JOIN USDestiny Moreno, 17, drove to a Sally Beauty Supply near her Seattle home last September with a newly hatched plan. She peppered a grand-motherly employee with questions about hair bleaches, developers and dyes, and the woman asked matter-of-factly if she were colouring her hair. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m dyeing my armpit hair,’” Destiny said. “She stared at me shellshocked for five seconds, and then she started laughing and was laughing throughout the entire interaction.”
She settled on Voodoo Blue by Manic Panic (a New York-based hair colouring company), and the next day posted a video on YouTube in which she wears a tank top and proudly raises her arms to show turquoise-coloured armpit hair. The video has had more than 2,64,000 views.
Act of defiance
After she stopped shaving her underarms a few months ago, Destiny drew plenty of negative comments, and dyeing her armpits bright colours – she has since also gone with hot pink, purple, green, neon yellow and orange – has been something of an act of defiance. “Nobody questions when a guy wearing a tank top does a selfie that shows his armpit hair,” she said. “But if I happen to show my armpit hair in a selfie, it’s like, ‘Whoa, feminist witch asking for attention.’”
The Internet, it turns out, is up to its armpits with women who dye theirs. Miley Cyrus displayed her newly pink underarms in a photo she posted to Instagram in May, drawing more than 3,96,000 likes and more than 30,000 comments. On Instagram, more than 700 photos of women (and a handful of men) have been posted with the hashtag #dyedpits. And a blog post, How to Dye Your Armpit Hair, by Roxie Hunt, a Seattle hairstylist, has been shared more than 37,000 times since it was published last October.
Five years ago, Roxie, 31, stopped shaving her underarms, which these days are pink. She is a founder of Free Your Pits, a website that celebrates growing and dyeing. “Our goal,” write Roxie and Rain Sissel, the site’s other founder, in what they call a manifesto, “is to use this demonstration of personal choice and expression to help broaden and challenge the standard of ‘beauty’ in a society that already places way too many harmful standards on women.”
At “pit-ins” in Seattle and Pensacola, Florida, groups have assembled for dyeing sessions. And through Vain, the feminist-leaning salon in Seattle where she works, Roxie also offers the service for $65. “One woman came in to get them done because she was going on a family vacation and wanted to freak out her in-laws,” Roxie said.
Racheal Bennett, 20, who lives in Ottawa and is studying to become a hairstylist, stopped shaving her underarms when she was about 15. Last December, she posted an instructional video to YouTube in which she dyes her armpits with Virgin Rose by Special Effects (a hair dye company). “I do it because it looks cool,” she said in an interview. “And because I think that people should be able to do what they please, and feel beautiful regardless of what they do.” Not everyone shares her enthusiasm. “My parents think I’m crazy,” Racheal said.
“They’ve accepted it, but my dad is still very much grossed out.” Breanne Fahs, associate professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University, published an article last year about a study she conducted of 62 women who stopped shaving their armpits and legs for 10 weeks, and who kept journals about the frequently negative reactions from romantic interests, friends and family.
She welcomes the dyeing trend. “Probably most women don’t say, ‘I’m dyeing my armpit hair as a direct act of political resistance,’” Breanne said. “But nevertheless it becomes that, because it really highlights the presence of the hair and the presence of this otherwise sort of silent or erased aspect of women’s bodies.”