How to dye your armpit hair

It’s no secret that some of us choose not to shave or wax our pits. More and more often, I am meeting women who un-apologetically choose not to succumb to the societal pressure of scraping a razor against the soft skin of their bodies. If you recall, I want to celebrate pit hair.

I work at Vain, one of Seattle’s most beloved salons nestled in the heart of Belltown, and proudly offering a space committed to the expression of personal style and feminist values.

I have always wanted to color someone’s pit hair. I have actually done it once, but It was a late night with too much wine and without the proper tools available. I asked my co-worker Rain if she would be down to let me dye her pit hair blue to match her hair color and she agreed, heartily. (OR should I say pitily.)

In the process, I was curious to see how pit hair would react to bleach and color and if the rules of color formulation hold true on pit hair. We both knew that we were jumping into uncharted territory, but we felt that Vain was just the place to pioneer some pit color. Here is how it went…

I began by mixing bleach and 30 volume developer. I knew I needed something strong enough to cut through that coarse hair and lighten it up as much as possible, but I didn’t want to use 40 volume because I didn’t want to cause any uncomfortable burning on the delicate skin in her pits. Using a combination of Manic Panic – Bad Boy Blue and Special Effects Blue Haired Freak, I created a shade that appeared slightly less aqua green than the color on her head, knowing that I would have a bit of yellow to contend with after bleaching out her pits.

I grabbed a couple towels, some gloves, color application brushes, and some extra clips to help keep her sleeves rolled out of the way, and Rain changed into an old T-shirt. First, I had Rain wipe her pits down to remove any deodorant that might be lingering. Then, I got right in there with my bleach and color brush, applying it thick in small sweeping strokes in all directions, making sure to fully cover every hair.

We visited and caught up while the bleach sat in her pits, her arms raised above her head. We talked about what brought us to the point of ditching our razors, and what it was like to feel like an oddball in a small town.

I checked her bleaching pit every couple minutes to see the progress. Rain said that the bleach was not bothering the skin in her pits one bit, which was a relief to me. After 15 minutes, I could tell that her pit hair was the perfect shade of pale yellow to apply the dye.

I rinsed her pit out with a washcloth and admired the color. Turns out, pit hair lightens super duper fast. Being so close to the skin, her body heat probably helped speed up the process. We repeated the bleaching on her other pit. In the future, doing both pits at once would work too.

Now it was time to apply the blue color and watch her pit hair come to life.

I re-secured her sleeves and painted the color onto her pits super thick, but was very careful not to slop the blue all over the place (I didn’t want it to stain her skin outside of her pit-hair-area). We let the color sit for another 15 minutes. Rain’s arms stayed up, mostly resting behind her head. Excitedly, we rinsed out her pits. I half expected the color not to stick, thinking to myself that something this cool couldn’t really be possible. And if it was possible, why didn’t people do it all the time?

My, Oh My. The color stuck.

We laughed and marveled at the beauty of her blue pit hair. It was too good to be true. The color in her pits perfectly matched the color on her head. I felt a major win for body hair.

Rain’s blue pits lasted a couple weeks, slowly fading back to pale blonde and then growing back out to their natural shade. Maybe some day we can try a different shade, and do her bush too, just for kicks.