Bad Yogi Blog

If you’re looking for some true women empowerment, razor brand Billie has everything you’re looking for. If you haven’t heard about their new much-talked-about razor ad, you need to sit up and take notice, because it might just as well be the best ad you’ll see this summer.

Say hello to… pubic hair!

Do we have your attention? Good. Do you perhaps recall all the praise and criticism Nike received when it released an ad showing off a model with underarm hair? Well, Billie has pretty much done the same thing, but it’s been done with even more confidence and a good dose of flair. Picture this: women of all shapes and sizes wearing their bikinis with confidence, sporting underarm hair and… pubic hair. Yes, Billie took it that extra step further. According to Today, as far as the razor brand knows, they are the first ever women’s razor company to actually show female pubic hair in its advertising. This is an amazing leap forward and follows the success of their groundbreaking campaign Project Body Hair last year, which for the first time in shaving-ad history showed women with body hair.

Billie has become the first women’s razor brand to show pubic hair in an advertisement
Image: Ashley Armitage

Empowering women

The new ad looks like your typical razor advertisement – it has women in bikinis by the beach and at the pool, all of them enjoying the sun and having a good time. The difference is that some of these women sport underarm and pubic hair in a range of lengths. According to Billie co-founder Georgina Gooley, the company wanted to use this new ad to challenge the idea of what it means to be “summer ready”. Let’s be honest, most women feel pretty insecure about their body hair once they slip into a bikini. We’ve been made to believe that showing even a little bit of hair is inappropriate and gross. Well, Billie is here to change that mindset. With this new campaign, it wants to say “no matter what you choose, you’re already summer ready”. We can totally get behind that.

Love all of your hair

According to Gooley, women should be able to embrace their body in all forms, including the hair that comes with it. They shouldn’t have to feel the need to get rid of it just because it’s not “acceptable” to society.

“Historically, women’s razor brands have portrayed body hair as ‘socially problematic.’ In an attempt to sell more razors, they instilled shame around having women’s body hair. For the last 100 years, the idea of women’s body hair was so taboo that we have been seeing commercials where razors shave completely hairless skin, and the entire shaving category refused to show it.”

The ad features women of all shapes and sizes.
Image: Ashley Armitage

According to Glamour, Gooley also feels very strongly that every woman should know that shaving is a choice – it’s not an expectation. Billie wants to show the world that body hair very much exists. We think they did a pretty good job.

Normalizing taboos

Pubic hair has been seen as a taboo for a long time, and Billie wants to normalize it. Gooley says that the second people try to deny that body hair exists, it becomes a form of body shaming. The company wants no part in this. “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.”

Billie is making it its mission to normalize pubic hair so women will no longer feel ashamed of it.
Image: Ashley Armitage

Ashley Armitage, the photographer who worked with the company to make all of the magic happen, says that it’s great to work on a campaign that is working to normalize and celebrate body hair. She added that they want people to stop stressing so much about how their bodies look during summer and learn to embrace themselves exactly as they are. “It’s your body, it’s your hair, and it’s your choice,” she says.

She also told Glamour that the whole aim of the campaign is to show that body hair is natural and normal. “Body hair grows on people of all genders, and it doesn’t suddenly become ‘gross’ or ‘unhygienic’ when it is on a woman, trans woman, or nonbinary individual. We wanted to show that body hair is a choice; shave it, wax it, grow it, or do a bit of both. All are valid.” Yes, yes, yes! We couldn’t agree more.

Gooley shares Armitage’s view, saying that the company is hoping that, by showing body hair and speaking openly about it, women will no longer be judged for choosing not to shave.

Even the models have found confidence through the campaign

One of the models who feature in the campaign, Lindsay Zae, says that while she used to experience a lot of negativity surrounding her body hair when she was younger, she now feels more confident when she doesn’t shave. She hopes that the new ad will encourage younger girls to embrace their bodies and not feel ashamed of any part of it, adding that if she’d seen an ad like this when she was 12, she would’ve felt a whole lot less insecure.

Seeing women being confident in their bodies, body hair or not, will hopefully help other women out there to embrace their own body hair.
Image: Ashley Armitage

Your body, your choice

Can we all give a “hell yeah!” to Billie? This is definitely a company that wants to empower women and encourage them to present themselves and their bodies however they choose to. We can’t think of a better message to take with us through this summer. So, ladies, slip into that bikini and enjoy your body. Whether that means shaving, waxing, or none of it at all, it’s all good. You look amazing. You are amazing exactly as you are. Remember that wherever you go and enjoy this summer with your beautiful, unique body.

You can have a look at the quirky ad below.

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