Back in the 1990s, actor Julia Roberts made headlines at the premiere of her blockbuster romcom, ‘Notting Hill’. It wasn’t her performance or outfit that was the talking point of the evening. Rather, it was her underarms in the news for being fuzzy and unshaven! Was she making a statement? Roberts later revealed, “I just hadn’t really calculated my sleeve length and the waving, and how those two things would go together. It wasn’t so much a statement, as it’s just part of the statement I make as a human on the planet, for myself.”
Roberts hasn’t been the only celebrity to normalise the appearance of body hair. Sophia Loren showed off hairy armpits in her heyday, Paris Jackson and Rihanna regularly post photos with body hair on Instagram, and Miley Cyrus has gone one step further by dyeing her body hair to draw attention to it. Closer home, Tillotama Shome, and Malaika Arora have been spotted flaunting body hair and looking fabulous.
However, it seems like the rest of the female population – or at least a large chunk of it – is yet to catch up. Without exception, we all persist in our quest for smooth, hairless skin. “The pressure to have zero facial or body hair is still prevalent in women, but somehow doesn’t always apply to men!” says life coach Munira Jamal, who believes that body positivity is the first step towards breaking that rule. “Anything below the eyebrows for women is heavily stigmatised. If your upper lip hair is beginning to grow, you’re ridiculed for having a moustache. If you show underarm hair, it is considered unhygienic. If your legs haven’t been waxed, they’re called a jungle. The reason most women feel that body hair is ‘dirty’ is because men have fed these ideas to them. Their desirability quotient often hinges on the fact that they have no body hair, and their skin looks almost prepubescent and infantile.
“The other myth is that absolute hairlessness means more hygiene and therefore it is a must, like a pap smear or a visit to the dentist. There is absolutely no truth to these claims, so don’t fall prey to propaganda. Remember, if your partner doesn’t like your body hair, that’s their problem, not yours. Your femininity and appeal do not lie in a hairless body or in their perception of you.”
The removal of body hair isn’t considered a new phenomenon. As early as 2 BC, the Roman poet Ovid told women to find ways to remove their body hair (in writing, no less!) so that, “no rude goat find his way beneath your arms and that your legs be not rough with bristling hair.” Well, we’re bristling, all right, and not just because of the body hair we’re not obliged to take off! But even the great and powerful Cleopatra – as well as other ancient Egyptian women – fell prey to the longing for hairless skin. Pumice stones, rudimentary tweezers, and even beeswax were used for different kinds of hair removal during her time.
Razors were used in ancient India, and this is one trend that stands the test of time across the world until today, albeit with evolutionary and design changes. With the advent of movies, magazines, and pop culture in the 1900s, the pursuit of hairless skin reached every woman’s bedroom. Today, along with social media filters, permanent hair removal techniques, like laser, have also made their way into our lives.
According to a survey conducted by Pee Safe, the global hair removal products market is projected to reach $4.94 billion by 2027. On the plus side, even as some women make a mad dash to the salon at the first instance of body hair regrowth, some others – especially those with underlying conditions – are choosing to embrace it. Harnam Kaur, a British Instagram influencer, postpartum coach, and motivational speaker, had excessive facial hair growth thanks to hirsutism, a symptom of PCOS. Although she struggled initially, today she has embraced her ability to grow a full beard. In an interview, she said, “I decided to keep my beard and step forward against society's expectations of what a woman should look like… Today, I am happy living as a young, beautiful, bearded woman. I have realised that this body is mine, I own it, I do not have any other body to live in, so I may as well love it unconditionally."
That being said, body hair is a personal choice, and its removal has long been considered a part of the grooming processes that women want for themselves. “When I turned 25, I stopped waxing because I wanted to make a political statement,” says Shreyna Jain, a multimedia manager in a marketing firm. “One of the things bodies do is grow hair. We’re mammals, and like all mammals, we’re going to have it. Why make a song and dance about hiding it? How can our bodies be hairless and perfect every single day of our lives? It isn’t just women – men are also expected to keep their body hair neatly trimmed or out of sight. The demands of beauty are just not normal anymore.
“And this isn’t just about your personal life. Jobs that require you to be customer-facing and meet people, say in the hospitality or airline industry, requires body hair removal as a part of the grooming process. This is a grey area for me – I can’t decide if they’re justified or not. But I do know that I now go back for the occasional waxing or threading session at my neighbourhood salon. However, the difference is that I do it more for myself than to please anyone else. There are times when I’ll meet the exact same people, in the exact same dress, without bothering about body hair. And then there are times when I’ll pull out all the stops. As long as the agency is mine, it’s all that matters.”
The next time you reach for a razor or pick up the phone to dial your salon for an appointment, sit back and take a moment to think about whether you want this for yourself, or you’re worried about what your friends, family, and partner will think. If it’s the latter, consider keeping the fuzz!