A MAKEUP artist has told how people were left speechless after she revealed the results of growing out her armpit hair for months.
Stunning Anthea Persaud, a Canadian content creator who runs Wing It Beauty, is usually dolled up to the nines and looks the height of glamour.
And that’s exactly why she set out to raise questions over people’s unfair body standards for women.
The social media star, who shared the results on TikTok, used to shave her armpits multiple times a week which left behind dark hyperpigmentation and led to her waxing.
She says: “I’ve never in my life seen a woman with this much armpit hair in all my years on this earth, I’m posting this online for others to see that it's normal.
“As a woman who is typically all dolled up from head to toe, I think that definitely added to the shock factor.
“I think people expected me to be hairless at all times, but hey, I’m human too. That was another reason I wanted to show my armpit hair online.
“An outwardly glamorous woman can also have body hair – we are multidimensional beings; we can have both.
“I think that in our westernised society, there are certain beauty norms that we have been following for years without question.
“Body hair has been labelled as masculine for as long as I can remember. With being hairless on the other end, as feminine.
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“Being hairless requires a lot of work and upkeep for women. The amount of negative comments I got on my video was alarming to say the least.
“People were not accepting of my armpit hair, even though it was on my body.
"That just goes to show how jarring it is for someone to see armpit hair on a woman, which to me is outrageous because it is something that is natural.
“In the media, we never see women showing off armpit hair or any body hair for that matter, and that sets the stage for young women to aspire to look like.”
Anthea, who also says she got plenty of positive comments from women, particularly enjoyed the reaction from her own family and friends.
She adds: “I had made a bet with my dad saying ‘I bet you I have longer armpit hair than you’ – of course he thought there was no way, so he took the bet, and when I showed him he was shocked.
“The second time I grew it out, I was on a mission to see how long I could get it. That is when I showed my sister and she audibly gasped and was clearly uncomfortable by it.
“I also showed my mum who was uncomfortable by the whole idea of showing my armpits online, but I told both of my parents why I was doing it.
“Once I shared the thought process behind showing it online, they were both on board, and supported my decision.
We need to question our beauty standards and not just follow like sheep.
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“I also showed a couple of my girlfriends – after the initial shock, they immediately said ‘it looks so soft’ and called it cute.
“They didn’t judge me for one second.”
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