This will be my next option. As I get older I’ll just call it Bride of Frankenstein.
Weight lifting builds bone density. Weight lifting increases strength and power. Weight lifting burns fat all day long. Weight lifting makes you look tougher than Chuck Norris at Comic Con. Oh sure, everyone always talks about the benefits of strength training but there is a dark side no one ever talks about. No, literally, a dark side. Namely, in my pits. Because I have very dark hair and very light skin, see. For those of you not similarly cursed (it’s not a bug, it’s a feature?), let me explain:
This is me in the shower after my workout. You will notice I am wearing a bathing suit for modesty. I do not wear a bathing suit in the shower at home but if I’ve learned anything from Ashton Kutcher it’s that I can’t have nudie pics of me floating around on the Internet or I’ll never get to inherit Demi Moore’s creepy doll collection, right? But my shower curtain really is transparent. Anyhow, here I am showering blissfully, trying to wash off all the germs from the gym. Well as blissfully as one can with a) the door ALWAYS open (Children have a strong aversion to shut doors – they assume candy is being consumed. They may not be wrong.) and b) a peanut gallery. Jelly Bean is obsessed with bathing and so she must stand and s-t-a-r-e at me the whole time I shower. Eh, you get used to it.
Jelly Bean is also obsessed with toileting. She sees the water streaming down my legs and assumes I have wet myself. Again, she may not be wrong. Notice that I have no hair. My hair is so fine that anytime it gets wet it pastes itself to my skull and I look exactly like Ralph Nader.
And Jelly Bean is also obsessed with soap (two-year-olds* are obsessed with being obsessed). I have to hide all the soap from her or she’ll “wash haaaans” until it’s all gone. Now she thinks I’m peeing bubbles which would be a neat trick if I could pull it off.
She calls herself “Nay Nay” which I find utterly adorable… until I realize that she has taken her diaper off and made “pee bubbles” on the floor. Sigh. But I can’t get out and clean it up because I still have to shave all the real estate between my chin and my toes. (Aw heck sometimes I shave my toes too). I tell her to look away. Me shaving my pits is not a pretty site. First, this is what a normal person’s armpit looks like:
And this is what my CrossFit honed, P90X toned, Bodyrock zoned pits look like:
I might as well be trying to clear the Rocky Mountain national forest with a push mower.
No matter how I contort my arm and tug on my armpit skin, this is what inevitably happens:
The razor does some damage but still leaves me with Yellowstone 10 years after the fire. And always at least one realllly long rogue hair that defies any cutting method. Sometimes there’s blood. Eventually I call it good enough and give up. At this point I have two options: embrace my body for the hirsute loveliness it is or wear a smoking jacket to the gym.
You can guess which one I go with. I’m pretty sure all my fellow gym-goers are making a fund for my laser hair removal as we speak. (Note: any company that wants to give me free laser hair removal – I will blog the everloving heck out it! I’ll even draw really ugly pictures of you!!) And because I know you’re curious – here’s the unedited real deal:
You see what I’m up against?! Anyone else find an unexpected downside of their exercise routine? Any pit-shaving tricks to share with me??
*Note: I just finished an agonizing 3 hours with Son #2 helping him edit his “author study” paper for 4th grade. It quickly devolved into tears and hysterics (him) and head banging (me). He actually said, “You CAN’T help me! You don’t know this stuff! You write, like, stories. This is FOR THE REAL WORLD MOM.” Because I told him he needs to capitalize book titles. (Dear Dad I am so so sorry for not appreciating you enough when you were doing this with me as a kid. Also thanks for not killing me.) The report is done – and I resisted the temptation to rip the keyboard out of his little hands and just write the darn thing myself – but he literally sucked all the writing juice right out of me. I barely have a will to live right now much less write something productive. So this post is a repeat. But I still need your advice because sadly this is exactly as true as it was 2 years ago! Except now I also have a random chin hair to add to the weird-o mix. Help me!
You’ve already said laser but I just wanted to extol the virtues of it more. Keep an eye on groupon type sites- they often have pretty good deals and it sounds like you are the ideal candidate with pale skin and dark hair. My underarms have been happily hair free now for a couple of years and it was SO worth the cost
WIll do! I dream of lasik first but hair removal is a close second!
I really don’t think you can blame this on lifting weights. I’ve got some nice muscles and prominent veins, but I don’t have a problem with craggy pits or excess body hair. Maybe you need a different razor and/or gel? (Use shaving gel, not cream. )
I do use a shaving gel… And I don’t think I have excess body hair (I hope?) it’s just more my really deep, craggy pits hahah. They didn’t used to be this hard to manage!
I have a random chin hair too!!! Right now, it hasn’t appeared for like 6 weeks… but it will pop up again, and I will have to pluck it! For some reason my hair grows fast, so I “should” shave my pits before every gym session, but I get lazy and don’t. My one weird shaving tip… rub on deodorant and then shave your pits. It works! You don’t even have to get them wet!
Very cool! I’ll try that!!
Just wanted to give you a virtual hug about the kid school stuff! In retrospect I don’t know how my parents did it. That session with your son describes me and every school project for 17 years, including my master’s thesis.
Aw thank you! I really need a hug for that one. It was infuriating! But I find it very encouraging you finished grad school! There’s hope for him yet!
Well I have had the laser hair removal done and I am also dark fine hair on light skin. 10 treatments didn’t get it all, I needed 15 and touch ups of 5 treatments every 5 or 6 years. Now that was just for my chin. Needless to say arm pits are going to cost a lot to get taken care of.
I would be tempted to try those sandpaper like hair removal things. I know the creams that are supposed to work to remove hair don’t work well on me, but maybe they would work for you.
I tried one of the sandpaper type things, thinking it would be a nice shortcut when I didn’t have time to shave. Well, it worked the first time or two, then didn’t work anymore. Either my legs got stubborn and decided to hold onto the hair or the grains on the sandpaper stuff wore down. Either way, not worth the money!
Ooh thanks for letting me know! I’ll be sure to skip that one!
I use the cream on my ‘stache and it works great! Not so good with my leg/pit hair though. Sigh.
Wax or dilapidory cream? My two year old is obsessed with hand washing too!
The depilatory cream works great on my face but not so good anywhere else! Waxing in the past has been… unpleasant;)
No advice, but this post is just as funny reading it a second time. I love it and I love you!
Aw thank you!
You be speaking to the choir here my friend – try getting to my age & see where else that hair grows! I want to win the lotto just to get laser hair removal in many places! 🙂
Hahah you crack me up Jody!
Ahh too funny, I have an 18 month old daughter who tries to crawl INTO the shower with me. Fully clothed. I brought her in couple times to take a shower with me- figuring it would be just traumatic enough to make her stop- no luck. She likes to think she is super helpful when she tosses stuff in when I am washing my hair…. ugh. Life with kids… got to laugh. Oh and I have really hollowed out pits too. I just got them waxed for the first time. Totally worth it.
Maybe I’ll have to try waxing again…. And I’m glad my kids aren’t the only ones who’ll jump in fully clothed into the shower with me! It’s annoying but hilarious.
Yaaay! I like to think of them as “rasta pits” Seems to exotic. I have the durn 1 chin and 1 cheek hair that they want 300 dollars for 6 treatments for. Lady, 300 dollars for 6 HAIRS? I obviously dont understand – but here! This is what helped my pits! Tiny bikini razors! They somehow get in there and do a much better job without the gnashing of teeth and wailing that comes with waxing!!
http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/noxzema-shaving-bikini-shave-%26-trim-shavers-3-pack/ID=prod1466-product
Hooray for BarbieRazors! They also, because they have those guard teeth things? Dont tend to rub the bare spots on your poor pits, while you go over an area fitty zillion times in seventy directions.
Oooh I love you so much right now!!! I will totally get me some barbie razors for my “rasta pits”!!!
Hi Charlotte,
Waxing works really well. I usually only do it for vacations to the tropics when I’m going to be sleeveless for a week. It leaves my pits hair free for the whole week. No brissely five o clock shadow. And when it starts to grow back it comes out fine not stubbly. The only down side is the pain and awkwardness of applying the strips in front of a mirror. Then you have to lean in real close to tweeze the stubborn hairs that remain. I usually enlist the help of one of my sisters or my mom to make sure I got them all. My botfriend probably would not assist. I use the wax strips you warm up between you hands, they are a lot less messy then trying to use a pot of wax.
Clearly I need to look into waxing again!
I just need to mention how much your pictures made me giggle. 🙂 I love how real you are!
Aw thank you Sylvie!!
I have this problem too and I hate armpit hair. I’m a hairophobe maybe. Don’t go with waxing because you have to wait for it to grow back in and that stage is ugly. I know someone who does it and it creeps me out seeing long flowing hairs there. Sorry not very broad minded of me I know!
Just the fact you said “long flowing hairs” gave me a full body shudder! Ugh.
Have you heard of sugaring? I like it better than waxing because it’s not hot and can’t burn the skin. It also removes the hair in the direction of growth, not against, so it’s less painful. I get sugared once a month and love it.
On another note, I sometimes feel I’ve lost the will to live after a particularly hard day but that’s when I check in with my favorite bloggers and feel reassured I’m not in this alone. Thank you!
I have heard of it but I’ve never tried it – I’ll definitely have to look into it! And thank you for the kind compliment – you totally made my whole week!!!
Have you heard of the No-No Hair remover? I’ve been thinking of getting one. Just a thought, if you want to look into it. But I have a question: has your hair increased since you started lifting weights, or has it always been that way but it’s just tougher to shave all the nooks and crannies due to your bad-a$$ery. I’m just curious if it’s weight-lifting or genetics that has given you the unfortunate pits. Loved the blog, as always, but I was a little disappointed not to see any mention of studies on the subject (if there are any).
I’ve seen it in action! One of the Gym Buddies had one and good golly that thing HURT. But I’m a wuss. Let me know if you try it! And it isn’t that my hair has increased since lifting weight just that my muscles have made my pits deeper and harder to get into with the razor. And yeah… bad-assery, let’s go with that! 😉
As for research – I don’t know that anyone’s ever actually researched the changes to pit hair during lifting!! But I see a research niche…anyone want to fund me??