Hair is natural to have. It grows there on it’s own. It is not ‘unfeminine’ for women to have hair on their body, because clearly female bodies have hair. Sure, humans are different. Some body types with have less or more body hair, but that does not make you any less of a female.

I do like the phrasing, “natural,” over unshaved, or razor free, as those phrases emphasis the shaving aspect. I want being natural to be the default description for a body, and if someone choose to shave, then we can bring up the words, shaved, razor, waxed.

To the people who think it is more clean to shave, that seems like an outdated way of thinking. For me, if you want to be clean, heck, go take a bath.

I previously stopped shaving my underarms, because it resulted in a lot of in-grown hairs that were red and sometimes got juicy. Honestly, it seemed worse than just not shaving, so I stopped. It was nice not having to worry about my skin in my under-arms, and to simply know they would not be hurt.

I had stopped attending to my bikini line while I was at it. Again, like my under-arms, plucking hairs with tweezers here resulted in in grown hair that looked worse than just having a hair.

I also stopped tweezing my nipple region. It was so painful to do so, and seriously, no one would see anything anyways. I did let it be natural for awhile, and then tweezed it clean one final time. I found at that time I felt unnatural to not have my little nipple hair. It felt like something was missing, and I actually felt kind of ugly and like I dishonoured my body. There was absolutely no reason to go through the pain anymore. I finally stopped hurting my body and let it be natural. (BTW, my Tinder date did not even care, if you are wondering.)

Back in 2020, I stopped shaving my legs. At first it was a bit scary, but it also felt like the natural thing to do. 

I actually had not shaved my legs for months on end, and then did one final time. I, with my body, felt naked when I did not have my leg hair. I did not like it. I did not like how it felt. I did not like how it looked. I decided I would not mutilate my body again. The scary part was what other people would do or say when I went in public. 

The other bothering aspect is hair is often associated with power. Men shave when they are in the military. Some Native Americans shave after a death. Growing new hair can be a sign on “adult hood.” So, having hair can be a sign of power, and loosing hair can be a sign of surrendering power or being disempowered. Heck, I even lost a ton of hair on my own head when I was in an abusive relationship. The high stress and not being allowed to sleep wrecked my body and I thought I would have to accept being bald (my hair is still slowly coming back).

So, when US society demands that women remove hair from their legs, under-arms, belly, nipples, chin, and pubic region, what does it really mean when they are pressured to lose their hair? Are they being pressured to lose their power as well?

In all reality, having hair does not matter. You might think people will flip out, but they won’t care. They will still cash you out at the grocery store. They will still employee you to code software. They will still ask you out on dates.

So for me, without any guidance, I set my own path. Perhaps following a similar path can help you become natural too.

1. First I started wearing knee length dresses around my mom/dad/sister. My sister did make a few snarky remarks, but nothing big. Like she one suggested we test a electric clipper on my legs, lol.
2. After that, I dressed up in my professional business dress and my preferred expressive make-up, and went to a meeting with one of my lawyer clients. I did notice her do a double take at my legs, but I think it was more about jealously. Like, as a lawyer, the judges require her to wear a dress for sure, and she is liekly obligated to shave in the courtroom. She was probably just a bit surprised that I had the freedom and strength to wear what I wanted. Beyond that, we did our meeting as normal and she gave me my design payment, so there was no negative consequence to showing up natural.
3. Then I started to hang around friends. They did not even do any double takes or say anything about my hair. Easy goal achieved.
4. I also went to the grocery store with my dress. No one cared. No one did a double take. People are too busy with their own lives to be inspecting women’s legs.

I then became comfortable. I did not double think if it was safe to go to X place with my natural legs. I just went without any hesitation. That worked for about a year, then I have to expand my comfort level.

I wanted to go to the beach.

I was busy and was not able to go to the beach for the time that I let my bikini line go natural. I was not sure if people would be offended or what. I even went on r/razorfree to get some ideas. Thinking about it now, the free was really silly. I mean guys have hair all over them and thicker patches of hair around their trunk-lines, so why can’t women have the same license?

Anyways, I arranged a beach trip with my friends. I wore a bikini, not like trunks. My friends did not notice or say anything. Again, people tend to not really care about your own body.

So, if you are tired of having hair removal pains, ingrown hairs, tired of spending money on razors, or think your natural body looks sexier than your altered body, go ahead. Just stop shaving. You won’t lose your job. You won’t lose dating opportunities. Hardly anyone will notice; if they do, it’ll be out of jealously. And hey, why go through all the pain and suffering so you can make your body appeal to someone else’s standard of beauty? It’s your dang body, if you can’t do what you want with it, then man, I don’t know what we are doing on this planet.

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