I have a razor in my shower that I use almost daily.
Not under my arms.
Not on my legs, or my pubic hair.
Not for the hairs on my tummy below my belly button.
I shave my top lip and under my chin.
Listen to this article in audio form at [Audio] The Razor In My Shower.
The hair grows dark and rough under my chin. My kids feel the stubble every now and then when we cuddle, and I let them.
They say, “It’s bristly like Daddy today.” And I answer honestly, “Yes, it is a bit bristly today.”
I try to make it no big thing.
And yet it’s the body hair that someone has commented on, at a time when I was perhaps the most vulnerable.
I was in the hospital after giving birth to my first child. I had experienced sixteen hours of continually induced labour, fourteen hours under epidural, and finally a caesarean. Now a couple days later, with the feeling back in my legs, and my first wobbly shower washing the still flowing blood from my body, we waited for my breastmilk to come in.
I had packed my hospital bag thinking I wouldn’t need my razor because I’d hardly be shaving my legs or under my arms in the hospital fresh after giving birth.
I didn’t think I’d be in the hospital for five days.
Shaving the patch of hair on my chin and my top lip was such a quick and inconsequent action in the shower at home that I forgot I even used my razor for that.
As the days passed in the hospital I noticed it getting bristly and then longer. I could have asked my husband to bring my razor from home. I don’t think he knew that I shaved my face, although he’s observant enough to have figured it out. Was I trying to avoid a conversation about it?
In any case, I decided it was no big thing.
I decided to ignore it, accept it as it was, and deal with it when I got home to the razor in my shower.
I remember a doctor came in to talk about discharging me and our feeding plan with the baby since we were still waiting on my milk to come in.
After one glance at me and with a doctor’s brisk, problem-solving manner he asked, “Do you have a history with PCOS*?”
As if the most obvious cause of my milk not coming in yet was a hormonal imbalance in my body that existed prior to my pregnancy.
As if the most obvious cause was not the hours upon hours of induced labour with synthetic hormones and nerve blockers flooding my body.
As if the most obvious cause was not my baby being cut from my body perhaps days before my body was ready to support her on the outside.
As if the most obvious cause was not my body needing to recover itself and heal from this trauma first.**
All because of a little facial hair on a woman.
I don’t remember when my chin hair became obvious enough that I wanted to remove it.
I do remember becoming self-conscious of the hair on my upper lip sometime during puberty. I definitely didn’t want my top lip to look like the soft fuzzy beginnings of a moustache that the boys were developing.
And I remember the embarrassment when a friend at school reached out to pull a hair from my neck. It tugged tight on my skin and my hand flew up to cover the pain. “Oh, sorry,” my friend exclaimed, “I didn’t know it was attached.”
I plucked those random, rogue hairs. And I tried all manner of facial hair removal methods over the years.
I tried hair removal creams with their pungent scents as they cooked directly under my nose, and their signature tingling, burning sensation that told you it was working. All to get rid of hairs that were slightly darker than blonde.
I tried waxing and threading. I didn’t like the assumption that you wanted every hair, whether visible or not, removed from your face. I remember getting threading done, mainly to shape my eyebrows and clear my top lip and being shocked at how long she spent on my chin.
(Perhaps that was the thing that stimulated the change in hair growth on my chin.)
Shaving my chin was an extension of shaving my top lip.
The hair had become more prevalent than my patience with tweezers. Now a patch appeared on my chin and having tried all manner of hair removal methods already, I simply swiped the razor over it.
The other day I noticed these tiny little light blonde hairs under my bottom lip, and I love them. I delight in them, and I don’t ever want them torn from my face.
So, I occasionally have a long stray hair on my neck.
There are a few hairs that grow in very specific places on my breasts.
I have a little trail of long hairs under my belly button.
And I shave my chin.
Not like a pubescent boy.
Just like a grown-ass woman.
[ORIGINAL ARTICLE: The Razor In My Shower, by Kerryn Hewson. 2023.]
If you liked this article, you might like to read Purpose on The Wings of Regret coming next.
* PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, recognises a higher than average level of androgen hormones including testosterone in the body that can result in facial hair growth.
** My breastmilk took 10 days to come in. Then I successfully breastfed my daughter for around 18 months when it felt like the right time for both of us to wean.