Body Hair & Me
At least I don’t have a mustache! A white peer of mine yells in elementary school. I race to cover my mouth in secretive shame. I was one of two Mexican girls in my grade level and my dark hair was in no way discrete. None of my friends seemed to have peach fuzz between their eyebrows or a permanent chocolate milk stain above their lips. Their arms were clean of the fur that painted my own skin. Their blonde hair fell on their bright shoulders and my brown hair flowed down to my shadowed and prickly knees. In the shower, I would attempt to gratingly scrub away the natural dirt that illustrated my young body. I felt like a feminine anomaly. My whole life I would look in the opposite direction during everyday conversations to eliminate face-to-face contact. If they look at me too long they will see all the hair, I thought. I never saw myself in popular entertainment platforms or my school’s student and staff population. Their shiny highlights and glistening hair was celebrated; my dark complexion and forehead caterpillars were nowhere to be seen. Everyone seemed so clean. Why couldn’t I be?
Leading into my teenage years, discussions on body hair management and even self-image held much stigma. I begged my mom since I was small to allow me to shave my peach fuzz and upper lip or pluck and tweeze. She resisted and reminded me of the beauty that came with my Mexican identity. I was blind to these affirmations and held resentment towards my culture for this burden. Finally, when I was 12 years old, my mother allowed me to get my eyebrows professionally threaded. Painful, yes, but boy did I feel so renewed. My eyes were smooth and my forehead clean. I believed I had finally fit in. I purchased face hair bleach from a local CVS to rid my dark upper lip. In seventh and eighth grade, I religiously groomed my face and kept it spotless. I dyed my dark brown hair to a bright blonde balayage and made sure to tone and lighten as often as possible. Although I no longer avoided eye contact or covered my face with my hands or clothing, I was still hiding behind an identity that was not my own. I was consistently erasing away a pivotal piece of who I was. My eyebrows became thinner and thinner and I held bleach burns around my nose. My hair ran dry, tangled, orange, and hay-like. I was killing myself to keep up this image and fit in with my white peers. I was not me. I was not them. And I did not know how to begin to love the same young woman that I had bullied into white culture and waxed glamorization.
When the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced, I was forced to stay home and not attend worship at the brow threading shop or local drugstores. My hair, resilient as I have come to adore, grew back to encompass my face and body as before. Though, I did not mind. There were no social outings on my agenda so I felt little shame in allowing my natural furry essence to take rightful form. That is when I was forced to confront the truth behind my self-imposed assimilative efforts. Stripping my body of its natural glitter was never something I did for myself, to feel pretty or feel clean, but for the appeasement of those around me. It was like my being Mexican was a secret I was trying so hard to keep from the world around me, and in this color-centric world, I believed I had cracked the code. I was exhausted from living for others and worsening my life to heighten other’s opinions of me. It was truly freeing to come to terms with an insecurity I held my whole life and say goodbye to inequitable (and white) beauty standards. My body hair is a decoration on the woman I have become and no apologies are necessary for the way I choose to navigate through this world. If there are individuals in our life who find natural fur distasteful or unclean, that’s not a problem or a stab at our personal beauty but a reflection of their own values. I have learned to surround myself with those who embrace my curves and fuzz and loud laugh. I also practice being that friend to myself, too.
My body hair journey is ever-evolving and I still choose to pluck or bleach every now and again (which is not often so I remain a furry woman). And I love it. Me. I could not have asked for a greater body to nourish and love my soul. The hair I once tried to sandpaper away is commemorated upon. My coat animates my being and holds in all of the positive energy I could ever need. I play around with layered hairstyles, soap brows, and all other privileges us hairy girls have. After all, this hair is a natural and built-in accessory, so why not have fun with it? Plus, I like to pride myself upon the fact that my mustache will always be thicker than my brother could ever dream. Taking our power back begins with embracing every imperfection we possess and rejecting beauty selectivity and subsequent discrimination.
