Eyebrows and other tales of hair~

Monday, July 7, 2014

When I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, I was over at a friend's house hanging out with her and another friend. The former friend, let's call her S, had only been my friend for a couple of months since she arrived at my high school. The other friend I had known since I was 4, I will call her M. (Please don't try to figure out the initials or anything, they don't represent names at all, they are randomly chosen~)
Either way, we were just hanging out and talking. I think somehow the topic got onto makeup - something I had very little experience with (situation remains about the same), but the others were beginning to explore. Or, in the case of S, experiment with on a daily basis. Anyway, chatting led to S getting out her collection of beauty tools and such. Then without knowing what was happening, I had been pinned to the floor, S sitting on top of me, and my eyebrows were being plucked for the first time in my life.

Yes, it was weird. No, I didn't stop her - I was at a stage in my life that I was fairly indifferent to a lot of things. Plus I wanted to learn what was entailed in a beauty routine, since mine basically amounted to general hygiene and the occasional bit of eyeliner. I was curious about how I had apparently been missing an entire part of my life somehow. (According to S, she had wanted to pluck my eyebrows since the day she met me. M had no such issues, but she didn't intervene either - I'm not sure she knew what to do!)

Since that day I engaged in most hair removal that I thought was expected of me. I shaved, I plucked, sometimes I waxed. But then, in the last couple of years, I began to question that. I barely had energy anyway due to my health, so why should I keep wasting energy on something that I wasn't sure I cared about anyway?

Over the past few months I have let my hair grow out. Not just on my head, but everywhere. I apologise if this grosses you out, but you can stop reading now if you like, as this is something I feel the need to write about. I wanted to see whether I felt like I needed to remove hair simply for other people's benefit, or for some other reason.
As weeks passed and I watched my reactions (and my hair), I realised that I enjoyed not having to do such a huge amount of work in my beauty routine. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of people maybe seeing the dark hairs around my ankles or how bushy my eyebrows seemed to be getting, but I acknowledged that discomfort in myself, and moved on.

Then, a couple of days ago, I decided to pluck my eyebrows. It was a little energy consuming, but I was pleased with the result. It didn't feel like a chore, more like a treat to myself. I liked doing it. I don't want to do it all the time, hell no. I feel fine about just addressing hair issues when I have the energy and the inclination, but I've realised that I like having smooth legs and underarms. And I like having shaped eyebrows - because, you know what? I have damn nice eyebrows.

But I'm really not that into waxing. I don't think I will go there again, tbh.

What are your thoughts on hair removal? Do you feel like you're being forced into removing hair because of public expectation or fear of embarrassment? Or do you enjoy having it as a part of your beauty routine?

Love to all who read. (P.s. thanks for reading this rather unusual post!)

2 comments:

  1. I love waxing - it makes me giggle, but I pay someone to do it as I'm hopeless myself.

    My eyebrows thankfully don't need much attention, and I always wear long pants so I don't have to do my legs often. So I don't do anything for social pressures (but then I guess maybe it contributes to why I want to wear jeans all the time) but... yeah, it's annoying.

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    Replies
    1. I can't say I've ever gone to someone to have waxing done, actually. I always did it myself... I am fairly removed from the whole 'beauty treatment' side of the world. One day I want to have a pedicure or manicure! Though I have to admit to anxieties about the person going 'do you ever do anything with your nails?!' or something like that XD

      I wear pants or long skirts quite a lot, and then I wear tights when I can because I think they're pretty!

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