All Hail the Technicolor Armpit

I thought that I was being risqué when I bleached the tips of my brunette hair. It was the summer of 2011 and photos of Rachel Bilson’s ombre lurked in every Internet and magazine pocket. I’d never colored my hair before, and it felt bold to pop the proverbial cherry with a trend that stipulates you shell out $200 for a look that comes free over time.

I’ve since severed my ombre for a lob and have largely refrained from hair dye. But there is one emerging trend that I’m compelled to try: colored armpit hair.

It makes bleaching your tips look as bawdy as a kitty riding the coattails of a Care Bear while listening to The Wiggles, and it’s popping — nay — sprouting, up everywhere. The trend’s origin has been traced back to Seattle-based stylist Roxie Hunt, who dyed a client’s pits blue as an experiment. She hadn’t anticipated the “viral” response the trend would amass, prompting thousands of women to grow and color their own pit-hair.

The so called #freethepit movement has also garnered its share of criticism. Although, my guess is that the naysayers have never attempted to grow their own rainbow. And while growing one’s armpit hair is hardly a novel idea, the decision to dye it colors like “purple haze” and “mellow yellow” seems to be making people quite blue. (Sorry, I had to.)

But I’m less concerned with wondering why the dye-trend proliferated as quickly as it did, and find myself more curious as to whether or not it’s actually so novel. Women have championed bodily hair growth in response to the stereotypes of patriarchy for years. And yet the #freethepit movement has seemed to inspirit the subversive trend in a way that perhaps only a social media hashtag could. Refinery 29 recently ran a story titled, “This Supermodel Is Making Armpit Hair Mainstream.” The supermodel in question is Daria Werbowy, whose unshaven pits materialized on Instagram to the “like” of 867 users, thus reaffirming the “trend’s” place in near-popular culture.

My guess is that colored pits won’t stay for long. They’re a set of bells and whistles that punctuate a time-honored movement. It’s only a matter of time before the next “subversive trend,” as The Guardian put it, eclipses it — pushing renegade armpits to the corners of Tumblr, where any evidence of the fad will collect diminutive views next to the “elevated bleached tips” of yesterday.

Feature image: “Frida Kahlo”, 1938, Julien Levy