According to Sydney Jordan, the model admits that she’s lost quite a few modeling jobs — by just a hair.
“I’m not willing to shave. This is part of my brand,” the 25-year-old told The Post of her fuzzy armpits and legs. Jordan, who lives in Ohio, has been warned by her agent that body hair is “not industry standard,” but she doesn’t care.
“I’m trying to normalize this,” she said. [1]
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In recent years, more and more women of Generation Z have decided to take a page out of a segment of the Baby Boomer generation — namely the hippies or flower children. We are seeing more Gen Z women ditch their razors. And two years of the start of the pandemic, which demanded that women give up the beauty and fashion comforts like hair dye and wearing high heels, women are flocking to TikTok to endorse their all-natural grooming lifestyle proudly. We are seeing more and more posts with the hashtag #bodyhairisnatural[2], which has a combined total of 91 million views.
The pro-body hair movement is starting to pick up steam online. According to a 2021 body image study by YouGovAmerica[3], about 35 percent of Americas say they have no preference whether a woman chooses to or not, while only seven percent say women should not shave. For respondents between 18 and 35, female hair was even less of a big deal, with most confessing they either think of armpit hair as attractive or simply don’t care one way or the other if women have it.
Image Source: Bailey Bullock
And while Jordan is facing plenty of backlash over her anti-shaving position, other pinups are reaping the rewards of daring to stay be hairy.
“People never cared if I shaved,” 25-year-old model Elyanna Sanchez, who boasts more than 93,000 followers on Instagram, told The Post. “It just felt normal [to have body hair].”
The model, who splits her time between Manhattan and Los Angeles, was in a 2019 Calvin Klein underwear ad that prominently featured her hairy armpits.
While her high-profile client had no issue with her natural look, Sanchez notes that quite a few commenters online were not as accepting, which she believes is hypocritical.
“People say, ‘Can you use real models?’” she said of the pressure fashion companies get to hire more typical-looking people. “And then everyone bashes them and calls them ugly.”
Image Source: Chante Glover
But, it seems more brands are willing to take risks on models with body hair.
Sunny, a UK-based razor brand, wrote in their tagline:
“To shave or not to shave, it’s no biggie is it? Prickly or smooth, it won’t change the world.”
Also, Billie, an American shaving company, became the first brand in their industry to show images of women with hairy legs, inner thighs, and underarms.
Supermodel Ashley Graham has a partnership with the popular razor brandHarry’ss and can be seen flaunting her fluffy underarms. After landing the gig, the model replied by posting a video on her TikTok, which shows her laughing at the headlines of news stories talking about the advert. She clearly enjoys sticking it to critics who thought beauty companies would never embrace women who didn’t shave.
Image Source: Virali Patel
And now, women from all backgrounds are letting their body hair grow out.
Chante Glover, age 29, is an artist from Brooklyn, New York, who says when she first began growing out her body hair in 2016, she felt” pretty alone in my friend group”
Today, however, she’s finding the change” empowering” Then there’s 28-year-old London, England native Virali Patel, who posts tributes to her body hair online.
“I feel a lot of women are tired of changing themselves in order to fit in society’s definition of beautiful,” said Patel, who recently gave up on hair removal after 20 years of shaving and waxing. “We’ve been conditioned to believe smooth skin is sexy, and having hair makes us look ‘manly’ and unworthy of love — which just isn’t true.”
Image Source: Elyanna Sanchez
Liara Roux, a sex worker and author from New York City, describes her career as” being hot online” She says that picture of her body hair on social media is a way of validating other women who wish to abstain from the razor.
“I’ve had some people tell me that they decided to start growing out their body hair after they saw me with it,” Roux, 32, said. “Because it’s just my job to be naked online and be hot, it sort of gives other people permission to do that … It’s easier for people to be like, ‘Oh, you can still be very attractive to people.’”
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Sources:
- “Gen Z gals on growing out their body hair: It’s ‘sexy’ and ‘empowering’”New York Post. Brooke Kato. March 2, 2022.
- #Bodyhairisnatural.TikTok
- “YouGov Body Image Study 2021: How Americans are feeling about their body image” YouGovAmerica. Jamie Ballard. May 26, 2021.