to shave or not to shave?

Stifler's - posted on 06/08/2011

I shave my arm pits. But no I wouldnt shave my arms lol maybe wax I would have liked to wax them for my wedding.

Rosie - posted on 06/08/2011

no i don't i can't even keep up with my legs, i am not about to add something else to the routine. my luck it'd be all stubbly and gross.

Minnie - posted on 06/08/2011

Nope. I wouldn't shave my arms. I think of forgetting or not being able to shave for a few days and having stubble on them, lol. No way!



My arm hair is pretty light anyways.

Erin - posted on 06/08/2011

Never. It's blonde (even though I'm a brunette) and not an issue to me. I'd be too scared of ingrown hairs and stubble anyway. Yuck.

Madie - posted on 06/08/2011

I've always shaved my arms! They are so smooth and silky looking:)

Jody - posted on 06/08/2011

I shave my arms whenever I shave my legs. I just like the way it looks and feels, and its just become part of the routine, so it doesn't really take that long. However, my hair is rather dark, so I think not everyone would need to shave their arms if they don't want to.

Jenni - posted on 06/08/2011

Yup, since I was 12. Along with everywhere else. I just like the way it feels. So soft. I have really light unnoticeable hair but it just feels delicious. I only have to do it once a month at most. Maybe once every two months. So no biggie.

Becky - posted on 06/08/2011

No. I hate shaving my legs enough, I'm not going to add any extra body parts to my list of things I need to shave!

Emma - posted on 06/08/2011

No I never have...it's not really noticable anyway (and I don't want the hassle of another area to shave)! I shave my armpits, legs and bikini area.

Cathy - posted on 06/08/2011

As a teen I got nicknamed gorilla because of my hairy arms. The hair was thick, brown or long. They were really hairy.

Yes I have shaved them before. I made a point of clearing the mass of hair every 6 months when I was younger because it was just embarrassing.

It's thinned a lot now and gone blonde... but it still gets long. Takes much longer to grow but I still feel the need to shave them once a year with lots of hair minimizing lotion in regular use in between.

Amber - posted on 06/08/2011

My arm hair is blonde and really fine, you can't even really tell it's there at all. So nope, don't shave it. Legs, "down there" and arm pits. Luckily my hair grows slow, so I'm not a slave to the razor.

Jenn - posted on 06/08/2011

Why would I shave my arms? No, I have never ever thought to shave my arms. Under arms, bikini area, and legs - yes.

September - posted on 06/08/2011

I would never shave my arms. The hair on my arms is light in color and short in length. However I shave my legs, armpits and "down there" regularly.

Jessi - posted on 06/08/2011

I'm a "dirty" blonde the hair on my arms is so blonde and thin people think i shave but i don't now my legs on the other hand...i have thick brown leg hair but just on the shin/calve portion not my thighs/hammies that hair is just like my arm hair...blonde and thin!

Jocelyn - posted on 06/08/2011

Nope never had. I have very fine very blonde hair on my arms, and the only time you see it is when the light hits in "just right". It doesn't bother me.

Jackie - posted on 06/08/2011

Actually yes, I have. I did it once with a razor and any time after I used clippers or something similar. The razor made it feel prickly and I didn't like that. The hair on my arms are blond but long and I HATE it. I do it for special occasions

Elfrieda - posted on 06/08/2011

Wow. I've never even heard of that!

Tania - posted on 06/08/2011

Nope...I am really fair so basically I have no hair. I haven't shaved my legs since I got married. That was almost 3 years ago. My friends hate me.

Joanna - posted on 06/08/2011

No, I did it once and hated it. Now it's only shaved if I'm getting a tattoo, and it's because they do it. I have some forearm hair growing in on a newer one and it's annoying as hell.

JuLeah - posted on 06/08/2011

Found a 1982 article from the Journal of American Culture by Christine Hope "Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture." Summarized by Cecil Adams



The gist of the article is that U.S. women were browbeaten into shaving underarm hair by a sustained marketing assault that began in 1915. (Leg hair came later.)



The aim of what Hope calls the Great Underarm Campaign was to inform American womanhood of a problem that till then it didn't know it had; namely unsightly underarm hair.



Around 1915, sleeveless dresses became popular, opening up a whole new field of female vulnerability for marketers to exploit.



The underarm campaign began in May, 1915, in Harper's Bazaar, a magazine aimed at the upper crust. The first ad "featured a waist-up photograph of a young woman who appears to be dressed in a slip with a toga-like outfit covering one shoulder. Her arms are arched over her head revealing perfectly clear armpits. The first part of the ad read 'Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.'"



Within three months, Cook tells us, the once-shocking term "underarm" was being used. A few ads mentioned hygiene as a motive for getting rid of hair, but most appealed strictly to the ancient yearning to be hip. "The Woman of Fashion says the underarm must be as smooth as the face," read a typical pitch.



Antiarm hair ads began appearing in middlebrow McCall's in 1917. Women's razors and depilatories didn't show up in the Sears Roebuck catalog until 1922, the same year the company began offering dresses with sheer sleeves. By then the underarm battle was largely won.



The anti-leg hair campaign was more fitful. The volume of leg ads never reached the proportions of the underarm campaign.



Besides, there wasn't much practical need for shaved legs. After rising in the 1920s, hemlines dropped in the 30s and many women were content to leave their leg hair alone. Still, some advertisers as well as an increasing number of fashion and beauty writers harped on the idea that female leg hair was a curse.

Though Hope doesn't say so, what may have put the issue over the top was the famous WWII pinup of Betty Grable displaying her awesome gams. Showing off one's legs became a patriotic act. That plus shorter skirts and sheer stockings, which looked dorky with leg hair beneath, made the anti-hair pitch an easy sell.



Some argue that there's more to this than short skirts and sleeveless dresses. Cecil's colleague Marg Meikle (Dear Answer Lady, 1992) notes that Greek statues of women in antiquity had no pubic hair, suggesting that hairlessness was some sort of ideal of feminine beauty embedded in Western culture. If so, a lot of Western culture never got the message. Greek women today (and Mediterranean women generally) don't shave their hair. The practice has been confined largely to English-speaking women of North America and Great Britain, although one hears it's slowly spreading elsewhere.

Lacye - posted on 06/08/2011

I used to but since I've gotten this wonderful tan over the last few years, my skin color kinda masks how dark my arm hair is. But now that I think about it, maybe I should. It might make my tan look better. Hmmmmmmm.......... I'll be back later. lol

Tara - posted on 06/08/2011

No I haven't.
I do shave my legs, pits and "down there" (I like a clean playing field) but the hair on my arms is virtually non-existent and what is there is so light and thin it's almost transparent.
I could see shaving my arms if they were really hairy but I would keep them that way, arm hair stubble wouldn't be very attractive nor comfortable I think.