Personal care brand Dove, which sells deodorant products, has been advertising in its campaigns to free women from the stigma of letting their underarms become bushy forests, with one of their partners stating she hadn't shaved in 10 years.
"So what's wrong with these?" a woman with hairy armpits from a Dove commercial celebrating armpit diversity said. "My hairy underarms do not define my womanhood."
The commercial then panned to a close-up of her hairy pits. These are the types of commercials Dove has been promoting for years, and most recently with giant billboards in New York City as well as collaborating with TikTokers with hairy armpits.
In August, Dove's "Pits of New York" campaign broadcast hairy armpits of women on giant billboards in NYC and on the subway platforms.
The goal was to "celebrate[e] body positivity by… asking people to challenge their preconceived notions of the body part," an advertising consultant involved in the campaign said.
One of the women with hairy armpits featured in their subway station ads, Maia N. Douglas, said in a video on TikTok, "I am on the walls... My pits are there, my hairy pits. The same hairy pits my coach in high school told me I needed to shave. Yeah, those same hairy pits got me here."
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"So honored to be on these walls not only to represent women who do not shave but also encourage the 9 out of 10 women who decide to shave based off of stigma… to just embrace themselves and their pits," the Dove partner continued.
Jordan Underwood, a TikToker who has 120K followers, also said she was in a paid partnership with the company.
"Even though I haven't shaved my armpits in 10 years, I sometimes feel self-conscious... When I'm feeling the urge to shrink myself and hide parts of my body, I stretch my arms out wide and remind myself to be free in my body," she said.
Underwood then applied a Dove stick deodorant product while saying, "Dove is reminding us to stretch our arms out and live life to the fullest."
Another TikToker who identified as a partner, Jen Bianca, said, "A few years ago I started to realize there was no such thing as a perfect pit and started practicing growing my hair out. I noticed as I started to remove myself from these fake ideals, I learned that I could feel at home in my body without conforming to these beauty standards."
FOX News Digital reached out to Dove for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
A TikTok content creator, April M. Buckles, a Dove partner, got a spotlight feature on its official TikTok page. In the ad, Buckles engaged in sporting activities with a sleeveless top and unshaven pits.
On its website, Dove said, "Women today are exposed to a lot of unrealistic beauty standards that fail to reflect the diversity of beauty seen in real life… That’s why we’re working to encourage armpit acceptance, promoting positive body image and celebrating the differences that make women and girls unique."
Dove continued, "It’s time to shatter the unrealistic beauty standards that dictate how women’s armpits ‘should’ look - and practice unconditional underarm care instead. We believe that ‘perfect’ underarms do exist: they’re shaved, unshaved, sensitive, bumpy, with vitiligo and dark marks. However your armpits look or feel, we're here to give them the utmost care and protection they deserve, so you can live confidently and free from any underarm worries."
Five months ago, Dove ran an advertisement for "Advanced Care Dry Spray Antiperspirant."
"This is a call to women," the commercial said, according to a video posted on its YouTube channel. "Perfect armpits do exist. They are stubbly… or shaved, all beautiful and each unique."
It ended with the statement, "Dove cares for all armpits."
A "behind the scenes" video for the ad featured on of their influencers telling a story about a time when someone instructed her to shave her bushy pits.
"I was, like, what does that mean that this is the checklist to be a woman? Like shave your armpits," she said. "I'm just going to do me and find my own feminity."
A girl with purple pits said that, "My thing is to show… that you can have hair, and you can be happy, and it's completely normal."
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Another woman, who shaves her armpits, said, "I usually shave... but I'm also kind of aware that probably wouldn't if I wasn't taught to. I'm trying to unlearn the conditioning..."
"I would love for the ideal underarm to just not exist," she said in another commercial.
