13 year old with underarm hair

[scunner]

What do mums advise for a 13 year old girl with quite a lot of underarm hair. Not fine and fair, but dark and wiry. Should I find a cream to remove it? She is very self conscious. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

[Emmelina]

Buy a ladyshave.

[Uhhuhoyaye]

Unless you have the clumpiest of daughters 13 is perfectly old enough to use a razor.

I disagree with the sentiment "teach her not to hate her body'" because that is not the most important lesson she needs to learn.

What you should be teaching her is to own her own body. Her body. She decides. If she wants underarm hair she does nothing, if she doesn't she removes it.

[WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants]

@Regularsizedrudy

Do you not have armpits and under arm hair op? How do you get rid of yours? I’m baffled as why you would need to ask this...

Bitchy comment- how very helpful. why comment, why not just scroll on past?

Jesus.

Someone asking what other teens are doing about something is hardly 'out there' on a parenting forum.

[WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants]

@ComDummings

Weird thing to start a thread about, the obvious answer is a razor

No it's not.

It started as a parenting site. This type of question was common. It's good to know what other people do about xyz.

[WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants]

@rosiejaune

Teach her not to hate her body? Perhaps leading by example if you don't already.

🙄🙄🙄

Wanting to remove hair is not 'hating your body' Ffs

[blueangel19]

Here is one teens like: estrid.com/gb/

[Berriesandpineconess]

This probably isn’t age appropriate for her just yet but I got laxer treatment for mine - best money ever spent. My skin was always so sore after shaving

[JesusSufferingFuck22]

Let her be. At age 49 the amount of time I have wasted on hair removal is astounding. Don’t start it.

[ArosAdraDrosDolig]

Don’t most 13 yo shave their armpits?

[Changechangychange]

@Woofer18

We only shave our armpits and legs because advertising campaigns from shaving companies in the 1920's told us that we had to, to look clean.

I don't know why more women don't stop and think "hey, maybe the shaving companies had a vested interest"

Nope! Ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks all removed their body hair, as have generations of women in Asia and the middle east. Look up threading and sugaring. It’s not a 1920s thing.

[gavisconismyfriend]

Waxing - once lockdown is over obvs. Done every 6 weeks or so, the hair will weaken and pretty much disappear over time.

[SquirtleSquad]

I'm sure given this was SIX MONTHS AGO that op has sorted something by now.

[Redbrickwall]

Ps. She’s 14 now and we go to the beauty place together and get our eyebrows done, pits waxed and legs lol. Obviously not at the moment so back to shaving and plucking

[Redbrickwall]

Get her a nice razor, like the Venus ones. My daughter started shaving her armpits when she was 10 as puberty had hit.

[thosetalesofunexpected]

Hi Op
Its natural, teach her to be body cofindent..

[partyatthepalace]

Get her decent razor, like Gillette Venus or something

[PronkWine]

Buy her a good quality razor, Friction Free Shaving blades and razor are so smooth. I was bullied badly for my (totally normal) body hair as a teen and it took me that again to get over it.

[MissMarpleDarling]

Razor.

[FantaIsFine]

I haven't read all messages but I think one huge thing my Mum did for me was tell me to NEVER shave or it will get worse. Legs or whatever.

Do encourage Epilady or similar, it might hurt to anyone who has spent years shaving but that's because it builds up the roots and then yanking it out hurts.

[BiBabbles]

I totally missed that slashlover

[Viviennemary]

What s going on now. Thought it was a genuine post. I despair.

[Viviennemary]

Razor is by far the quickest and best. Creams are messy and smell horrible. My mother wasn't keen on shaving said the hair would get thicker and thicker. Absolute nonsense. Same with this body hating stuff. Underarm hair is unhygenic and a trap for horrible odours. So common sense says remove it.

[mumwon]

second electric lady shave!

[slashlover]

@lucy132 You bumped a nearly 4 month old post to spam your shitty blog? Advanced search shows two comments, each are spam.

Reported.

[BiBabbles]

scunner, By "very self conscious", do you mean she's talked about being uncomfortable with the hair or are you reading it in her body language? With the latter, I'd advise checking that is what she's self conscious about.

At that age, I didn't feel bad about my body hair (except when my mother would call me cactus legs or otherwise mock me for it), but I felt really awkward in swimsuits as I didn't seem to have the smooth silhouette others seemed to have/shown in media (I was underweight and used to feel like I had little boob bumps, rib bumps, and then sticky out hips), and it took some time to find that the right swimsuit for me is a one piece with short-like bottom, even now that I'm a healthy weight as I prefer not having any focus on my hips. I know others who were bigger than me who similarly found bathing suits seemed to highlight the parts they were least comfortable with.

For body hair, it was covered in some of the books my kids have and I waited until my kids asked. As neither their father or I shave, we didn't have anything in the house so I bought razor, extra heads, and foam. We talked through it & I shaved her the first time she sat in shorts in the bathroom. She only wanted her lower legs done at that point, but now she has her kit which she can use as she likes. We also watched this video on youtube, I think it's something like 21 ways to remove hair and had a laugh over some them - duct tape came up.

I try to make it as easy going as possible - I didn't want them to feel because their father and I do things our way that they shouldn't give different ways a try and see how it suits them -- just as I bought clippers when they wanted to maintain short hair even though their father and I both have waist-length+ hair. I don't get it, and I wouldn't be comfortable with my 13-year-old having those depilatory creams, but it's a pretty common thing to try out.