Should you shave your pits? Our new agony aunt, Auntie Cooler, strokes her beard and answers…
Dear Auntie Cooler,
I’m seeing a lot of armpit hair on tumblr right now. Is it ok for girls to stop shaving and fuzz out? Was there a memo? And what if I have super-dark thick hair and live in Neasden?
Yours,
An aspiring teen wolf
Dear aspiring teen wolf,
Sometimes you’ve been doing something for so long it’s robotic. Like instagramming sunsets, sighing when you see the ocean or dipping shit in hummus. You can’t remember why you started doing it in the first place, it’s just something you do.
Shaving would be on that list too. It’s a pain, often literally, but if you’re a woman in 2014 (especially a British one), rocking hair-free pits, legs and bikini zone is something you’ve just been doing since your early to mid teens. Without question.
Sure from time to time you’d forget. Lifting your arm while wearing a vest top you’d realise your iron filing-style fuzz was on full view and blush, hoping friends, especially those with benefits, hadn’t noticed. Apologising for your slackness if they did. Busy days, they’d nod. Hear ya.
Even if you did think about the why, cos guys prefer it that way (or we think they do anyway), to sell razors, as we live in a world where arbitrary notions of beauty rule and we’re sheep, and find them all pretty lame, growing it out deliberately, cavegirl/70s hippie-style would never cross your mind.
Or would it? For this summer underarm hair appears to be a thing. Well as you mention it’s on tumblr a lot and I’d add in some parts of London anyway. Whether it’ll go mainstream or stay strictly hipster enclave remains to seen.
Madonna, always one for courting buzz, posted the above fuzz photo this spring.
Arvida also recently modelled in a ‘Hair Everywhere’ shoot for Vice, which as you might imagine fully went off in the comments section.
