10 Real Women Who Choose Self-Care Through a Razor-Free Life: a Last Shave With a Razor, a New Confidence, and the Happiness Waiting at Home

Girls stuff
10/16/2026
10 Real Women Who Choose Self-Care Through a Razor-Free Life: a Last Shave With a Razor, a New Confidence, and the Happiness Waiting at Home

Winter 2027 is long sleeves and tights season, which makes it a good time for a lot of women to try putting the razor down. Since 2010, Breanne Fahs, a professor at Arizona State University, has invited her students to stop shaving their legs and underarms for 10 weeks and keep a journal about it. “There is a big difference between imagining not shaving and actually trying to not shave,” she told ASU News.
A social-psychology review published by Springer looks at why that gap exists, and at the pressure many women still feel to stay hairless. The 10 women in these stories closed the gap on their own terms. Each one made a last shave with a razor, and what came after was a new kind of confidence, a calmer routine at home, and a lot of unexpected happiness.

  • I shaved my legs for 22 years because my husband said, “Women who don’t are letting themselves go.” Last January I stopped. He noticed after 3 days and said nothing. After 3 weeks he said nothing.
    After 3 months he held my hand on the couch like he always had and said nothing. I realized the only person who had ever cared was me. And I had stopped caring about the wrong things.
Joanna

“I love my simple turquoise dress so much.”

  • I stopped shaving after my divorce. My ex had opinions about everything. My legs, my hair, my eyebrows, my weight. When he left, I stood in the shower one morning and put the razor down. That was 4 years ago.
    Last week a woman at the gym stared at my legs and said, “Aren’t you embarrassed?” I said, “I used to be. But that was when I was still trying to be someone else’s idea of a woman.” She didn’t say anything. She came back to me after her workout and said, “How do you get to that point? I want that.”
Stephen Carey
just now

As a man I've always wondered why, I've always found shaving a bore (I also seem to be allergic to most shaving preparations) so I've been bearded for 60 years, 1. Why shouldn't everyone else think the same, and 2. What right do I have to make a judgement on the subject? Add to that that I'm generally more interested in the Who than the packaging (as it were), I'm 100% for you being you 100% of the time.

Reply

“I have been self-conscious about this for the longest time. I can’t shave it since the hair is connected to my back hair. If I shave it, I have to shave EVERYTHING.”

  • I shaved for the last time the day I turned 40. Not because of any grand decision. I just ran out of razors and didn’t buy more. A week passed. Then a month. My confidence didn’t disappear. It showed up.
    My teenage daughter noticed first. She said, “Mom you seem different lately.” I said how. She said, “Like you stopped apologizing for taking up space.” I didn’t know she’d been watching. I didn’t know she needed to see it.

“A big step in confidence building.”

“Learning to accept my patchy Lil upper lip.”

  • I stopped shaving on a random Sunday for no reason at all. Just forgot. Then the next Sunday came and I still hadn’t. Then my best friend noticed at brunch and said, “Wait, are you?” I said I think so.
    She put down her coffee and said, “I’ve wanted to do that for 10 years.” By the following Sunday, she had stopped too. By the end of the month, 3 of us had. We didn’t plan it. We didn’t make it a thing.
    We actually started showing up to brunch happier and ordering dessert without discussing it and nobody could figure out why until my husband said, “You all seem lighter lately.” We looked at each other and laughed for about five minutes straight.

“Got a hairy-legged pedicure today.”

Have you ever put the razor down, or thought about it? Tell us what changed for you.

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