The latest female beauty trend is the pits.
Literally. Armpits.
More specifically armpit hair. Yes, the fluff that most of us fret about regularly shaving and waxing (at least in warm months) -- the fur some have gone so far as to permanently laser off -- is getting a makeover. A colorful one.
Women are dyeing their underarm fleece. And not tones like blond or auburn.
There's hair there, with fanfare in a rainbow variety of hues from peacock teal to shamrock green to flamingo pink. It just takes a search of #dyedpits on social media sites like Twitter to see that when it comes to underarms, orange really is the new black, or, well, brunette.
Now don't expect to see any middle-age PTA moms sporting plum purple pit pelts ... yet. Not for the blue bloods or yellow- bellies, it's a fad greenlighted by the young and hip. The movement is enjoying a red-letter day, capturing the attention of media outlets from the chic (People StyleWatch: "You'll 'Dye' When You See What Some Women Are Doing to Their Armpits") to the more serious (TIME: "Keeping It Natural and Neon All at Once"). TechTimes.com ("Let It Grow, Let It Glow!") credits the trend to hairstylist Roxie Hunt from Seattle's Vain salon, whose blog about dyeing a co-worker's underarms a Smurfy shade went viral.
"We laughed and marveled at the beauty of her blue pit hair," Hunt wrote. "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."
Many of the women tickled pink by this fad already have hair of colorful hues on their heads. To them, this crevice is merely another canvas for self-expression. And I -- a lifetime member of the hair coloring club since the Sun-In days -- respect that. But so often the statements made by shocks of violet, turquoise, red, yellow and blue on pale underarm skin are "Hematoma!" "Mold!" "Rash!" "Jaundice!" "Bruise!"
The practicality of this color trend raises a few red flags.
Pits sweat. Profusely (even yours, gals who claim you "glisten"). Which means your color will run. You're going to weird out people when you start bleeding aubergine (a fancy purple) from your axilla (that's sciency for armpit) and orchid (another fancy purple) from your oxter (Scottish/Irish for armpit).
Which brings us to this question: What about clothing? Short of wearing all black all the time, you're going to transfer color
and taint your tops. And you thought you had problems with T-shirts yellowing, etc., before! Eh, you can always turn them into tie-dye.
And just how do hair dye and deodorant interact, anyway? Right, no one knows. Because hair dye is intended to go on a head.
What about the roots? Won't your natural color be moving in quickly and eclipsing your magenta or mint armpit mane? Well, at least that ombre look seems somewhat in.
Another issue: skin sensitivity. Please heed the dye manufacturer's warnings and perform patch tests for irritation, otherwise your underarms could end up raw and red. Never mind -- Pantone just announced that Marsala, "a naturally robust and earthy wine red" that "enriches our minds, bodies and souls," is 2015's official color of the year.
So you'll be the e'pit'ome of fashion.
Purple prose? Email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
What's in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman 'hood.
Style on 12/09/2014