A woman who "couldn't be bothered" to shave embraced her furry armpits and feels "liberated" showing them off in a bikini - despite being trolled for her "gross" body hair.
Jo Brown, 28, used to shave each time she found her hair growing, before she decided to embrace her natural body hair during the pandemic.
Credit: SWNS
Jo Brown, 28, used to shave each time she found her hair growing, before she decided to embrace her natural body hair during the pandemic.
Credit: SWNS
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Oh no, I can't go on a date right now, I haven't shaved.
00:02 What a ridiculous thing to say.
00:03 I would never say it, oh sorry,
00:05 I should cut my hair off before I go on this date.
00:09 It's kind of vulnerable, isn't it?
00:10 (upbeat music)
00:13 ♪ I know that now it's summer ♪
00:17 ♪ And it's getting kind of hot ♪
00:19 ♪ And it might be a bummer ♪
00:20 ♪ If you're worried about your bod ♪
00:22 ♪ So all I wanna say is ♪
00:24 ♪ If you're scared to wear a bikini ♪
00:26 ♪ Just wear one anyway ♪
00:27 ♪ 'Cause you do not have to be skinny ♪
00:29 ♪ You got a bikini body ♪
00:31 - Hi, my name's Jo.
00:32 Also known as Jo Brown or Jo Vlogs on TikTok.
00:35 Over lockdown, I stopped shaving
00:38 for various different reasons,
00:39 mainly due to laziness.
00:40 ♪ You are beautiful in every way ♪
00:42 ♪ Because you are a queen ♪
00:44 At the time I was starting a TikTok channel,
00:47 which was initially kind of a creative outlet,
00:49 but also kind of slowly became a body positivity channel
00:53 to kind of encourage and inspire young people
00:55 to love their bodies and think a bit more
00:57 about what they choose to do with their bodies
00:59 and not just feel the pressure to conform
01:02 and do whatever else is doing on social media.
01:04 I appeared in a video with my armpit hair on show
01:08 and then got instantly trolled for it,
01:10 which I found really funny.
01:11 Just your daily reminder that you can be sexy
01:13 and have rolls at the same time.
01:15 Oh, and body hair.
01:17 That's all.
01:18 Bye-bye now.
01:19 As a rebuttal, I decided to actively
01:21 kind of stop shaving and started making
01:25 a few videos about it.
01:26 It really shocked me that so many people
01:29 had something to say about it
01:30 and were so disgusted and repulsed by a woman
01:32 appearing on camera in her normal body hair.
01:36 I kind of enjoyed it.
01:37 I felt quite liberating and quite empowering.
01:40 And I kind of saw it as a new version of beauty.
01:45 We're so used to seeing what we see in the media
01:47 with hairless women, perfect tan, slim, skinny bodies,
01:51 all this kind of airbrushing that we've seen
01:54 over the last few years.
01:56 I know girls who will wake up,
01:59 they'll stay at a guy's house,
02:00 they'll wake up, go and touch up their makeup
02:03 and get back into their other boy
02:04 and be like, "Perfectly made up."
02:07 I was like, "What?"
02:09 I was like, "I don't do that."
02:10 I wouldn't say I'm against shaving.
02:17 You should do what's right for your body
02:18 at the end of the day.
02:19 I think it's a shame that we kind of get brainwashed
02:23 into conforming to these social standards
02:25 and these social beauty standards at a very young age.
02:27 I started shaving when I was 11
02:29 because I thought it was the damn thing
02:31 and that's what my sisters did and friends were doing.
02:34 I've never enjoyed shaving my armpits specifically.
02:37 It's just a real, really sad that we live in a society
02:40 where it's just the norm because, you know,
02:43 once upon a time, someone decided
02:45 that they were gonna encourage women to do it.
02:46 You know, I think it comes from the '80s
02:49 porn industry massively.
02:50 You know, back in the 1920s, women never shaved.
02:53 So it's just really in the last hundred years or so.
02:55 I've seen firsthand the damaging content there is online.
03:05 Even the filters on Instagram and TikTok
03:07 and women are being told that,
03:09 "If you wanna be beautiful, you need to look like this."
03:12 That's not true.
03:14 We should be encouraging women to learn and study
03:17 and like, love themselves and like,
03:19 work on their brains and their bodies, you know,
03:22 not work on their beauty.
03:23 I share a lot online.
03:31 I'm a massive advocate for helping others
03:32 and like, trying to inspire other people
03:34 and I know there are a lot of women out there
03:36 who aren't as confident as I am.
03:38 My channel is all about self-love and self-acceptance
03:43 and encouraging people to not judge everyone
03:46 and just be themselves and not feel the need
03:48 to like, rip other people apart
03:50 and tell them what to do with their bodies.
03:52 It's ridiculous that we think we're in an age
03:54 where people can just comment on a video
03:56 and have such a direct impact on someone's life
03:59 and what they choose to do with their body.
04:01 It's so bizarre how we have these weird relationships
04:04 to hair all over your body.
04:07 It's just hair.
04:08 It's just hair.
04:10 (upbeat music)
04:13 (upbeat music)
04:15 (upbeat music)