The Free Your Pits Manifesto
To all the babes:
We are Roxie Hunt and Rain Sissel, writers for How-to Hair Girl, a DIY hair empowerment blog, and leaders of the Free Your Pits Movement.
Four months ago, Roxie publicly came out as a woman in the beauty industry with hairy pits and told the story of how pit hair has inspired her to make more conscious choices for herself.
A month later, we colored Rain’s pits as a creative experiment and as a celebration of not only body hair but of all women making conscious and bold decisions for themselves.
Today, this experiment becomes a movement. We would like to use our pits to start an evolving conversation about feminism, identity, body positivity, judgement acceptance and freedom of choice.
Our goal is to use this demonstration of personal choice and expression to help broaden and challenge the standard of “beauty” in a society that already places way too many harmful standards on women.
We aim to steer this standard towards a celebration and acceptance of our unique differences and away from the existing cage that restricts us and causes us to wrongfully judge each other.
Today we ask you to join us in this effort by being true to yourself, whatever that might mean. Whether you shave or not, women should be allowed to make decisions about their bodies without judgement from others. And, women making these decisions about their bodies should not be something exploited by the media.
What we need is encouragement, not judgment. We greatly appreciate this opportunity to discuss how important it is to be true to yourself and to love your body, but we also recognize that women making conscious decisions about themselves should not in any way be shocking. We aim to normalize the concept of body hair on women and help others embrace their own if they so choose.
We are not the first women and certainly won’t be the last to embrace our body hair, and we thank all of the amazing women who have joined us in this effort, past and present.
Please join us in spreading this movement by sharing this post and taking a picture of your armpit, whether hairy, bald or blue, and sharing it on your social media with the hashtag #freeyourpits.
Here’s to you being you, whatever that might be, and for inspiring and encouraging others to do the same. We love you for it! If you want to check out more articles that feature the Pit Dye Experiment, feel free to use the following list as a reference. We ask you to join us by leaving comments and sharing your thoughts and stories in the comment sections of these articles if you feel so inclined. Please help us make the Free Your Pits Movement a reality by referring to it in comment sections and dropping the hashtag #freeyourpits.
The Free Your Pits Movement has been featured in Singapore, Russia, Germany, Japan, Korea,Sweden, Denmark and Australia and on:
Refinery 29 Huffington Post MTV LA Times Pop Sugar Jezebel
Bustle Life & Style Offbeat Home & Life Daily Mail Beauty Heaven
MSN The Star Medical Daily Tech Times The Gloss Oddee
Daily Life Identities.MIC The Inquirer
And most recently The New York Times. Check out our press page for more information regarding press opportunities, interviews and appearances.
Roxie Hunt
DIY mogul, freelance writer & photographer, stylist, beauty alchemist and mother, Roxie is the founder of the Free Your Pits Movement and the brains behind the whole. damn. operation.
She runs How-to Hair Girl, a community that supports you in loving your hair and freeing yourself of the unnecessary and harmful standards pushed by the beauty industry. Her blog features DIY hairstyle tutorials and at-home beauty solutions that encourage personal style and sustainable beauty exploration. She works hard to empower others and to elevate other amazing people in her community.
Follow How-to Hair Girl on Instagram and check out Roxie's all-natural hand-made ShamPHree products in our shop! If you want to book an appointment with Roxie, check her out at VAIN downtown in Seattle, WA.
Rain Sissel
Freelance writer, social media specialist and aspiring fourth grade teacher, Rain is the co-founder and face of the Free Your Pits Movement. Going down in infamy as the original "weird girl with blue armpit hair," Rain hopes to inspire others to free their pits and to practice their own personal versions of body positivity and self love - whatever that may mean for them.
Her hobbies include: smashing the patriarchy, inclusive feminism, shitty action films, punk rock and foods of all kinds! You can follow her life on Instagram or check out her blog here!
