The first time I shaved my armpits, I was 12. With a razor stolen from my mum, I took it dry to my skin, erratically swiping the blades against the dark hairs that had begun to sprout before she could catch me in the act. While I didn’t know any better at the time, I still cringe when I remember the soreness, the embarrassing bumps and the raw redness left under my arms by what I had done.

Growing up in the early 2000s, at a time when women’s insecurities were circled in red and plastered on the front of magazines, there was a lot about my teenage body that made me self-conscious. However, one distinct insecurity was always my armpits: was I sweating too much? Were they too hairy? Why did I have darker shadows than the rest of my friends? As I got older and ‘perfected’ a close shave, I’d often bring a disposable razor into the school bathrooms to ‘top up’ before PE or any kind of activity that might expose my underarms. 

New research by Dove has revealed that almost eight in 10 (76%) women suffer from underarm skin issues, while nearly two-thirds (62%) feel insecure about their armpit appearance. This insecurity is further triggered in the warmer, summer months, with beach holidays and heatwaves becoming times of stress and anxiety rather than enjoyment.

The shame and stigma caused by armpit insecurities were even found to encroach on personal relationships, with a quarter (26%) of women feeling insecure during intimate moments with a partner, and one in three (30%) noting it affects their relationship with their partner. 

However, to encourage women to celebrate their underarm beauty and remove misconceptions surrounding the ‘perfect pit’, the brand has launched the Arms Up Series, a collection of empowering armpit portraits featuring real women proudly showcasing a diverse set of underarm skin, from stubbly and shaved to marked and hairy.

“We’re taught that armpits must be shaven and rash-free, but that isn’t the reality for most women,” said Megan Crabbe, author and body-positivity advocate as part of the campaign. “Dove’s Arms Up Series is a beautiful way of bringing parts of ourselves we’re taught to be ashamed of out into the light, where all of us deserve to be.”

Crabbe explained that she herself had stopped shaving her underarms over a year ago after realising that she was doing it for the “wrong reasons”. “I was only doing it as I’d been taught by cultural beauty standards to place other people’s comfort around my body above my own,” she added. 

Like my own experience, Dove found that one in four women (26%) recall first feeling insecure about their underarms when they were as young as 13-14 years old, and seven in 10 girls said they were less likely to raise their hand in class due to feeling self-conscious about their underarms.

In a world where body positivity, appearance neutrality and skin freedom have come such a long way in recent years, let’s hope that this self-love continues to extend to every part of ourselves.     

This article is part of Skin Freedom, a Stylist Love Women series that aims to champion the reality of women’s skin in all its glory.

Images: Getty; Jade Gordon