Jennifer Zamparelli sat down with journalist Azmia Riaz on RTÉ 2FM to discuss her experience with female facial hair. Listen back above.
"I think I was around 12 or 13 where I was super conscious of it," she told Jen. "And I would definitely say I was more worried that curious. I had this idea of what womanhood would look like, and it just didn't fit that vision in my head."
Believing she was the only girl struggling with this issue, the Indian woman says that her family were very traditional, with the women always looking "how they were supposed to look".
"It just didn't look like anyone else had that issue," she explains. "It felt very alien to me."
As it turned out, although they never discussed it, many women in Azmia's family had facial hair but were quietly removing it: "It was a very unspoken family tradition."
In her teenage years, she was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), a hormonal disorder that affects ovaries in women of reproductive age, and can lead to side effects such as excessive hair growth on the face and body.
Unfortunately, the diagnosis wasn't spoken about in detail, and didn't give her as much comfort as she would have liked. Without any guidance, the teenager took things into her own hands and decided to remove the hair herself.
"I used an ordinary razor and used it all over my face - I was full of cuts and ingrown hairs. It's very gentle skin, on your face, so it didn't look great," she tells Jen.
Going to school was a tough experience, and Azmia says she felt that people were "staring all the time".
"There were a lot of jokes from time to time," she admits, "but I never really opened up about it or told anyone."
From there, the budding journalist decided to attend a women-only college and, although she admits the first few weeks were tough, she soon settled in to a sisterhood.
"It started out difficult because I felt like everybody was way more gorgeous than I was, and looked how I thought I should look," she admits. "But I think when you live in dorms, and you're very close to each other, a lot of those walls fall.
"No one was pretending anymore. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't. For the first time, it felt like I could be myself. It felt ordinary."
These days, Azmia says she has found "some level of acceptance" but explains that she did shave ahead of the interview.
"I feel like I'm comfortable when I don't have it, but I think even being able to talk about it now is a huge step for me. Today, it feels a lot more accepted than it used to be. I can step out of my room without trimming or without freaking out about it, but I still do it."
"We don't have to be bald from the eyebrows down to be feminine," Jen adds, noting that a number of celebrities have embraced their body hair or opened up about their own struggles.
"I think Keke Palmer and Adele have both spoken about facial hair," agrees Azmia, "and I would have appreciated that growing up."
"I think people opening up about everyday stuff like this makes all the difference."
To find out more about PCOS, visit HSE.ie.
