Hairy legs

[MIdgebabe]

So in the heat should I have hairless legs/Pitts becuase the hair acts like a nice warm blanket

Or hairy legs/Pitts becuase the sweat can trickle down the hairs increasing my surface area for evaporation

?

Men don't shave their armpits, do they smell worse than women? Serious question, I have no sense of smell.

I think men do tend to be a little smellier than women. But it might be for other reasons.

I've just been on holiday and shaved my legs for the first time in two years, felt cooler, will shave until it's cold again. But I am a yeti.

the sweat can trickle down the hairs increasing my surface area for evaporation

But the sweat doesn't "trickle down the hairs" since we mostly have our arms down at our sides. So the sweat just mixes with the hairs and the bacteria and we get smelly and nasty .

I tested last summer. Unshaved felt like a waterfall of oily sweat running down my legs and I stuck to everything so much worse. Plus it seems to give a little bit of sun protection. Hairy all the way here!

Natural deodorant is often based on baking soda which is highly alkali. Skin is slightly acidic, so all those using natural non-chemical deodorant are stripping the top layer of skin off and effectively giving yourselves mild chemical burns in a very delicate area. You're removing the top barrier layer, so are potentially leaving yourselves open for more nasties to get in. It stops the sweat though!

I find that I feel sweatier if I shave my pits, but I don't actually think it makes a difference in sweat volume or stinkiness.

legs I don't notice at all.

Different people sweat different amounts though - I used to live with a Malay-Chinese woman, and she barely sweated at all. At the gym in Malaysia my (white) DP would be streaming sweat everywhere, and getting all sorts of horrified looks from the much less sweaty asian around him. I sweat more if I'm nervous - I started using really strong stuff for meetings - but day to day if I'm not at work, in hot weather I just shower and wear clean clothes and I don't actually find that it's much different stinkiness-wise. Washing makes much more difference than deoderant.

Men don't shave their armpits, do they smell worse than women? Serious question, I have no sense of smell.

Not worse, just different. Men and women smell completely different and unless sweat is stale it isn't an unpleasant smell.

Scented deodorants smell way worse than sweat to me, but them I'm allergic to an endless list of perfumes, fabric conditioners, scented soaps etc so perhaps not the best judge. I never wear deodorant/anti-perspirant as I've never found one that doesn't bring me out in a rash.

Judging by the number of people who shower each day AND use anti-perspirant AND are still stinky afterwards please please do not stop using deodorant, especially in this heat!

I've not used anti-perspirants or deodorants my whole adult life. I honestly don't think they help or make much difference.

Showering morning and night when weather is particularly hot and sweaty is enough.

There are lymph glands in the arm-pits. It just seems counter-intuitive to put chemicals there.

The worse thing is to start shaving as hair nearly always comes back thicker and darker. If I hadn't been pressured by social expectations as a teenager I would have been trapped into it becoming some sort of necessity. But then I became a hippy and long skirts and rejection of formal women's wear, ie silly "skin" colour tights went in the bin.

And just to add for those of you who dont know as you get older so much of this body hair dissappears that it is a great release. Although I would hate to think that anyone would think I had had a bikini wax even though it might appear so.

Strange that women feel compelled to remove hair that makes them look more like a prepubescent girl or an OAP!

I've not used anti-perspirants or deodorants my whole adult life. I honestly don't think they help or make much difference.

I don't think you can conclude that. People vary a lot in how much they sweat, or what it smells like. I am not especially sweaty, but my sister sweats like a big and gets stinky too.

It would be nice if no one used it and then we could just be used to being stinky but it is rather a collective action problem, no one really wants to go first.

The time I save not shaving my legs, or scratching the annoying itchy rash I get can be reinvested into writing annoying posts on the internet about how few fucks I give.

Oooh same here!

Natural deodorant is often based on baking soda which is highly alkali. Skin is slightly acidic, so all those using natural non-chemical deodorant are stripping the top layer of skin off and effectively giving yourselves mild chemical burns in a very delicate area.

Only if they're poorly formulated!

If you use it neat, or at too high a concentration, then sodium bicarbonate could indeed give to mild chemical burns with repeated use. You'll know if it happens - it would be a painful rash.

But good natural deodorants containing sodium bicarbonate use a low concentration in a formula that is closer to pH neutral, and typically include other mild deodorisers such as coconut oil in the formula as well. The final deodorant is antibacterial, which is why it deodorises in the first place.

People with very sensitive skin still might develop a rash from even a good bicarb-based natural deodorant, but it's more likely to be a reaction to another ingredient than an alkali burn.

I tend to find I sweat more when shaved. I need to do it though, my son pointed out quite loudly today in public that my legs look like blankets and they shouldn't as I am blonde so it shouldn't show much so why does it mummy?! And it embarrassed me more than it should do. I do feel pressure, from nowhere in particular..to shave legs. Pits have always done anyway and don't really think about.

Survey at work today suggests most people are going for not shaving

You asked people at work if they shaved their armpits?

So far as legs- I can't begin to imagine inspecting my work colleagues' legs to check if they have shaved or not.

I'm beginning to think, from this and other threads, that it is the hirsute, not the shaven, who are obsessed about checking this. And obsessed about making sure, just in case anyone hadn't noticed/ could not care less, that these brave souls who haven't shaved get plaudits for it.

It would be nice if no one used it and then we could just be used to being stinky but it is rather a collective action problem, no one really wants to go first

I'm actually very prone to sweating; certainly since menopause ( which I had very early at age 37), but I've never had anyone comment on my being smelly...including those intimate to me who would if I did.

Some people do have very unpleasant smelling sweat - -but anti-perspirants make little difference to that...certainly from my own personal observation and experience.

I've always shaved my legs, and just prefer the look of them smooth...I also use fake tan on them to take the edge of the whiteness. This gives me pleasure. I love my feet. They are supple and athletic. They serve me well. I paint my toes.

off the whiteness

Leg survey only, it’s really easy to see if legs are shaved if you have it on your mind. Which I had following your comment about shaving for smarts when legs on display , which luckily for me isn’t a wide spread opinion around my work place. Hadn’t noticed before.

Believe it or not all I want To know is how to keep cool

Resigning from work , selling up and moving north requires at leas a few months living expenses in the bank

Believe it or not all I want To know is how to keep cool

Wear a light, white shirt, carry a fan, and stay in the shade..Drink lots of water.