Does Everyone Secretly Have Chin Hair? (2024)

As far as fond memories go, this is an odd one, but hear me out: I can still picture my grandfather gently removing my grandmother’s facial hair with a disposable razor on the front porch of their house in Atlanta. My grandma was by no means a hairy woman, but one thing that often stood out on her tiny, five-foot-one frame was a small gathering of hair on her chin.

As a kid, I used to get a good laugh at the idea of women having any kind of facial hair. Even my mother, who likely inherited the hairy gene from her mother, used to joke about her barely-there mustache. When I’d ask her about it, she’d simply look at me with a sinister smile, take a beat, and say, “I guess I’m just that kind of guy.” I’d heard of the mysterious bearded lady who occasionally appeared at the circus, but even she didn’t seem completely tangible to me back then. This continued as a running joke between me and my mom for years, until I was old enough to know better.

While I somehow convinced myself this familial beauty trait could never reach the smooth contours of my jawline and upper lip, I too, it turns out, have inherited the more-than-occasional chin hair as an adult. I even have a whisper of side ’stache, though thankfully that’s easily covered up with foundation and concealer. But back to those stray chin hairs: I can’t exactly recall when I first noticed them, but they’ve certainly left their mark on me, both physically and mentally.

For anyone unfamiliar, chin hair can often be incorrigible—in my case, usually a mixed bag of totally straight and super coil-y strands, some weirdly short and others ridiculously long. Like many things in nature, my chin hairs aren’t exactly symmetrical: I grow only one or two on the left side of my chin, but maintain a tidy little patch on the right. Even my husband teases me about it sometimes, but all in good fun. Since the hairs’ emergence, I’ve become a fan of using at-home facial wax kits to keep them at bay—at least for a few weeks. For a short-term solution, I usually reach for my handy eyebrow razor to quickly hack them all off (though beauty lovers in the know understand the best methods of removal take them out directly at the root). I haven’t tested the waters on laser hair removal yet, but it’s not entirely off the table.

I know that chin hair in women is extremely common—especially with fluctuations in hormones as we age—but sometimes it feels like my family is silently fighting the battle alone. During weeks when I don’t have time to clean up my strays, or the hairs are a little too short to wax, I’m hyperaware of their visibility to anyone I interact with. “Can they see them hanging off my chin?” I ask myself. “Are they judging me right now?” Sometimes when the hair is growing back in, it serves as a spiky security blanket only I know about. As a man may do with his beard or mustache, I’ll run my thumb and index fingers over the length of my chin hair a few times as I think something through. Sometimes I catch myself doing this and let out a little chuckle.

Because, at the end of the day, my chin hairs are inevitable, and time has taught me to greet them with a sense of humor. But they also make me feel that much closer to my mother and grandmother, reminding me of one of our deepest and most unintentional connections. Call it fate, genetics, or a shift in hormones, but these strays aren’t going anywhere—and I think I’m actually okay with that.

If you’re a new or returning member of the chin-hair club, welcome! Here are some of my favorite products to combat them at home, should you be so inclined: