I spent most of my life envying men. Whether it was my brothers, their friends, the men I worked with over the years, or my own husband and son. I envied their physical strength because, for many years, this wimp couldn’t lift or move hardly anything. I envied the sense of entitlement that they didn’t seem to realize they possessed while we women often had to pussyfoot around if we wanted to survive and succeed. I envied their freedom to do almost anything they wanted and be judged a lot less than women who wanted that same freedom. This I know from my personal experience of growing up with freedom-loving brothers and working with independent-minded men. I envied the fact that grown men could wear just about anything and get away with it. Where as women had to face the vocal and gossipy wrath of certain other women who are fashion dependent and criticize to hide their own insecurities.
My envy list is long. My jealousy runs deep. Not being a girly girl, I wanted to be as equal as possible without having to bulk up and grow a gut. But there is one thing that defines most men that I don’t what any part of. And I mean absolutely no part of. That thing is shaving. Last week I had to shave, and I don’t mean my legs or underarms. Although both of these areas likely needed a trim. Shaving is not something I do on a regular basis, especially in the cooler months. But I had to shave my chin. Actually my chin and above my lip.
You may be curious about the backstory for this razor event so here goes. Because of my damn crazy hormones, the ones that have toyed with me since I was a teenager, I have some pretty dark chin whiskers and mustache sprigs. For years I plucked the little buggers. Then for ten years prior to Covid, I had electrolysis treatments every six weeks. Then came two Covid-filled treatment-void years and every whisker and sprig returned in full glory. Looking for another option I decided to try laser removal treatments. Little did I know that you had to shave the treatment area before you receive laser treatment. This makes me wonder about people removing back hair and toe hair in order to have this treatment. Me, I just ignore the toe hair.
Anyway, shaving your chin and upper lip area is not easy. As a matter of fact it is tedious and fiddly. I can see the appeal of the lumberjack look. I can’t imagine choosing to shave every day. I like to plant a kiss on a clean-shaven husband as much as the next wife, but I now understand why he has stopped shaving as much in retirement as he did when he was working. For the past several years, he has been fuzzy more often than not. If these laser treatments don’t work, I will probably be fuzzy more often than not as well. How’s that for equality?
Thank you for reading.
Photos: Gary Meulemans, Unsplash
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Definitely!
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Yes I have whiskers too. Yuck
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I think a lot of us do.
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I used to shave five days a week, and I don’t miss that at all. I’m slowly losing the hair battle (not growing but losing hair) on my head. Isn’t it curious we want hair in some places and not others?
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My husband has always been losing the hair battle on his head. But the face is a whole other thing. The body is an amusing thing for sure.
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I loathe shaving.
This wasn’t always the case, as back in the day when I did my 30-year internment at Verizon, I shaved every business day. (Aside from those times, here and there, when I decided I needed to grow a beard. This never worked out very well, as I was never fully fond of the results. (I have thick facial hair and things got bushy, fast, but I would still give it a run every few years, probably out of boredom.)
Now? After all those decades of dragging a potentially-deadly implement across my skin, I’m done, for the most part. I usually only do an actual razor shave a couple of times a month, if even that often. Instead, I use a beard trimmer on the lowest setting, which gives me a thin layer of stubble. (It’s SO much faster and there are no bloody nicks.) This procedure doesn’t help YOUR situation, of course, but I just wanted to show my support in your time of emotional distress. I’m here for you… ;)
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Love the support. The stubble look is in and quite nice if you’re not a women. I imagine a full beard would be awful hot in that Texas heat. Glad I don’t have one. As I tend to exaggerate for dramatic effect. I never really will.
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feel lucky not to have to shave my face
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I will see what happens after the required 6 treatments. I may be back to plucking. If so that will be that.
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I shave my legs and underarms every time I shower and it’s never bothered me much. But when menopause was forced on me by a hysterectomy, one chin whisker came with the hot flashes, fatigue, and weight gain and we have fought a once weekly battle ever since. It grows … I pluck. The body is a strange thing.
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I too do it in the shower, it’s so habitual I don’t even think about it. I let the conditioner work a bit longer in my hair and get on with it.
My face though? Meh. All this grooming… 🙄
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I used to shave my legs and pits in the shower but now I have to wear reading glasses to do it or I might commit Hari-Kari. I bought a little electric shaver to do the job with my glasses on. But It doesn’t get done as often as I shower.
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The chin thing irritates me to no end. It happened to me after 50 but not before. The rest of my face was manageable with depilatory creams but still a pain to deal with.
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It is annoying. The pale fuzz I can ignore but those thick dark ones are jumping out for attention.
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I share with you (of course) the sense of envy and need to be equal, if not better. It took me some time to realize that this was a driving force in what made me tick. I had no idea that you had to shave before these treatments!
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It is the driving force that makes me tick as well. Except for the beard thing.
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LOL
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I’m lucky in that I just get the odd stray hair on my chin which I just pluck out. Before my menopausal lack of hormones kicked in, I used to have 6 or 7 hairs on my chest between my boobs. I actually found that boyfriends liked it so I left them alone. I used to pluck my eyebrows and wax my lower leg but never had to do anything else – now the hair on both seems to have given up which is great!
Love the “I wanted to be as equal as possible without having to bulk up and grow a gut” – hilarious!
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Thanks. You are lucky. I have thick wiry hair that grows with determination. I used to have hair on my boobs but a few months of electrolysis in m twenties got rid of it. Not so with the face.
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mine’s very dark so that didn’t help on my legs!
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Thanks for the shout out Natalie! So nice to be considered inspiring.
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I have, to be honest, never understood the fixation with shaving and hairlessness and now know more about it than I wanted to. Yes, I’m a man, and I have had a beard for forty years, so maybe I represent an extreme view. :-)
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