It should come as a shock to no one that women have body hair. But thanks to celebrities on the red carpet and more authentic advertising, body hair is becoming less taboo day by day. Still, while there are certain kinds of body hair that have been deemed “acceptable,” like a fluffy tuft of armpit hair or leg hair peeking out of a dress, facial hair for women remains largely undiscussed. Indie razor brand, Billie, wants to change that.
With its campaign The Body Hair Project back in 2018, Billie became the first ever women’s razor brand to show body hair in an ad. And the brand didn’t stop at leg hair, it showcased tummy fuzz, armpit hair, and unibrows. On the one year anniversary of the campaign, Billie launched its Red, White, and You Do You Campaign, a video and images celebrating the choice to shave or not shave your bikini line, making it the first ad to actually show pubic hair.
Now, the brand is back at it with a new campaign for Movember, and it’s celebrating two more “firsts”: becoming the first women’s razor brand to participate in Movember — a fundraising effort for prostate and testicular cancer awareness through growing moustaches — and the first women’s razor brand to show facial hair. In addition to matching 100% of contributions (up to $50,000) from women growing out their moustaches in support of Movember, the brand is hoping to tackle the taboo of women actually having facial hair in the first place with a new video.
Shot in the same playful style as the brand’s previous videos, the spot showcases women and femmes celebrating their facial hair by combing it, styling it with brow gel, and highlighting it with bright lipstick. “Our hair has a very important announcement to make: Women have moustaches too,” reads the voiceover. “The world may not know this because we go through a lot to hide them; we’ve been hiding them all our lives. But newsflash, we’ve got them.” While a Billie razor makes an a brief appearance in the film, it is ultimately tossed aside along with wax strips and tweezers, as the women embrace their facial hair.
If it seems odd that a razor brand would encourage facial hair, that’s just the Billie way. At the end of the day, it’s bigger than a razor. “When brands pretend that all women have hairless bodies, it’s a version of body shaming,” Billie cofounder Georgina Gooley previously told Glamour. “There has been this shame around body hair, and a lot of that is the shaving category talking about the topic as a problem that needs to be fixed with the product they’re trying to sell. We didn’t want to be part of that conversation.”
The kind of body shaming Gooley talks about had a deep effect on Grace Insogna, one of the models in the campaign. “I grew up during the early 2000s, so peak photoshop era,” they tell Glamour. “I was obsessed with fashion magazines and saw a lot of unrealistic airbrushed images. I didn’t see my body type as a plus-size person and second, I definitely didn’t see any stray hairs anywhere! If my teen self had seen this campaign, rather than aspire to something that I wasn’t, I could’ve found solace in bodies similar to mine.” Insogna notes that they used to be bullied for their facial hair, and they’ve only just started to embrace it over the past year, in large part, thanks to the body positivity movement on social media. As for taking part in the campaign, “it was liberating to champion something that many AFAB [assigned female at birth] and femme people have been taught to feel shame about,” they say.
All this cements what we already know: authentic advertising, and the liberty to make choices when it comes to our appearances, truly makes a difference. “Shaving is a personal choice, and no one should be telling women what to do with their hair,” says Gooley. “The fact is, we all have body hair. Some of us choose to remove it, and some of us choose to wear it proudly—and either way, we shouldn’t have to apologize for our choice.”