I Dyed My Armpit Hair And The Results Were Ridiculous
I just felt like I was at a carnival.
Amanda Chatel I stopped shaving my armpits in early May. Having seen so many furry armpits all around me and the fact that it was becoming something of a trend, I decided to jump on it and have dyed armpit hair.
As I wrote in my first piece, having armpit hair made me realize just how much of a slave I am to beauty standards, as I found myself apologizing left and right for my hairy pits.
But still, I kept shaving at bay and resolved to grow it out a little longer. Because I had plans to dye them, of course.
As a teenager, I dyed my hair random colors all the time. Although my hair had been almost every color under the sun except green, I found I was partial to pink. I even had pink hair in my high school graduation photo, something of which my mother has yet to forgive me.
Since I already knew that pink was a good look for me, I decided pink was to be the color of my armpits, too. I may have been a high school student well over a decade ago, but that didn't mean I couldn't relive the magic, right?
After making my purchase (Splat Complete Color Kit in Pink Fetish), I found myself sitting on the couch with bleach on my armpits for 45 minutes. My arms were up in the air the entire time and the last 25 minutes of the bleaching process felt like I was being stung by 100 horseflies.
But I stuck it out. I was determined to be super-cool with my pink pits, and having read somewhere that sometimes it hurts to be beautiful, I went with it.
Photo: Author
Behold! My armpit hair was bleached.
After having a light brown little bush in my pits for a few months, I marveled at my bleached armpit hair; I was truly fascinated. But I realized I couldn't be fascinated for long and applied the pink dye, which resulted in a pink mess.
It's not easy trying to dye your armpit hair, especially while having to keep your arms up and doing it all one-handed, so I managed to get the dye everywhere. What should've been an easy process was total mayhem that resulted in me rocking hot pink splotches on my skin for days afterward.
But what it didn't really result in was pink armpit hair — at least not at first.
I applied and reapplied the dye three times, but my hair just wasn't having it. Maybe it wasn't coarse enough or I should've grown it out for an entire year, but it just wouldn't stick.
In the end, the hair ended up being a light pale pink, but thanks to the way it stained my skin, it looked far brighter than it actually was. I also looked like a moron.
Photos: Author
With my arms over my head, I stared at my pink pits and laughed. Who in their right mind thought this was even remotely clever?
While growing out your armpit hair may result in a feeling of rebellion and throwing up your middle finger at conventional beauty standards, dying it just makes you feel absurd. Or, at least that was my experience.
So, once my skin stopped being irritated from the bleach and dye, I shaved my pits.
Consensus? I'd probably grow out my armpit hair again (like if I lost a bet or something), but, honestly, I just prefer them hair-free.
It feels better for me — cleaner actually — and while it did make me realize that I'm a sucker for shaving them, I'm not really going to try to change that part about me right now.
Photo: Author
As for the dying, well, that’s ridiculous.
I respect any woman who wants to dye her armpit hair because it's her body and her choice. But for me, I just felt like I was at a carnival. I'm not against carnivals, of course; I just prefer to go to them and not feel like I'm in one.
Amanda Chatel is a writer who divides her time between NYC and Paris. She's an essayist and sexual health writer for Shape Magazine, Hello Giggles, Glamour, and Harper's Bazaar. Follow her on Twitter for more.