January has seemingly become the month of trying out new lifestyles and trends. With a new year and a new decade at your feet, what better time to switch up the status quo and try something new that claims to change your life for the better?
Many of us will already know about Dry-January and Veganuary, but there's another ongoing social media campaign that is asking women to ditch their razors and embrace their natural body hair.
Dubbed '#Januhairy', the campaign urges women to stop putting themselves through the painful routine hair removal treatments and to stop worrying about what outfits to wear that could risk showing some unshaven legs or armpits.
Bella Thorne recently showed off her hairy armpits on Instagram:Instead, ditch the waxing strips, epilators, and razors for good and embrace your fuzz.
Per the Metro, the campaign was started back in 2018 by student Laura Jackson to promote body positive and all-around self-love - all while raising money for charity.
Now, as we approach the midway point of January, women are taking to Instagram to proudly show off their Januhairy progress, along with their personal reasons for going au naturale.
Writing on Instagram, user Sarah Rose wrote:
says: "OH HI! It's #januhairy [...]
"I just discovered #januhairy which is an amazing campaign which inspires womxn to grow out their body hair in January to try & normalise womxn's body hair. I love this idea so much! I have always been quite liberal when it comes to my body hair. I let my underarms be & maybe wax my legs once a year.
This woman received abuse from trolls after showing off her unshaven legs:Rose continued:
"As a teenager I felt immense pressure to shave, wax or hide my body hair. I remember spending one school holiday in Spain wearing tights with my dresses in 30+ weather as I had forgotten my hair removal cream. There was so much pressure and stigma. When I got older I started to embrace it & have never looked back.
It's campaigns like this, that shake up the stigma and preconceptions of womxn with body hair #bodyhairloveaffair"
And Instagram user Lisa Braithwaite typed:
"So there's this thing called #januhairy. I never thought, when I stopped shaving my legs 30 years ago, that women would ever embrace body hair on a wide scale as a symbol of empowerment and personal choice.
"I've railed against this particular aspect of gender socialization for decades, that women are expected to be hairless, smooth, small and basically pre-pubescent for our whole lives. What this says about men who want women's bodies to remain as hairless as children's (even in our lady parts), I don't even want to get into. It's creepy.
"And a lot of women don't even realize they have a choice. A lot of women are horrified by the thought of letting their hair just "be," because our culture says body hair - our natural body - is gross, ugly or dirty. It makes me sad. (Also the obsession with covering our gray hair as we age!) Grown women have hair. All over. Get used to it! It's cute to see all these 20-somethings posting pics of their armpits, like not shaving is new. LOL. But I'm glad to see a younger generation of hair activists embracing natural women's bodies, of all sizes, shapes, abilities and hairiness!"
And speaking to the Metro, 29-year-old Emily Ross explained:
"I love Januhairy – what better way to start the year than with an initiative to normalise female body hair. Growing out my body hair has been a truly empowering experience – an external sign to the world that my body is for me.
"Women’s body hair is continuously policed, and choosing to embrace our natural body hair is often met with (usually male) criticism. At the end of the day, women should choose what makes them individually happy.
"Today that means I’m not shaving, but if a woman prefers to remove her hair that’s great too! We are all individual owners of our bodies and have a right to feel at home in them, whether that pleases others or not."
