Basic Trope: A female character who has body hair, and does not choose to remove it.
- Straight: Alice doesn't shave her legs or armpits.
- Exaggerated: Alice proudly sports a full, lovingly-maintained beard and mustache.
- Downplayed:
- Instead of shaving every day, Alice shaves her legs and armpits once a week.
- Alice shaves only on special occasions.
- Alice doesn't shave her pubic hair, but she shaves her legs or armpits.
- Justified:
- Shaving takes a lot of time and energy, and Alice's hectic schedule does not give her much of either.
- Alice is a quirky nonconformist or Granola Girl who doesn't care what anyone else thinks of her.
- Alice doesn't believe she should have to shave/wax/etc. simply because it's expected by her patriarchal society. (She may also be a Straw Feminist.)
- The cost of razors, shaving cream, wax, depillatory creams, salon appointments for professional hair removal, etc. are prohibitive for Alice, who lives in Perpetual Poverty.
- Alice is lost in the wilderness or stranded on a Deserted Island; shaving (and other activities not directly related to survival and/or getting back home safely) are extremely low on her priority list, if they're even on it at all.
- Alice is in Prison or in a mental hospital, and either is not allowed shaving supplies (for fear that she could harm herself or others), or getting them is difficult and inconvenient.
- Alice has mobility problems, and can't bend down to shave her legs, or lift them high enough to rest on a support meant for this purpose.
- Alternatively, one of her arms is non-functional or outright missing, and she finds trying to shave under her functional arm with said arm to be quite awkward. She doesn't want to spend money just to have it removed regularly, assumes that no-one she knows is super hot on the idea of doing it for her, and she also doesn't want to have asymmetrical armpit hair, so she just stops caring about it.
- Alice has a hormonal disorder that causes the hair to come back almost as soon as it's removed; Alice is just tired of dealing with it.
- Alice has only light, barely noticeable peach fuzz that other people would really only see if they got up close.
- In Alice's culture or religion, it's uncommon (or even abnormal or forbidden) for women to remove their body and/or facial hair. It might even be seen as a Traumatic Haircut.
- Alice lives in a pre-industrial society, and all her time is preoccupied with hunting and gathering, or with tending crops and/or livestock, plus taking care of children and/or her home.
- Alice just can't be bothered, either on a given day, or just in general.
- Alice isn't going anywhere, or doing anything.
- Alice is a gorilla, or at least was raised as one.
- Alice is a Reluctant Fanservice Girl. As she gets publicly stripped naked repeatedly, she grows out Godiva Hair to cover herself up as well as make her look less attractive to leering men.
- Inverted: Alice regularly shaves or waxes everything, including every last bit of pubic hair. She might even get waxed, or go through electrolysis or laser treatments at a professional salon or spa. She even does this when there are no men around (such as at her One-Gender School) and it's the dead of winter.
- Gender Inverted: In a World… where men strive to be hairless Bishounen, and where doing otherwise is considered uncouth and/or unmanly, Bob proudly sports a Carpet of Virility and a full beard.
- Subverted:
- Alice is seen shaving.
- Alice waxes her upper lip.
- Alice is seen going to a salon or spa for a bikini wax.
- Alice regularly shaves her legs and armpits.
- In Alice's country, it isn't common for women to shave; no one bats an eye at a woman's hairy leg or armpit, or shames women for having hair.
- Alice shaves her legs in the summer months.
- Double Subverted:
- Only because it's a special occasion (a friend or relative's wedding, Alice's wedding, a first date, her long-distance boyfriend is coming over, a High-School Dance, she's going on a beach vacation, etc.) On a normal day, she wouldn't bother.
- She doesn't bother with the hair on the rest of her body, however.
- Instead of getting a full Brazilian or Hollywood wax, she only gets her bikini line done.
- When her boyfriend is out of town, Alice doesn't bother.
- But when she becomes a Foreign Exchange Student in Eagleland, or when fashions change in her home country, she begins to feel self-conscious about her body hair and shaves it off.
- But when the cold weather sets in, Alice doesn't bother with shaving, or goes a bit longer between shaves than she does during the warmer months.
- Parodied:
- Alice is regularly mistaken for a Wookie or a Sasquatch.
- People can tell when Alice is in a relationship (and what kind it is) by how hairy her legs are: if she's single or casually dating, her legs are silky smooth. If they're a bit stubbly, she's in a relationship. And if they're completely covered in hair, she's in a serious relationship with an Understanding Boyfriend, or in a Long-Distance Relationship.
- Alice braids her armpit hair, or dyes her pubic hair purple.
- Alice has hair all over her body, which she styles à la a nice dress to get into upscale parties. Little does anybody else realize she's actually naked.
- Zig-Zagged: Some days, Alice shaves; other days, she doesn't.
- Averted:
- Alice removes her body and facial hair regularly.
- Alice has no body or facial hair in the first place.
- Women are not expected to shave in this setting. Perhaps no one shaves.
- Enforced: "We need to show that in some way, Alice is Not Like Other Girls." (This may be a good or bad way, Depending on the Writer.)
- Lampshaded: "I stopped shaving when the kids came along. Too much work, you know?"
- Invoked: Alice is a student at a One-Gender School (that leans decidedly to the left wing of Strawman U), and while she does have a boyfriend, it's a Long-Distance Relationship. And it's winter, or the school is located in a colder climate.
- Exploited:
- Companies market hair-removal products and services to women by telling them (explicitly or implicitly) that body hair is unfeminine, uncouth, and something to be ashamed of.
- In order to avoid being expected to have sex on a first date (or being tempted to do so), Alice shaves only up to the knee.
- Defied: Alice knows that when she does feel the need to shave (such as when she's home for summer vacation, or when she's in Cancún for spring break, or when her boyfriend comes to visit), it will be easier if she keeps up with it (rather than trying to get rid of it all at once), so even though she's in a setting where no one is shaming her for not shaving, she keeps up with it.
- Discussed: "I know how to shave, I just don't choose to shave all the time."
- Conversed: "Well, Alice's grooming habits are more realistic than the Hollywood Homely women with perfectly shaven legs on all the other shows. Sometimes I like that ... sometimes I don't."
- Implied:
- Alice is The Ghost but people talk about how hairy she is.
- Alice removes one or more garments in Bob's presence. He asks her whether she usually has that much hair.
- Played for Drama: Alice suffers from schizophrenia and thinks she is hairy all over when she's not. She shaves compulsively even on areas that are sensitive and/or not conducive to hair growth and ends up committing Self-Harm by cutting open a major blood vessel.
Back to Hairy Girl
