London-based photographer, artist and filmmaker Ben Hopper has been working on photographing portraits of unshaven women. These portraits are part of his Natural Beauty campaign.
The point is, to prove that women are fantastic with all the body hair and everything. The goal of the photo series is to find out why women have been exposed to unrealistic beauty standards and consequently, why women with hairy body parts have to deal with the term “unsexy.”
Number one – Alexis Calvas, February 2015
Alexis said that she’s been shaving before as every other girl, but after realizing the importance of her natural body look, she decided to stop doing it.
She has overcome the embarrassment and now, she feels relieved. She states that the baths are taking shorter amount of time and she is not planning on going back to what people believe to be “normal”.
Number two – Jessica Hargreaves, October 2018
This girl stopped shaving about five or six years ago. The reason that made her do it, was because of her skin issues she was faced with every time she was exfoliating.
Shaving has been irritating her skin, and even with no body hair on, she didn’t feel good. That’s so because according to her, her skin looked awful. So she decided to stop it, because either way her skin looked terrible. But after a while she started feeling really freed and good in her own skin.
At first, she got some disgusting looks from males, since she’s met lots of them because at that period of her life she was working in a bar. And in that time, hairy armpits on women were not so common.
But she didn’t bother with it, mostly because there were many
people who didn’t even notice it. And what’s more importantly, she got
positive comments from the people she actually cared about.
Number three – Sienna, August 2018
This girl remembers about the time she was young and used to think that body hair is something that is unnatural. Thus, women have to find a way to deal with it.
Her point of view has changed as she grew older and she realized that she was all wrong about it. So she stopped shaving her body hair. She says that she felt so comfortable and free from all the pain caused by removing body hair.
About people who don’t find her attractive because of that reason, she adds that it’s just a sign that those are not the kind of people she should interact with. She learnt that body hair is natural and women have to learn to accept it as it is and stop worrying so much about it!
Number four – Kytocat, June 2017
This girl said that she stopped shaving because she was tired of spending so much time maintaining herself. Despite of the amount of time she spent on removing hair from her body, she also talked about the pain and discomfort that comes with it.
And that’s how she decided to let things grow. Once she did that, she felt as she was closer to nature. She doesn’t approve of people who are judging her and the other women like her. According to this girl, people should do whatever makes them happy.
It’s none of other people’s business if someone decides to dye their hair, or tattoo their head, or leave body hair. It’s every individual’s personal choice and no one deserves to be judged for that.
Number five – Alex Wellburn, May 2017
This woman stopped bothering about her body hair since she got sick of doing it over and over again. She spent so much money of body care products and so much time getting rid of all the hair from her body.
She was very hairy, so she’s been dealing with this problem since she was very young. This woman comes from Venezuela, where beauty standards have been on a very high level, since these women are known for having won many beauty contests so far.
But this fact didn’t stop her from achieving her goal. She was certain about her decision and she believes that it’s high time women were freed from all the pressure they’ve been dealing with, when it comes to beauty standards. She believes that everybody should be satisfied with their natural look, no matter what.
Sources:artfido.com
boredpanda.com
