This Woman Stopped Shaving And Tracked Her Journey On Instagram

While Mother Nature is still up and down about whether it’s officially “shorts weather” around much of the country, it’s inevitable that it will be here soon enough. With that comes something many women dread—it’s time to start shaving again, ladies.

Beauty retailer Escentual actually found that leg-shaving is the No. 1 most hated beauty chore. About 35 percent of women say they hate it more than anything else in their beauty regimen. The 2013 study also found that women spend about 59 days of their life shaving. That’s almost two months worth of shaving!

Although we tend to despise it, we still find ourselves hunched over the bathtub de-fuzzing for our favorite summer clothes. Why? Fashion. Women didn’t always shave. But when sleeveless dresses and short skirts became en vogue, removing hair became standard. It’s become such a norm now, that it seems odd not to shave.

Blogger Goes Natural And Loves It

To prove shaving isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, fitness blogger Morgan Mikenas is going against the grain (pun intended). In fact, she hasn’t shaved her armpits or her legs for an entire year. She believes natural beauty is, indeed, beautiful.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BROpSsXlXYI/

“I guess my number one reason that I stopped is that [shaving] took so much time,” she said in a YouTube video video posted this March. “It took up so much of my time to get in the shower and have to shave everything and then wash my hair and then wash my body. One day I was like, ‘Why am I doing this anymore?'”

She said she was worried at first that it would make her feel dirty or ashamed, but after a while, she realized it was nice to not have to shave.

“After I let [my body hair] do its thing and grow out, I realized ‘oh hey, this is kinda nice,'” she said in the video. “It started getting super soft. When you shave your body hair, it’s prickly, itchy, and uncomfortable.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ1AkJsFcXW/

Mikenas says it’s unfair for people to think they have to abide by a cultural norm.

“You should just do whatever makes you feel good,” she said. Judging by her 66,000 followers on Instagram, it seems there are plenty of people out there who agree with her.

Mikenas is far from the only woman who chooses not to live the hairless life. There’s plenty of celebrities who are letting their body hair do their own thing. And while the hair-free trend has spread around much of the globe, women in countries from France to China have organized to take a pro-body hair stance in recent years.

Love it or hate it, we have a feeling you’ll be seeing more women embracing their natural selves in the future.