The Unshaved Truth

The cost of beauty isn’t just financial: it’s the toll it takes on self-acceptance, and why I’m starting to question it all.

Image created by me using Kling AI.

“Mani, pedi, Brazilian wax… $165.” The stone-faced receptionist at the North Berkeley nail salon doesn’t even glance up from her phone as she blabbers the total.

Not. One. Glance.

My blue credit card flexes under my freshly painted, light yellow nails as I hand it over.

“Tip?” she demands, fingers hovering over the payment terminal, lips pursed in that perfect Miranda Priestly expression of disdain. Still no eye contact.

Disbelief from this unpleasant interaction turns to guilt as I consider leaving nothing for this mediocre, overpriced service—until I remember the poor esthetician who had to parse through my peach to remove every. single. hair.

I’ve been coming to this salon for the past two years, since I moved to Berkeley, and prices keep climbing while I get the same old mediocre treatments.

I reluctantly add $30 for tip (and some would still call this cheap).

As a teenager and young woman in my twenties, I was obsessed with hair removal.

Not one stray hair on my brows or armpits: I would’ve rather locked myself at home than risk a unibrow or be seen wearing a tank top with hair showing.

Legs? Perpetually bare.

My holy portal? A hairless “patatina” (yes, that’s our charming Italian slang for female genitals — we can’t even say the proper anatomical term without blushing).

When the universe worked against me, homework and exams getting in the way, and I had to miss a waxing appointment, letting a few millimeters of growth appear on my legs or underarms, the comments came immediately: “Aren’t you taking care of yourself?” “Is everything okay?” As if body hair was some kind of distress signal.

During those years, I completely surrendered to these beauty standards, believing they’d make me more confident. I felt validated by the hungry look in my boyfriend’s eyes when he saw my bare taco, proof I was doing the right thing.

In Italy, beauty rituals carry no spiritual meaning like in some cultures. There’s no deeper purpose in removing hair — just the relentless pressure of an industry that profits from our shame.

Would you believe me if I told you I never saw women with white or gray hair growing up, except in movies where they were either hippies, witches, or hospital patients too sick to care for themselves?

My first in-person exposure to natural beauty came after I moved to the US in 2013, when I was 25. My friend Jessica and I spent a weekend at a hot spring three hours north of San Francisco, only realizing it was clothing optional as we walked in.

After the initial shock of being the only ones in swimsuits, Jessica quickly embraced the freedom. “Come on, it’s actually liberating,” she encouraged me, sensing my discomfort. I followed hesitantly, emerging from the changing room with hands strategically covering both my breasts and my untamed garden.

Eventually I had to remove the hands from my body to climb up and down the pools, exposing my shameful pubic hair.

All around me, I noticed I was the only one not owning my body. Everyone else moved comfortably in their own skin, no matter the age, or the hair status. Meanwhile, I remained hyper-aware of my little bush peeking out, steeped in shame.

That night, I was hit on multiple times — proof that my hair status didn’t directly impact my appeal to the other gender.

The sad part is that I was surprised by it.

It’s heartbreaking, and decidedly un-empowering, that we’ve been conditioned to believe our natural bodies aren’t enough.

That we must conform to some man-made ideal of perfection (literally MAN-made). These standards stem from primal mating instincts twisted into a sick game where women contort themselves to male preferences.

Because I still don’t believe most women perform beauty rituals for ourselves—not truly for self-love. We do it to please others, to belong in a society that weaponizes shame and demands we mold ourselves into its cookie-cutter version of womanhood.

Now in my mid-thirties, as more women gain financial independence, the beauty industry still empties our wallets — just no longer our husbands’. By embracing my natural nails and body hair, I could save at least $3,000 a year (and double that with massages and ‘treatments’).

You might suggest razors, but I don’t want stubble — the hate is so deep that I want those fuckers completely gone. I want to see the white roots ripped from my body. I want them stuck to the wax as proof that I’m stronger than them.

I even tried laser therapy eight years ago, but those rebel hairs still rise like stubborn weeds. Nature laughing at my attempts to control her.

A couple of months ago, I noticed my first white hair: not just one, but many. When? How did that happen?

Horror, shame, and the realization that I’m getting older washed over me. I thought I was immune to aging. Staring at them in the mirror became unavoidable, but instead of rushing to the hairstylist, I kept looking at them.

What started as unease shifted into curiosity, and with each passing day, I took my silver strands in — really saw them.

They are thicker, stronger, wilder. White hairs don’t fall down your shoulders like the rest of the mass; they follow their own path. Like the spirit of women who age into confidence and wisdom, they grow bolder and more unapologetic.

And maybe, one day, I’ll find the courage to be like a silver strand — to embrace not just my natural nails and pubic hair, but to let go of the constant cycle of external pressures.

Forty years from now, I’d like to be one of those wise crones who shines from within, no longer bound by the world’s judgments, but moving toward what feels true and authentic.

Free, unapologetic, and glowing with the kind of strength that comes from accepting every part of myself.

With bushy love,

Simona