body hair

Over the almost 40 years that I’ve been on this planet, I’ve absorbed the message — whether it’s about my hair, pale skin, or the size of particular body parts — that I’m too much.

I stand in the bathroom for six hours.

I stand in the bathroom for six hours.

I tapped the razor on the side of the sink and inspected my smooth legs for any missed spots. Then I rinsed the blade, washed my hands, and put on my outfit: a long-sleeved black top, a knee-length denim skirt, tall black boots, and a silver dragon necklace for good measure.

For centuries — since the days of ancient Egypt, in fact — women have been going to immense lengths to remove their body hair. Plucking, shaving, buffing, stripping and even burning away that supposedly “unsightly,” “masculine” thicket of fuzz. But now, women are being encouraged to embrace their body hair in a thoroughly 21st century way: a viral hashtag.

I understand that feeling good is far more important than looking good. But it's hard to not get caught up in the frenzy to lose all the baby weight when that's the only thing everyone seems to comment on post-delivery.

I’ve been on a largely fruitless quest for good hair all my life. I’ve got thin, baby-fine, straight-as-a-nail hair that’s somehow both oily and prone to frizziness at the same time. Years of abusing my hair with heat and dyes didn’t help the state of affairs, either. So when I heard that women were cutting back on or even foregoing shampoo altogether and getting dream-worthy hair, I was game to give the shampoo-free lifestyle a try.

A new study reveals how women with body hair disgust, like, everybody on earth. But what about smelly women . . . are we even worse?