It’s official: we’re all giving less of a shit about our armpits, with nearly a quarter of us ditching the razor (and the wax and creams and epilators) in the past four years. According to a new study, 95% of women aged 16-24 said they shaved their underarms in 2013, compared to just 77% in 2016.
Market research group Mintel also found that leg-shaving is becoming less of a huge deal – with 92% of women saying they did it in 2013, dropping to 85% in 2016. It looks like the whole industry is taking the hit – with hair removal product sales figures falling by 5% from £598m-£567m in 2015-16.
Asking around The Debrief office, these newly-released stats don’t come as much of a surprise to anyone. Everyone agrees that they feel less pressure to be constantly pulling hair out of their bodies and, in comparison to when they were at school or uni, they feel more confident about their natural, hairy state.
Five or so years ago, a photo of a celebrity sporting a bit of pit fuzz would’ve made huge tabloid headlines. The difference is that now these celebs have an online platform (often with a huge following) to have their say on their matter, which, uh, kind of makes sense, considering it’s their armpits that are being written about.
The most recent celebrity to give zero fucks about underarm hair was Lourdes Leon. Paris Jackson was another to respond to comments on her underarm sitch via Instagram back in March, saying: 'I love hair, and sweat, and BO. I fucking love it, I think it’s great. Some people think that it’s like super disgusting, especially on girls, but every human body does it. It’s natural. Get over it.'
The sales decline in the hair removal industry could also be down to the ‘free from’ beauty trend, which sees people refraining from buying products that contain unnatural ingredients. More than 53% of women surveyed said they would only buy from a ‘free from’ range, which supports the findings, as lots of shaving and hair removal creams on the market contain lots of chemical nastiness.
No matter what body-hair look you're going for this summer, it’s great to see that more of us feel we have a choice when it comes to deciding what to do with the hair follicles on our body, and it can only be a good thing if the pressure on young women to look a certain way is slowly declining.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.