Eldina Jaganjac has embraced her natural body hair, moving away from years of plucking, waxing, and shaving.
Her decision to abandon traditional grooming routines has positively impacted various aspects of her life, bringing a new perspective to personal beauty standards.
Eldina Jaganjac, a 31-year-old woman from Copenhagen, Denmark, has made a conscious choice not to shave her moustache and unibrow.
She believes these features help her filter out unsuitable partners in her love life.
Known for her distinctive look, Eldina often receives curious glances from men and teenage boys, some of whom act as if they've seen something quite unusual.
Despite the occasional stares and glares she receives, Eldina admits that the attention she gets for her natural appearance is mostly positive.
For many, standing out in a crowd can be daunting, but Eldina finds confidence and empowerment in her unique look.
Eldina has found that her unibrow and moustache not only allow her to express her true self but also help her define femininity on her own terms.
Giving up shaving has enabled her to filter potential romantic interests more effectively and avoid uncomfortable situations.
She said, "The reaction is actually almost completely positive, but I am sure there are some negative comments behind my back, but I don't really care about that," adding, "I have noticed a few grown men stare at my unshaven legs and my eyebrows like I had a third head."
"If anything, I get more positive attention and I get to weed out the more conservative people from the beginning."
Eldina stopped her grooming routine, including waxing her upper lip and plucking her brows, in 2020.
This decision came after she realized that societal norms were the only reason she felt 'less feminine' for having visible facial hair.
Growing up in a small city, Eldina was encouraged to conform to societal norms.
As she matured, she began to challenge these expectations, particularly resenting the pressure on women to spend time and money on their appearance, a standard not equally applied to men.
This rebellion against the status quo hasn't been without its challenges.
By choosing to reject traditional beauty standards, Eldina has faced some backlash and ridicule on the streets.
She shared her thoughts: "Before I let my unibrow grow out, I did feel like there were extremely limited options to how women were supposed to look."
"Compared to men, we are expected to spend much more time and money on our looks just to be deemed visually acceptable in society, especially when you are in public spaces."
"If a man doesn't shave and doesn't pluck his eyebrows, no one notices or comments and it's nothing out of the ordinary."
"I've had some rude comments here and there, but very few were from grown-ups. Mostly it has been teenagers on social media telling me how to perform the art of personal grooming. Or just commenting 'unibrow'."
"Yes, I have had a few teenage boys yell at me in the streets, but nothing big. I think it's hard to understand gender roles when you are a teenager and you are growing up, so I think seeing a woman doing something that is considered less feminine confuses these teenagers and they let it out on me because they start to question their own norms and understanding of what it means to be a man."
After four years of embracing her natural look, Eldina hopes to inspire other women to define femininity in their own way.
She emphasizes that she is neither for nor against plucking and shaving, but strongly advocates for individual expression.
Eldina's mission is to challenge societal norms and question why women feel the need to shave while men do not.
She pointed out: "Do what is comfortable for you and the right friends will stick around. I'm not pro or anti-shaving and plucking, but I am a supporter of everyone's right to choose for themselves."
"By deeming some women less feminine because of body hair, society excludes several geographical areas in the world from femininity. In many areas of the world, women do have more visible and darker hair, and they are then forced or nudged to change their appearances more than women in, for example, Scandinavia where hair in general is lighter and less visible."
"So there is this underlying prejudice that women from southern Europe or the middle east are inherently less feminine and therefore they have to change a lot about themselves to fit into quite a narrow idea of femininity."
"To be accepted into this, we must spend more time and money just to be able to visually exist in an acceptable way, and yes, I do think this is not fair."
"I think we have to ask the question: Why do we, as a society, deem it so important that women remove hairs from their bodies?"
"I think this should be so irrelevant as there are so many other and more important things to focus on."
