#female facial hair

Super random, but in case it helps someone I figured I should say it.

Hi! I’m a cis female, and I shave my face daily.

I’ve had to shave my sideburns - which grow the full length of the side of my face - and two patches on my chin (that don’t quite connect to each other or the sideburns) since I was in high school. Over 20 years.

I also have those little corner bits of a mustache.

I’m part Sicilian, and my aunts have to do the same, so we always joked that it was because us Italians come in a hairier variety.

It’s hard, in a society that thinks the only hair women should have is on the top of her head and eyebrows (and even that is iffy), to be a woman who has to shave above her waist.

But we exist. And we are still feminine if we wish to be. So, for my trans sisters: don’t be embarrassed by your facial hair. Remove it if you want to (mine’s coarse and patchy and I hate the feel of it, so it’s gots to go), but having to shave or wax or getting laser hair removal* DOES NOT MAKE YOU LESS FEMININE!

And for my fellow cisfems: I feel ya. You’re just as feminine as you wish to be as well. 

It was rough on me when I was a teen (and even early 20s) that I had to do this, because I bought into the social hype that having facial hair wasn’t feminine. I was embarrassed. I get why you might be as well if this is your life too.

Oddly enough, seeing Fiona shaving at the beginning of Shrek 2 really helped, so I can only imagine how important representation must feel for others.

So, in conclusion, to my fellow hairy sisters: you’re fine. Don’t even worry about it. Screw society. Only remove that hair if you don’t like it, not because society says you’re not a female with it.

Love you all!

*BTW, I did attempt to get laser hair removal done. Sadly, I had to move before my treatments were done, and I haven’t found another laser hair removal company by me since. Some notes on the matter though:

1. It is very pricy. At least it was a decade ago when I paid for it. For my face and upper chest (yup, I’m hairy there too), it was something like $6000? And I didn’t even get the full treatment. So… money well spent.
2. Depending on what you get done and how thick/coarse your hair is, there are a fair amount of treatments you have to go to. For my face and chest, I had to do something like 10 monthly appointments??? I got about 5 or 6 in before I moved. (It’s been a decade, so my memory is a bit hazy, but I think both of those numbers are right)
3. If you don’t complete the treatment the remaining hair becomes thicker and more coarse due to that follicle withstanding the laser treatments. At least, this has been my experience. So be careful if you start this because if you stop you may have not only wasted money, but your hair may be harder to deal with.
4. The actual treatment is fairly quick and feels like you’re being stung by bees. At least, that’s what I experienced. Again, I had a fairly small surface area to worry about, so it kept maybe 5 to 10 minutes every treatment. It did feel like bee stings, but the pain eased fairly quickly as well as they do skin care after the treatment to help sooth it. I also have a fairly high pain tolerance, apparently. So… grain of salt. I also don’t have any tattoos, so I’m not sure how these treatments feel compared to that. I will say that my ears hurt longer after getting pierced than my jaw and chest felt after laser treatments.
5. I did notice patches that have never grown back after the few treatments I was able to get done. For instance, I haven’t had to pluck my unibrow at all since, the mustache is only a once/month shave because it grows so slowly now, and the sideburns don’t grow as close to my cheekbones as they used to. So it does work, if you want to go this route.