of kept a journal in the year before I turned 40. I found two entries that were just about armpit hair. To shave or not to shave? THAT was the question!
Journal entry – September 2016
I shaved my armpit hair this morning. The plan had been to let it grow out for a while to see if it made any difference. I don’t know if I have been shaving because there is a comfort factor in having hairless armpits or if it is because society decided women shouldn’t have body hair.
Fulfilling society’s vision of womanhood is not high on my list of things to do. However, with the heat wave going on, I’m having a hard enough time preventing sweat spots and containing overall stink potential. So, I shaved. I am not yet ready to debut my armpit hair in public, so I will punt on this experiment until winter.
Image by Nicola Giordano from Pixabay
Journal entry – January 2017
I finally had to shave my armpit hair. Not sure how long I let it grow, but it seemed to reach its full length. I didn’t want to get caught up in shaving because there is no real reason to shave. I wanted to be free of the pressure to shave.
But, I’d look at these long black hairs coming out of my armpits and be grossed out. I’d battle with myself to just let it go and not be bothered by it. To be empowered in my decision to have ownership over my own armpit hairs. Let them bristle in the wind! But fuck, I just couldn’t do it anymore!!
I shaved my pits and washed my attempt at feminist body hair empowerment right down the drain. It remains a battle to conquer another day.
July 6, 2020
It looks like all I needed was a pandemic to make a breakthrough on this. I have no idea when the last time I shaved was and I give zero fucks. What I’m not loving though is that when I put on deodorant, it pastes my armpit hair down onto my skin.
Note – just because I don’t care about shaving anymore, doesn’t mean I don’t believe in using deodorant. If I’m going to be in the presence of others, which obviously doesn’t happen much lately, I’ll most likely put on deodorant. Or, if I find that I’m getting particularly ripe, I’ll put it on just so I can stand to be around myself. On the real, I legit smell like I rubbed raw onions in my armpits if I work up the slightest sweat.