This post mentions a product I was gifted at the end, so it’s definitely sponsored, but I’m also going to talk about female beauty ideals and my childhood a little, so if you want to stick around for the stories, I’d like that.
And now that I’ve killed anyone clicking through from an excerpt, let us begin.
I was teased in Primary school for having hairy legs. I have black hair, so it was obvious that any hair on my legs was going to be dark as well, and that offended some of the children at my school. Now bear in mind we’re not talking about teenagers here, we’re talking about 7-12yos. I was teased mercilessly. All because I grew hair.
My mother was anti-shaving. Well, no, that’s not even right. My mother was anti-spending time doing things she didn’t enjoy in order to satisfy a cultural demand she didn’t agree with. Or something. So she didn’t shave her legs 99% of the time, and under her arms ever.
I was twelve the first time I picked up a razor while home alone, and shaved my legs. The razor was blunted, and old, and disposable, but it took the hair off my legs and I was silky smooth for the first time ever.
I loved it.
From then on, while I was in highschool, I shaved my legs once a week, using disposable razors at my grandmother’s house. That in itself is a long story – my parents’ house didn’t have running water and yada yada. I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s. Which is why I still miss her so badly, especially after this week in hospital with Evie, but I digress.
At highschool however, nothing was said about leg hair, because we all shaved. But OH, the hair on my arms? OFFENSIVE, on so many levels. One boy went so far as to asking why I didn’t wax my arms and shuddering every time he looked at my naked arm flesh. True story.
Jeremy, you were kind of an arsehole.
Because hair on arms isn’t seen as culturally distasteful though, I never bothered to shave my arms, or wax them. But I didn’t think twice about stripping the hair off other parts of my body, which is even stranger when you think about it. Sacred arm hair of the Gods. Or something.
Eventually, I ditched disposable razors, and the angels sung, and prophets wept and everything was very smooth and easy and lovely. Being fifteen is hard enough, without also being fifteen with body hair. You know how this story goes.
Then I met Nathan, and to cut a long story short, we fell in love. And he didn’t care whether I’d shaved or not. Well, he didn’t tell me if he did. I continued to shave my legs regularly because of summer, and dresses, and fulfilling cultural norms.
Nowadays, after two years of marriage, nine years together and three children, I shave my legs very rarely. When I was pregnant with Evelyn, I went nearly the whole pregnancy without shaving, and I didn’t care. Neither did Nathan. It’s just not a thing I feel I need to do anymore.
But, it is still something I like to do on occasion. Sliding into bed with clean sheets and freshly shaven legs is a pleasure.
Women are told over and over how our bodies need to look in order to fulfil the desires of other people. To have your self-worth as a teenager tied up in how much body hair you have is a miserable experience, and hypocritically, while I truly believe everyone should be able to make their own body hair decisions, I was grateful to see that Amy’s hair is soft and fine and light, sparing her the teasing I experienced.
The other day, Nathan was online and there were a group of men belittling a selfie taken by a woman. He said “it took me forever to realise what they were talking about – she hadn’t shaved under her arms.” I’ve desensitived him to the point that he didn’t even notice her underarm hair. That is kind of awesome.
(This is where the product talk starts, so if you hate this kind of thing, skip to the end and tell me about your shaving stories? I’m interested)
Because I shave rarely, and I shave fast, I love my Schick Intuition razor. It’s a funny thing, I actually spent an hour the other day online looking for cheaper heads for it, before finally giving up and accepting that I’d have to pay the usual amount. Then a press release landed in my inbox, letting me know that they had a new product line out.
I love that they have the guidewires so I don’t cut myself, because I used to do that a lot. And I like that the soap is already in the razor head, because I’m lazy and I want to be able to shave fast.
And the coconut/almond oil in the soap smells nice. Summery. I shaved my legs this morning in the shower . It was easy, I don’t have razor burn, and I didn’t cut my kneecaps to pieces.
10/10, would use again.
