Blogger Proudly Shares Photo of Her Armpit Hair, Calls Out Unrealistic Beauty Standards
In a bid to highlight the unrealistic beauty standards women face every day, blogger Sarah Puhto shared a photo of her unshaven armpit.
Taking to her Instagram, Puhto, who is from Finland, shared an image to her 107,000 followers of herself wearing a white bandeau top and underwear. With her arm raised confidently in the air, the 20-year-old’s unshaven underarm is proudly on display.
“This idea of beauty we have currently is so odd. Who decides what’s beautiful?” she wrote in the accompanying caption.
“It’s not some checklist that you go through and suddenly can qualify for. Should one have flawless skin, a lean body and groomed body hair to be considered beautiful? No. Because that idea of beauty is non-existent. Nobody in reality has that 24/7.”
Puhto goes on to say that beauty shouldn’t be some kind of exclusive group only certain people are allowed to join.
“I currently don’t shave my leg or armpit hair because it’s cold where I live, my skin is breaking out and I do not, nor ever will, have a lean tummy with 0 skin folding or minimal amounts of fat. That’s the reality,” she continued.
She then appealed to her followers to stop judging one another and shaming people via hurtful comments online.
“Please don’t be one of those people that tears others down,” she wrote. “What’s the point. What do you gain from it? Does it make you feel better when you comment these things on people’s posts? Do you ever think why? I’m sure everyone has something they’re insecure about.”
She added, “We all have our own problems to deal with and you never know what someone’s going through. Please consider that before you say things that could hurt someone.”
The blogger ended her empowering post by encouraging her followers to be kinder to themselves.
“Think about that when you say hurtful things to yourself. There’s no point in being rude towards yourself,” she wrote. “Learn to love yourself because you are an amazing person and you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. As long as you’re doing your best, you’re doing an amazing job.”
Since sharing her inspiring words, the post has been liked almost 8,000 times, with people praising the blogger for delivering an inspiring dollop of realism.
“I just wanna say that I love all these body positive posts!!! I’m 25 and your captions totally sum up how I feel about loving my body and are the messages I want my daughters to see one day, but if only posts like these were around while I was growing up! It would have saved a lot of self-hatred and feeling ‘abnormal’, so thank you for the messages you’re sending women in general, but especially young women who need this encouragement,” one woman wrote.
“It’s odd that something so natural such as body hair is considered gross if you have it. Who along the line was like ‘shave it all off,’” another woman added.
“I love this so much!” another woman wrote. “The idea society has put in our heads of what we should look like is completely unrealistic. I don’t shave my legs purely because I’m lazy.”
Puhto is far from the only person to take to social media and post about unrealistic beauty standards. Earlier this year, fitness blogger Morgan Mikenas took to Instagram to reveal the results of not shaving her body hair for a year.
The idea was to encourage others to not to feel bound to societal beauty standards and to find confidence in their bodies in their natural hairy state.
Both Mikenas and Puhto are part of a growing body-love movement that’s seen women chuck their razors and embrace their body hair in all its natural beauty.
A post shared by Morgan Mikenas (@i_am_morgie) on Apr 11, 2017 at 7:31pm PDT
In April, Madonna’s daughter Lourdes was pictured on a beach proudly showing off her armpit hair. And she’s not the only celebrity refusing to conform to de-fuzzing beauty standards. Miley Cyrus and actress Jemima Kirke have also proudly flaunted unshaven underarms.
In January, Jemima’s sister — actress Lola Kirke — contrasted her princess-like Andrew Gn gown with some nicely grown body hair at the Golden Globes.
While not everyone is rushing to ditch their monthly wax, it’s certainly refreshing to see more women embracing their natural bodies, armpit hair and all.
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