Smooth Criminal, Hairy Saint

Because if I’m going to die, I’d like to be moisturised and mildly overgrown.

The world is crumbling like a soggy Weetabix and I still get looks when my legs are “a bit fuzzy.” I used to shave every other day like I was preparing for a televised thigh reveal. Now? I simply cannot be arsed. I have a job, a slowly dying planet, and one functioning ovary. My leg hair is the least of anyone’s problems. But god forbid I go to brunch in a skirt without dragging a razor over my kneecaps like a martyr.

People flinch. They don’t even try to hide it. The same society that lets men walk around smelling like Greggs and crushed ego has the audacity to act traumatised over a shadow of leg fluff. I’m not even fully hairy. I’m seasonally textured. Still, it’s treated like a war crime. The real kick in the teeth was when a friend said she stopped shaving her pubes, and someone called it “unhygienic” — like the vulva is a kitchen counter and we’re out here leaving crumbs.

“Hair is not dirty. Your shame was sold to you in a pink little box.” — Me, with one leg shaved and the other in quiet rebellion

Not only is pubic hair clean, it’s medically useful. It reduces friction, protects against bacteria, and acts like a first responder for your labia. Removing it increases risk of infection. You know what’s unhygienic? Judging a woman’s grooming routine while raw-dogging polyester underwear and skipping your annual check-up. But pubic hair on a woman is treated like a broken lease agreement. As if it’s offensive. As if it disqualifies her from being desirable. Meanwhile, men are walking around with what can only be described as cursed shrubbery and no one calls the CDC.

The whole beauty machine is a brilliantly marketed panic attack. Literal wars are happening, and yet I’m being targeted with ads that say “Never miss a shave again!” like that’s the real emergency. I’ve got microplastics in my blood and a government trying to pass off surveillance as policy — but sure, let’s prioritise my ankle fuzz. The world is on fire and I’m being asked if I’ve tried the new exfoliating mitt. My thighs are fighting for their lives under these jeans and capitalism is whispering: “Glow, babe.” It's giving Marie Antoinette with a discount code.

Sometimes I look at my skincare shelf and realise I’m doing a ten-step Korean routine in a country that can’t even sort bin collections. I’m steaming my face like a dim sum basket while Parliament argues over whether I deserve human rights. We’re all going to die in a flood, and I’m out here icing my face with frozen peas because a 19-year-old on TikTok told me it prevents jaw tension. I moisturise like it’s a final prayer. Like if I layer enough hyaluronic acid, the planet won’t boil me alive.

They say shaving is a choice. So is paying rent. Doesn’t mean I feel liberated doing it. Every time I let my body hair grow out, people act like I’ve committed a small act of terrorism. There’s always someone ready to chirp, “But I like being smooth” — as if that somehow undoes 400 years of internalised shame, pornification, and Gillette’s billion-pound guilt campaign. You think you like it. But you’ve been trained to hate the alternative. We all have. That’s the point. They sell you the shame and then offer you the solution — for £9.99 and your remaining dignity.

There’s a special kind of irony in watching Elon Musk try to colonise Mars while I tweeze my chin hairs in a bathroom lit like an interrogation room. Men are out here building rockets shaped like unresolved trauma and I’m being advised to shave against the grain for “maximum closeness.” I am already close to breaking. Please leave me alone. If the billionaires really want to help, they can pay for therapy for everyone who grew up thinking stubble was a moral failing.

Honestly, I don’t want to die hairless. If society collapses, I’d like to greet the end with full thighs and zero regrets. I want my leg hair blowing in the radioactive wind like it’s reclaiming something. I want to survive a tsunami, stumble into a FEMA camp, and be told: “Wow. Incredible calf texture.” The idea that we should meet disaster like it’s a first date (prepped, plucked, polished) is insanity. I will not be sacrificing my follicles for the aesthetic of calm. I want to go out feral.

They built a world that’s ending in real-time and then had the audacity to tell us our worth was in our razor technique. They let the oceans boil but demand we still book in for a wax. They gave us Barbie and then banned abortion. They are unwell. And I’m tired. I have bigger things to worry about than looking like a hot dolphin. If the world’s ending, I want to spend my final days moisturised because I wanted to, not because I thought being hairless would save me. It won’t.