A woman trolled for her body hair has hit back at her haters, defiantly saying it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Esie (@queen_esie) started to notice chest hair growing when she was 11, and decided to shave it off.
However, over time she realised the body hair isn’t something to be ‘scared’ of, and eventually decided to simply ‘embrace it’.
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After ditching the razor, Esie now happily flaunts the hair on her armpits, knuckles, chest, chin, legs and back as she encourages others to love their natural beauty on TikTok.
The artist and body hair activist regularly posts videos to show others how they can be happy in their own skin, explaining in a recent post how it all began.
“I noticed that I had chest hair at 11 years old and started removing it,” she said.
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“Though it wasn’t a lot but removing it for over ten years caused me to have thicker body hair.
“I had tried shaving, waxing, electrolysis and was shocked to see that no matter how much I removed it it came back, since I was taught as a lil girl that shaving was something I had to do I thought that if it was normal it wouldn’t grow back.
“As a Black woman, I couldn’t try laser because it was dangerous for Darkskin people and could actually burn our skin.”
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Esie later learnt that she was hairier than some people due to her genetics.
She continued: “Later on, I learn that I was hairy due to my ivorian origins more specifically my ancestors from my Wè tribe were very hairy and before colonization body hair was something beautiful on a woman because it represented maturity and femininity because, as you know, women have body hair and if we weren’t meant to have it it wouldn’t be there.
“The beauty of body hair diversity though it is never talked about is that body hair can vary based on where you are from, genetics and hormones.
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“But body hair isn’t scary and I’ve learned to embrace it.”
Some of her content has left users divided, with some cruelly saying it looked ‘very weird’.
“This is some sick s**t,” one troll told her, adding that it was like ‘Medieval times’.
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“Sweetheart no woman gets chest hair,” someone else said patronisingly.
But Esie stands firm, saying that, while she doesn’t get much ‘bad reaction’ while out and about, when she does she simply ‘waves back, smiles and looks forward’.
"If they ask me questions because they are curious then we can start a healthy conversation,” she said in the caption of another clip.
“But if someone insults you they are never looking to have a conversation and to learn.”
Esie told her followers they shouldn’t feel the need to ‘confront strangers’, as your job as someone who embraces your body hair is ‘never to convince others’.
“It’s important to understand and accept that people are mean, a good person who sees something that they have never seen before will never make you feel uncomfortable about your body, they could be curious and ask questions but to comment negatively or insult isn’t something they would do,” she said.
While Esie's videos are sometimes hit with criticism, the majority of the reaction she receives is positive.
"We definitely need more people like you!" one person said.
Someone else wrote: "You are a beautiful queen."
Jess Hardiman