I was so ashamed of my chin hair I hid my laser treatments and wouldn’t let my husband see me in sunlight…. so I’m happy women are FINALLY being honest about their facial hair
Mum-of-two Mara Altman, 36, from New York, has written a book about her journey to accepting her embarrassing facial fluff
A MUM-OF-TWO who was so self-conscious about her facial hair she was scared to be in sunlight with her husband has grown to accept her “goatee” – and wants other women to do the same.
Author Mara Altman, 36, from New York, told how she used to panic that if she ever ended up in a coma she wouldn’t be able to pluck her chin hairs.
In her recent book, Gross Anatomy, Mara opens up about the embarrassing experiences she’s had in relation to her body and explores why she believes women feel the need to banish body hair and hide other awkward bodily functions.
She told how it began as a stand-alone essay, after realising she was anxious about her then husband-to-be seeing her chin hair.
“I was hiding it from him,” Mara explained.
“I was tearing up laser hair removal cards so that he wouldn’t know that I was having appointments, and I was scared to be in sunlight with him, because of the effect on the hair.
“I had the realisation that to be a complete woman I had to get rid of a part of myself.”
After penning her essay and sharing it online, Mara was inundated with comments from women who said they felt a “weight off their shoulders” from reading it.
She discovered 10 to 15 of the 20 women she spoke to also had chin hair and shared her nightmare fantasy of being in a position where they were unable to get rid of it.
“There’s so much fear and anxiety around being found out,” she admitted.
“I thought I was the only one who was worrying that if I got into a coma and my mum came to visit me, instead of sitting at my bedside and thinking, ‘My poor daughter,’ she’d be like, ‘Oh my God, she has a goatee!’”
Recently more women are speaking out about facial hair, helping to address the taboo. Actress Thandie Newton posted a candid snap to Instagram of her "dealing with her tash" ahead of a film premiere.
We also told how a woman who spent 10 years shaving her facial hair is embracing her "hipster beard" after finding love.
In an attempt to accept her facial hair, Mara said she did experiment with going “completely hairy”, but didn’t feel comfortable.
“I felt like a colouring book that someone had coloured outside of the lines,” she admitted.
“I really wanted to embrace it, but I didn’t feel my best. And when I was ‘completely hairy’ I didn’t even grow out the chin hair because I felt I would have been traumatised.
“I didn’t want to know the extent to which they’re able to grow. Doing the book and all the research and really being open about the fact that hair exists on women really relieved some of the stigma. Although I do all of the things that I did before, it feels like it’s coming from a different place.”
She added: “I told my husband at the end of the essay, ‘I have chin hair’, and I was expecting some big reaction, but he turned around and went, ‘It’s just hair,’ and continued watching TV. I had expected all of these feelings of shame and I was so surprised that he just didn’t care.”
The aim of her book is certainly not making women do things they don’t want to do.
“The goal is just to not have the shame and anxiety around the beauty practices,” she said.
“I was afraid to talk about it. Not everyone has facial hair, and I do have it to a larger extent. But I suppose everyone thinks that about themselves too.
“In the essay I talk about how I don’t think I’m normal – but how do I know when everyone is getting rid of the thing we’re trying to compare?
“If you talk to a beautician, the number one question they get while waxing people is, ‘Am I normal?’”
Mara told how her preoccupation with body hair began after she was shamed as a schoolgirl for having hairy legs.
“That was when I had the reckoning between, ‘Am I going to be natural, like my parents say is best, or am I going to have to absorb these social norms?’”
Regarding facial hair removal, Mara put forward the theory that women are trying to maintain the look of a young, fertile woman by removing thicker, darker “moustache” hair that often sprout as women get older.
“There’s also an idea that we try to get rid of anything that’s beast-like,” she explained.
“This comes from Terror-Management Theory, so anything that reminds us of being ‘animal-like’, whether that be hair, or sweat, or anything you excrete, is actually a reminder of your mortality, so we try and cover up those things.
“During my research I was shocked by the lengths that women will go to in order to conceal their hair.
“I read about the North American Hiroshima Maidens, women who were using X-rays in the 1900s to remove their hair, with the knowledge that X-rays could really hurt you, that it could cause cancer, ulcerations and death.
“The practice had actually been outlawed, but women would still go because they were so desperate to fit in, and because there was so much pressure not to have body hair.
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“I’ve been to laser clinics in Bangkok and had laser surgeries that burned me and I still have a scar on my upper lip. I related to these women because I understood the need to go to those lengths, to do something bats*** like that. And there’s this shame in needing to go to those lengths, but also shame that I hurt myself by being so vain.”
Mara's book, Gross Anatomy, is published by HarperNonFiction on August 23 and costs £9.99. It can be bought on Amazon.
We previously told how a woman who shaved for three hours a week has ditched the razor – but admits her hairy new look is "tough" on her husband.