A bit over a year ago, a Danish woman from Copenhagen made a decision to not shave her face anymore. Eldina Jaganjac, a 31-year-old tutor from Denmark, decided to defy society’s standards of beauty by going boldly against them. She became more and more frustrated by the expectations that were laid upon women in this age, even more so when it came to men who could just freely go around without the fear of being judged and without touching a single hair on their own bodies.
Jaganjac dropped all the formalities when she decided to completely stop plucking her eyebrows and upper lip hair back in March of 2020, and soon realized that it made no difference to how she felt, as she found herself feeling just as feminine regardless of the “extra” hair on her body.
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Of course, her Frida Kahlo-inspired looks didn’t go unnoticed outside of her house, as unfortunately, she had to deal with various rude men on the streets of Denmark
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
Though Eldina isn’t overly concerned about her looks overall, she had to deal with occasional comments such as "pluck that" or with people just rudely staring at her eyebrows as if she had a "third head"
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
However, soon enough, Eldina found that sporting a unibrow and additional facial hair might’ve been a blessing in disguise as it helped her to “weed out” “conservative” people she wouldn’t want to be around anyway, as most of them are immediately put off by her unique looks
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
The Denmark-based tutor thinks that her unibrow and facial hair allowed her to select people who weren’t concerned about her looks and wanted to know her as a person
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
Here’s what Eldina told Tyla magazine about the way other people handled her recent change in looks: "The reaction is actually almost completely positive, but I am sure that there are some negative comments behind my back, but I don't really care about that"
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
"I have noticed a few grown men stare at my unshaven legs and my eyebrows like I had a third head"
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
"If anything, I get more positive attention and I get to weed out the more conservative people from the beginning"
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
Jaganjac also told Tyla magazine that she felt tired of policing herself all the time to fit in with the beauty standards that were placed upon women
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
"I used to feel less feminine because of my rather voluminous eyebrows"
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
"Growing up, I noticed that I was considered a brute when my body hair first started to grow as a teenager"
Image credits: eldina_jaganjac
Eldina also told Tyla magazine that: "I noticed most girls around me panicking around the age of thirteen to fourteen and starting to shave and pluck anything pluckable because they wanted to be accepted as female and tried to fit into their new role as a young woman.
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.
Just like many other women, I have learned to police myself. For instance, I used to not feel comfortable going outside unless my eyebrows were the accepted small size, and I wouldn't go to the gym unless my legs were clean-shaven.
Now, I've chosen to focus on the tasks and goals that I need to have done and less on how I appear while doing them and whether people like me or not, because I probably won't ever see them again, and if I do, I still don't care.”