Are we still scared of women’s armpit hair in 2026?

“To all the people in the comments who think this is a lot of hair, DM me & I’ll send you a pic of my bush,” Adults actressAmita Rao retorted recently on her Instagram Story. The photo in question, taken from a Hollywood Reporter shoot, shows Rao with one arm raised, her underarm hair fully visible. Predictably, the comments were a hot mess of “shave them pits jesus”, green vomit emojis, GIFs of yetis and dancing razors.

TikTok might have led you to believe that 2025 was the year of the bush, thanks to Kim K flogging merkins and influencers chanting ‘FULL BUSH IN A BIKINI!’ all summer. We’re meant to be more normal about body hair on women these days. But in practice, that doesn’t always appear to be the case. Phoebe Bridgers’s Venice Film Festival look went viral last week because of the leg hair visible beneath her tailored Gucci skirt suit, followed by a slew of articles debating whether women’s body hair is newsworthy (a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one). Meanwhile, Rao’s underarm hair provoked much the same reaction as Emily Ratajkowski‘s did in 2019 and Julia Roberts’s in 1999.

Clearly, we’re not as chill about hairy women as some of us might like to imagine. Efforts to normalise body hair on women and femmes – and armpit hair specifically – were a major part of the body positivity era, with pictures of hairy pits, often dyed or bedazzled, circulating widely across social media and blogs. But whatever progress was made by campaigns like #FreeYourPits, which filled feeds with neon-pink armpits in 2014, clearly didn’t settle the matter. If anything, body hair can feel more radical today, as beauty standards swing back towards more conservative ideals.

According to a YouGov poll, over half of Brits believe women should remove their armpit hair. A 2023 US study found that 70 per cent of women shaved their armpits at least monthly, compared with just 11 per cent who never did, while 98 per cent of UK women surveyed said they had removed body hair at some point and 63 per cent said they actively disliked it. For women and femmes, then, depilation is still widely treated as the default. On the plus side, attitudes appear to be shifting among younger people: the same YouGov poll found that women aged 16 to 24 were the most likely to have no preference about whether women remove their armpit hair, while those aged 40 and above were the most likely to think it should be removed.

Speaking to young people about the state of their pits, it seems many no longer view shaving as an unequivocal social requirement, even if it remains the norm. Plenty let their armpit hair grow out, either routinely or permanently, without seeing it as a big deal – though that doesn’t mean others always respond with the same nonchalance. “It's still politicised by others, which can be frustrating,” says Rose*, 24. “I don’t think many women I know with armpit hair feel like they’re doing it as a political statement… It’s funny that I could be perceived as making a big statement when I actually just can't be fucked to shave.”

Yasmin*, 24, also finds it irritating that she’s seen as “radical” for declining to shave her pits. “I guess [that] fuels me to keep doing it, though,” she says.

This perceived radicalism means hairy pits can make for a good vibe check. Nina*, an artist and writer, hasn’t shaved hers for years, and keeps them long for exactly this reason. “Owning your hair is a really good way of filtering out those who are weird about it.” A small departure from conventional Western beauty standards can quickly reveal who is comfortable with different expressions of femininity, which is something that can be particularly useful for queer and marginalised people looking for community.

“I don’t think many women I know with armpit hair feel like they’re doing it as a political statement… It’s funny that I could be perceived as making a big statement when I actually just can't be fucked to shave” – Rose

It can still be difficult to resist external pressures to remove underarm hair, even if it has become unfashionable to admit that you’re doing it for anyone other than yourself. Feminist razor brands have rebranded hair removal – a practice long shaped by patriarchal beauty standards and consumer culture – as both a “personal choice” and a glossy act of self-care, folded into a wider “wellness” routine. Because of the longstanding association between shaving and cleanliness, stigma around women’s body hair is often articulated through the language of hygiene (apparently this doesn’t apply to the 78 per cent of US men who leave their pits alone). “Never heard about cleanliness before,” reads a comment on Rao’s Hollywood Reporter shoot, echoing one left beneath a photograph of Ratajkowski: “Being a feminist doesn’t mean leaving your hygiene behind”.

There are still entrenched stereotypes around women who grow out their body hair, as well as anxieties about being read as a particular kind of person because of it. Ali*, 27, feels this sharply. “I love seeing body hair on other women, but I’ve noticed I don’t feel comfortable growing it myself, because I feel like it matches an aesthetic I don’t have,” she says. Rose*, who shaves occasionally, similarly sees armpit hair as something that can function almost like an accessory, working with some looks more than others. “When I’m in an oversized men’s t-shirt and basketball shorts, I love it, or even in a slutty little dress for contrast. But sometimes it just doesn’t go.”

Growing out your body hair can still feel exhausting when it means being visibly read as non-conforming. Pubic hair is mostly private; armpit hair isn’t. You can embrace the idea of a “full bush summer” without anyone actually seeing whether you have one, but hairy pits require a much more public commitment. That means dealing with the potential ridicule, disgust or assumptions that still come with visible body hair. More than a decade after #FreeYourPits tried to normalise it, armpit hair is still treated as a statement whether the person growing it intends one or not.

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