Woman shares pros and cons of leg hair, saying it adds 'extra layer of warmth' in winter
A woman decided not to shave her legs for six months, saying they got so hairy people thought they must belong to a man.
But unfazed by incorrect assumptions, she's confident that staying away from the razor was worth it for the "extra layer of warmth".
Sharon Munro, 38, first stopped shaving her legs in October 2021 simply out of "laziness", but ended up being shocked at just how much her hair had grown by April 2022.
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While Munro, who runs a cleaning company, from Harwich, Essex, originally just wanted a little less maintenance to do, she says her furrier limbs kept her "cosy" and "warm" in the winter.
"I let my leg hair grow for so long it looked like a man's leg," she explains.
"People didn't believe they were mine and I had to prove it against a male friend's leg to show it was real.
"It was quite impressive how hairy they got."
Happy with her decision, she adds, "It was quite warm and cosy in the winter" and "it was definitely an extra layer of warmth" during colder months.
While she says, "I was just lazy and couldn't be bothered to shave them", she now sees another potential benefit to ditching the razor.
"But," she adds, "it might be a good way to save money this winter."
On the hair itself, Munro says it was "so thick and dark", contributing to why people didn't believe they were her own legs.
"I kept them hidden under trousers so no one saw them," she recalls. "They were like gorilla legs".
But, while she was a fan of her gorilla legs, when the sun came out in April 2022, she got too hot, and decided to get them waxed to feel more comfortable getting them out. But this took more getting used to again than she thought.
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"They were so smooth, and it felt strange feeling the air on my legs again," she explains. "Even water trickling down my leg felt really strange after they'd been protected by so much hair."
Munro is adamant that un-shaved limbs in winter are the way to go if you want to stay cosy.
"I do think having hairy legs helps with keeping you warmer," she insists.
"You have to grow them out for a long time though to get the hair long."
But do hairy legs really make you any warmer? It seems probably not as much as they used to, compared to when we were far hairier beings (think, cavemen times...).
"All mammals (things that give milk to their young) have hair. We're mammals, so it makes sense that we have hair," explains University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)'s ScienceLine site.
"For most mammals, hair is important as insulation, keeping body heat in when it's cold and giving protection from hot sun. Human hair might be useful for keeping the hot sun off our head and neck, but it doesn't do much to keep us warm."
Compared to other animals, we've adapted over the years, relying instead on things like clothes, heat and shelter, becoming less hairy.
However, it's also thought that the hairs on the skin do help to control body temperature, lying flat when we are warm, and rising when we are cold (hence why they can stand upright when we're shivering).
So the idea is, in warmer temperatures they trap a layer of air above the skin, helping to keep us insulated. So even if just slightly, our natural hairs (working with the skin) might be helping to to keep things in check without us realising.
It might just depend on how hairy you are...
Watch: Aussie mum dubs her daughter 'little monkey' after she was born with so much body hair
