I WAS 13 when I first dragged my father’s razor up my shin.

With next to no hair to remove, I was, ironically, just like the gals in the advert.

Because of this, however, I didn’t have much direction on where to focus the blades, so I mimicked the ladies in the adverts, and simply went from ankle to knee. Sure, I was flying it.

Near the end of the endeavour, however, I realised that something was caught in the blades, and I gingerly pulled it from the mechanism.

Initially, I assumed the small sticker from the soap I had used to lather my legs had gotten entwined in the blades, and then, in a moment of utter horror, I realised it was a thin sliver of my own skin which I had inadvertently ripped from my ankle.

With my foot submerged in bath water, I hadn’t noticed the pain or, indeed, blood just yet.

And then I noticed it all at once, and naturally assumed I was going to need blood transfusions if I was going to make it to my 14th birthday.

While a relatively benign anecdote which most women will be able to relate to, news that a razor company have decided to use women with actual body hair in their adverts got me thinking.

Had the gals in the adverts I was exposed to as a teen actually had body hair to begin with, I might have known that shaving wasn’t a requirement for me yet.

Had the advertisers given even the smallest nod to the reality of a woman’s body, I likely wouldn’t have gone next or near my dad’s razor because I would have assumed the task was not one I needed to trouble myself with.

With this in mind, I’m all for Billie’s Project Body Hair – a campaign launched by Billie, a razor company, who are keen to drag the idea of female body hair into the 21st century.

For the past 100 years, women’s razor brands haven’t acknowledged female body hair. Commercials show women “shaving” perfectly smooth, airbrushed legs. Strange, huh? But everyone has short stubble, long strands, or something in between. What you do with yours is up to you – grow it, get rid of it, or comb it. It’s your hair, after all.

Feast your eyes on the first ad that doesn’t seek to peddle the idea that women are hairless creatures, who love nothing more than spending money on razors they don’t seem to need.

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