How I Learned to Shave my Legs: A Story
A coming of age story about leg hair
Today, my boyfriend and I are supposed to go visit his parents. His mom is a very observant woman so whenever we visit, I have to be on point. No detail goes unnoticed: “you gained a few pounds”, “you always wear black”, “you should wear heels more often”, “cute nail polish” and so on.
I wake up early. The first order of business: shaving my legs. I prep the bathroom, get my towels, get a new razor, and wait for the hot water to reach its optimum temperature. While I’m sitting on the toilet thinking of what to wear I suddenly feel tired. I’m completely dried of any energy and a rebellious thought creeps in: why do I have to shave my legs? Like, who came up with this dumb social construct, damn it?! As it turns out, there is an entire Wikipedia article on the matter.
The acknowledgment of my own body hair came when I was 11 years old. I was at Math camp. The room I was assigned to had 3 other girls, all high schoolers so slightly older than me. In my mind, they looked like grownups: they knew stuff. Eventually, after crying myself to sleep for the first 2 nights, I befriended one of them. And it was a turning point in my life.
We’ll call her Dana, because I genuinely don’t remember her name. She was a Math wizard, wearing an iconic 90s choker and sporting an edgy bob. Dana always carried her Sony Walkman around, listening to only one tape: the Without You I’m Nothing album by Placebo.
To a small-town girl like myself, Dana was the epitome of coolness. I wanted to be Dana when I grew up. I worshiped her.
She had become my mentor. She pointed out the flaws in my wardrobe: the t-shirts were too colorful, never wear crop pants, either go long jeans or daisy-dukes, my hair was boyish, let it grow out, sandals are lame, get a pair of converse chuck tailors, wear mascara and black eyeliner, lose weight, shave your legs and arms.
I was shook. There were so many wrong things with me. So many things I needed to fix. How could I have lived until then not knowing that I have fuzz on my legs and arms? How did hair grow in all of these places, because mind you, it was everywhere by then, without me noticing it? I was determined to deal with it, swiftly and definitively.
But when I got home from camp, the reality of the situation struck me stupid. How does one shave their legs? Where do I start? Needless to say, I was too ashamed to ask my mom about it. She was the one buying me all the wrong clothes and treating me like a kid, so how could she understand?
Television was an unexpected ally. I stumbled upon the Gillette Venus razor commercials: skinny, tall ladies on the beach, cheerfully shaving their already hairless legs. So I figured razors were the way to go. But I had no money of my own, I had no way of getting out of town and no way of going to the store and purchasing those precious tools of beauty.
So I ended up using the next best things: one of my dad’s razors. I hid in the closet with a flashlight and the contraband and started to carefully, ever so slowly, run the razor over my legs. A spiritual transcendence, or better yet, a beauty transcendence was taking place.
I have no recollection of how much time went by. When I was finished, I put the razor back in its place and started at my victory. Mind you, it didn’t matter I had several nasty cuts and that my skin was dry and irritated, I was free of the enemy, I was free of the hair.
My win and sense of accomplishment didn’t last very long, for obvious reasons. In addition to biology, my other defeat was caused by my parents. I overheard my dad jokingly telling my mom: “Are you aware that our daughter is shaving her legs with my razor?”. Mom was pretty astonished as to how and when this happened but I didn’t stick around for her full reaction.
I was so ashamed. It felt like there was no escaping, no alternative. Until my mom came to me. In an unexpected turn of events, she sat down with me and attempted to talk to me about body hair. She insisted on how I don’t need to do this because I’m still a child, but when I burst into tears she gave up and handed me a tube of depilatory cream.
Shock, amazement, confusion. What is this foul-smelling substance? How do I use it? This just adds another level of complexity to the whole thing. I just wanted a simple razor, I didn’t even know there were other ways of getting rid of hair.
The struggle continued for a couple of years until I got to high school. By then, I had some pocket money I could spend on my own, I started to have a say in the clothes I was getting and let my hair grow out. Shaving became part of my routine and social life. A bit later I experimented with waxing after a guy complained about my stubble, but I gave that one up fairly quickly due to my sensitive skin, and frankly, low pain endurance.
Nowadays, while I’m well into my 30s, I realize the struggle is still somewhat there, albeit in a different way. I can’t say that shaving my legs takes that much of my time, but it does require some planning. It is mostly a mindless task if you don’t count the times I nearly shaved off part of my labia or got my follicles infected.
I wish my mom had handled the situation better, but she is not to blame. I can only imagine what the conversation between her and my grandma might have been since my grandma is also from a rural area that is still very much constrained by tradition, ancient cultural norms, and patriarchy to this present day.
Hair removal is just one of those things that we have to do to abide by beauty, hygiene, or whatever other standards. One of the many things we have to do to feel adjusted or normal, in my case. But at the end of the day, it is ultimately your choice whether you want to do it or not.
We see examples from powerful or influential celebrities embracing their body hair every day. And to be honest, you should be the only one deciding what you want to do, regardless of what anyone has to say.
I for once, think I’ll skip the shaving for today.
So, do you have a hair removal story?
