If you haven't heard of indie razor brand Billie yet, let me help you learn the heck up. Founded in 2015, Billie operates kind of like the ever-popular Dollar Shave Club but is intentionally geared toward women. For a small monthly fee, it sends disposable razor packs, shave cream, body wash, or whichever of its products you might like straight to your door (full disclosure: I use it, and I'm never going back to the big-name brands again).
Save for its convenience and affordability, Billie also draws loyal customers in with its visible dedication to shattering unrealistic body image ideals. It does this by frequently showcasing women with body hair in all the places you'd never imagine a razor brand showing. Take its new ad, for instance, which is giving the term "bikini body" a whole new meaning.
Billie's new advertisement is like nothing the shaving industry has ever seen.
"Hang on, why is there so much pressure to be 'summer ready'?" the brand questioned in the Instagram caption of this video. "Magazines tell us to stop eating carbs in February, follow a 12 step routine to get the perfect beach bod, and to remove every last strand of hair before squeezing into a bathing suit. The 4th unofficially kicks off summer. So this summer, you do you. Let your hair down, maybe even out… we hope you’ll enjoy the breeze."
It shows a delightfully diverse crop of women hanging out at the beach and not giving a single care.
Seeing even just women with their legs spread comfortably — on the beach, no less — is relaxing and ensuring enough. But, as Billie is wont to do, it took its body positivity way, way further than that. Further than any razor brand has ever gone before, in fact.
They get swimsuit wedgies!
Especially now that high-waisted swimsuits are the default for women, wedgies at the beach are running more amok than ever. How refreshing it is to watch a woman forget about being "ladylike" and dive right on in there! Hooray for comfort!
They have armpit hair they're not afraid to hide!
I know a lot of really old-fashioned people (men and women alike) think it's really gross for a women to let her pit hair grow, but there are endless reasons for women to stop shaving in that area. Some women have really sensitive armpit skin; some women experience severe discoloration from shaving; some women simply don't want to. All are valid reasons.
And they have — BIG GASP — pubic hair.
This might be the first razor ad EVER to showcase women's real pubic hair in an advertisement — what a time to be alive! Ultimately it has never made sense that razor ads only showcased women with zero body hair. If your product is designed to remove hair, why don't brands show women, well, removing hair?
This certainly isn't the first time Billie has shattered stigmas about body hair in its ads.
In summer 2018, the brand released a similar ad with intimate close-up shots of women shaving away their visible leg and armpit hair with Billie's adorably minimalist razors. It immediately went viral for being one of the first ads to show women's body hair in that context. With this new ad, the brand is simply heightening the stakes by displaying hairy bikini lines with zero shame.
So big ups to Billie — keep doing you.
How many times will Billie have to break the barriers of the razor industry before the giant, mainstream companies catch on? Women can have body hair wherever they want, and it's not nearly as big a deal as most people make it out to be. They can also shave certain parts of their body and keep hair in others. Big whoop.
