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Hairy arms
No really, it's kinda serious question as I've actually been asked by a couple of beginner models and I didn't know how to answer. Some models I've noticed have quite profuse hairs on their arms - seems to be more noticeable with brunettes. And also seems more pronounced on those that tan a lot (just from personal experience). I can always soften with post-processing of course but I prefer not to - especially since it starts to remove other details (maybe freckles) that I'd like to retain. I don't really have a problem and tend to shoot models as they are - not based on some idealized expectation. But most shots I see from other people seem to be pretty much hairless. So my question is - do other models shave their arms or what? What should I tell models who ask? Obviously legs and 'other' areas are already covered. And since I'm asking awkward questions. What about upper lip or even chin hair? Not trying to embarrass anyone - so just generic answers are helpful. Oct 24 13 09:03 pm Link Many models remove arm hair and upper lip/chin fuzz via shaving, waxing, creams, eplilators, etc. I started removing my arm hair about a year ago, because it was quite dark, and really showed up in photos when it wasn't removed in post. There have also been several threads where photographers & retouchers have complained about excessive arm hair and facial fuzz, so apparently it's a pretty common problem. If you prefer models to show up for shoots groomed a certain way, just make sure and include that in your profile. If you don't care, just tell the models to do whatever makes them comfortable when they ask. Oct 24 13 09:19 pm Link I shave my arms periodically - with the grain though, so a little natural-looking hair is left. Upper lip hair gets tweezed. No, it ain't glamorous.  Oct 24 13 11:22 pm Link If it is a concern of yours and you see a model with dark hair on the arms you can always ask them to shave/wax them before hand. I myself have hair on my arms luckily though it is not dark so I can get away with not doing anything to them. I already landscape enough as it is with legs, underarms, pubic area, eyebrows. Oct 25 13 01:02 am Link As I have dark hair, I epilate my arms so they're nice and smooth for shoots. If you require that from your models, it's probably best you specify beforehand although it's a model's choice whether he/she removes hair or not. Oct 25 13 01:57 am Link I have pretty dark arm hair (well, it seems that way to me anyway), but I never tried shaving it off. I never really see it as a problem in pictures either, and not all of my pictures are edited that much afterwards if at all. Though to be honest sometimes I feel like the hair on my hands gets to be a bit too much (again ,to me, could just be a case of being paranoid) so I take care of that at least. Oct 25 13 09:35 am Link Arm hair is easy, but what to do about the silver streak that goes from my hair line to my tailbone?  I am dead serious. Just got images from the desert and you can clearly see blond fuzz on my back. LMAO (I just had a nightmare where I forgot to wax and my toes and knuckles were super hairy. I mean Monkey hairy! ) Oct 25 13 09:38 am Link Amadea T wrote: You and yer "hairy" self are welcome in front of my lens anytime Miss A . . . Oct 25 13 09:48 am Link sospix wrote: +10 I don't care about the arms, just keep the arm pits clean! LOL Oct 25 13 09:53 am Link sospix wrote: ..when the light hits it jus' right.... Oct 25 13 09:55 am Link Amadea T wrote: Oct 25 13 09:56 am Link sospix wrote: My mom used to call me 'bunny' cause of that fuzz. Oct 25 13 09:59 am Link Amadea T wrote: See what I mean about the sensuous part Miss A . . . jest the tellin' of your boarding school adventures, is bawdy enough ta cause a stir . . . Oct 25 13 10:08 am Link sospix wrote: ..wait til I start telling you about my catholic-school days... Oct 25 13 10:11 am Link I don't shave my arms and I wouldn't ask a model to shave their arms for a photo-shoot. Do you know how much upkeep of shaving your arms after you do it you are stuck doing it for life since then the hair grows back as stubble and it looks awful. I rather keep my soft hairs on my arms. Oct 25 13 10:22 am Link I'm Spanish I came out of the womb with a ton of hair everywhere!! I'm reluctant to shave the hair above my lip because I know it will grow back longer, thicker, and healthier lol Oct 25 13 10:28 am Link Hair removal is a personal decision - whether it is arms, legs, pubic hair. Doesn't matter. There is no right or wrong way to look, or groom oneself. It is my personal opinion that the obsession with removal of body hair has gone too far. There is nothing ugly or gross about our bodies as they are naturally created to be. If we bathe regularly, and practice basic hygiene, other grooming decisions should be up to the individual. I find it horrible that there is such huge social pressure on people to remove every single hair on their bodies, to have their labias clipped off, to do whatever ridiculousness, not because they are doing it for themselves, but because they are worried about being ugly if they do not. people should shave their arms if THEY want to. They should augment their boobs if THEY want to. They should let their legs get hairy if THEY want to. Otherwise, there should be no expectation that people do ANY of those things. These kinds of discussions are just silly. Oct 25 13 01:15 pm Link Koryn Locke wrote: +1 Oct 25 13 01:35 pm Link I've seen some very hairy lower backs. Sort of surprising some don't know about it. One told me her tramp-stamp artist had to shave her and commented about it being "The most he's ever seen on a woman." and she never knew? Can be a pain to retouch out too. Oct 25 13 01:53 pm Link Koryn Locke wrote: +1... until someone puts a VS Angel contract under your pen. Then you remove every hair they tell you to remove in the way they tell you to remove it. But for internet models and most others, +1 Oct 25 13 02:58 pm Link Koryn Locke wrote: ... I think I love you. Oct 25 13 03:06 pm Link Koryn Locke wrote: To clarify my original point - it was really a model's question - whether she should or shouldn't deal with her arm hair. My concern initially was that she pretty much wanted me to edit it out - which is doable but not preferable. Oct 25 13 08:48 pm Link It's all personal opinion. And it should be up the individual to do what they want with what they want. However, personally I find body hair to be gross unless it's on my head or my eyebrows. That's just me. I don't like it on me, or my partner. So yeah, it all gets waxed or shaved or tweezed off  Oct 25 13 09:32 pm Link I leave my arms alone, never have depilated them in anyway. I've started using cream on my upper lip as I tend to get redness under my nose, which means I use heavier make up there and I don't want the make up to accentuate the hair. The rest of my face I leave alone (except eyebrows) and I probably wouldn't bother with that if it wasn't for modelling. Oct 26 13 06:27 am Link I shave (arms, legs, everything) only after a precise request of the photographer and only if very well payed or if I really like the project. I'm blond with non a lot of hair, and actually I like my hair, I don't like shaved people and I dont' like as I look this way. It's a totally personal point of view and I came out to be very angry when a photographer say to me that I HAVE to shave my arms. Oct 26 13 06:41 am Link I have inch long (! yes really, they are hilarious) fine, light blonde hairs on my arms. I've never had a photographer comment on it tho and I wouldn't consider removing it. Oct 26 13 03:05 pm Link I don't shave my arms - but my arm hair is blonde and not noticeable in most pictures anyways. Same with my leg hair when I'm lazy and don't feel like shaving. I'm sure it would be different if I had darker hair. I did shave my arms when I was younger though, because I saw that my mom shaved hers and the bracelet that I wore all the time kept getting caught in my arm hairs. The process of it growing back out wasn't fun. Before it got long enough the hairs were all prickly. Oct 26 13 07:11 pm Link imcFOTO wrote: I am not a big fan of shaved models though most of mine do it. Totally shaved makes them look like pre-pubescent boys, a look which repels me. I really prize models who look like natural men. If they shave theor chests, armpits, crotch, even rectal area they shave their arms too. I hate the metrosexual look. Oct 26 13 08:20 pm Link I have hairy arms, I to be honest life is too short to do anything about it. I pluck the particularly long dark ones but most I leave. You can sometimes see them on images, but hey humans have hair. Also I spend ages just trying to maintain the rest of my body hair as I really am very hairy naturally. It doesn't help that I have very pale skin and black body hair. I pluck my lips and nipples and shave everywhere else. I had pretty successful electrolysis on a "snail trail" from my public area to belly button after getting fed up of people accusing me of being a man. There are still a few left which I pluck. As soon as I can afford it, I'm getting my legs and armpits done as well. So in summary, I am not adding my arms to that routine. I really want one day to have the guts to let it all grow for a week (that would be enough) and do a nude shoot to highlight that women aren't all naturally hairless. Maybe a series showing the removal process, but it's so engrained in society that hair on women is wrong, I think it may just repulse people and the message would be lost. Oct 30 13 02:51 am Link I had never ever heard of shaving arm hair until I joined modelmayhem. To this day, the only people that I know who do it are people on modelmayhem, usually from the US. I literally don't know a model here who shaves her arms. If it doesn't matter to you, just let the model decide. As far as chin and upper lip goes, I think it depends on whether you're talking about hair or peachfuzz. Oct 30 13 02:56 am Link I have found some models who diet heavily will sometimes grow fine facial hairs/fuzz... NOW THESE can be a real pain at times on beauty retouching. Arm hairs? I've rarely taken notice to be honest. Oct 30 13 03:05 am Link imcFOTO wrote: Are you sure your models weren't monkeys?...cause if they wanted to be paid in bananas then that's a dead giveaway that they were monkeys. Oct 30 13 03:25 am Link You can remove most facial and arm hair using the healing brush. In fact, that's the best way I've found to remove most stray hairs (from on top of the head, of course) that extend onto a model's face. Just be sure that Hardness is set at 100%. Basically you're cloning texture from one spot to another. If you use a soft brush, you'll be blurring the texture. Oct 30 13 03:58 am Link Rik Williams wrote: That is genetic. Fair skinned, Northern European types often have very fine, fluffy hairs on the face. I would guess many of the women in your portfolio are primarily of northern European ancestry. Oct 30 13 04:15 am Link I say to hell with it! Im tired of women removing their body hairs. I realize this does nothing to help your question. Oct 30 13 04:29 am Link It's never occurred to me to shave my arm hair. I think I won't. I do shave my legs pretty much every day because I model nude all the time for art schools. I've been shaving the hair on my upper lip and chin with a razor, like a guy would, since I was 13. I trim the hair in the small of my back (which I call my "gorilla hair") about once a week, and also trim my pubic hair once a week, with a trimmer. I wax my sideburns and eyebrows about once every 2 months. I find doing that makes my face look more angled. Oct 30 13 08:03 am Link In my teens and early twenties I shaved my arm hair. I stopped and it is now finer and lighter. Shaving has nothing to do with how it will grow back. The hair on my arms was darker, thicker and longer BEFORE I shaved it. If a model has arm hair that you find unattractive ask her before the shoot if she will do something about it. If she says no then you can decide if you still want her. Oct 30 13 09:19 am Link imcFOTO wrote: I have peach fuzz blonde soft hairs on my body that will not remove easily with wax so I use a cream, (nair or any other cream for face and then one for body,) to remove my arm, neck, face hair when it grows out enough to notice. Oct 30 13 09:39 am Link Amadea T wrote: Oh you made me chuckle! I remember in my 30's I ran with a college cross country team and it was men and women. We had a discussion and one said something about my peachfuzz. I said, "OH! Its EVERYWHERE and I wish it wasn't." I moved my hands around the areas on my body like my arms, shoulders and lower back when I said this. One of the runners eyes lit up and he said, "hmmm?!" OH MY!!! Oct 30 13 09:44 am Link I shave my arms. I started way before modeling. Oct 30 13 02:00 pm Link |
That goes fer the rest of you beautiful models in this thread as well . . . who knew being strikingly beautiful was THIS much work . . . kudos to you all . . . 
