What amount of body hair is concerning/ indicates a hormonal imbalance?
Hello Reddit. I came here to ask this question because I genuinely cannot tell if the amount of body hair I have is normal or not, and therefore whether I should be worried about a hormonal imbalance or not. I cannot tell if my concerns are genuine or if I am entirely blindsided by how used we are to seeing hairless women.
Also, slight TMI warning I suppose, I figured that the best way to get an accurate answer was to explain in detail. And sorry for the long post.
So, here it is. I am a 22 yo woman and I do not know if my amount of hair is normal. In the past 4-ish years I’ve noticed hair growth in places I didn’t expect to see any/that many.
The first place it started is under my bellybutton, what you would consider the happy trail. It started with two darker and thicker hairs and now it’s about a dozen of them. I do not shave them, I only ever pluck them. They’re not as thick as pubic hair, but much closer to it than to any other peach fuzz or regular body hair I have. On top of the very dark ones, I also generally have quite visible hair in that area (not quite fuzz, it looks more similar to arm hair).
I’ve also started getting a few dark hairs on my chin, I’d say between 3 and 5 recurrent ones. I generally have a pretty hairy face, especially the moustache area and strangely enough, circular patches on either side of my mouth.
I’ve also noticed that I have more and more hair on the inside of my thighs, where I didn’t use to have any, and it is a bit darker than the rest of my thigh hair.
I cannot tell wether I have a lot of pubic hair or not. When I wear my average plain day to day comfortable panties there is about 3-4 centimetres (a little over an inch) of hair sticking out on each side, and some (2ish centimetres/a little less than an inch) sticking out from the top as well. What I do have a lot of is butt hair. The entire insides of my butt cheeks are hairy, it is very visible in my underwear.
I have quite a lot of hair around my nipples as well, most of it a long sort of peach fuzz, but some much darker and thicker hairs as well.
And last but not least, I also do have quite a lot of toe hair.
I have talked to my mom about this to try and figure out if maybe it is simply genes but she doesn’t seem to have these issues. I have a sister who has very little body hair but she is only 15 and also blonde (whereas I have darker brown hair) so I do not think she is a good comparison. None of my girl friends are nearly as hairy as me.
And of course, I have heard of women having hair in those places before and know it can be completely normal, but what worries me is that those women are generally in their 40s or 50s, not 20s like me.
I do not know if this is relevant but I also have an unusual menstrual cycle. My cycle lasts 32 days on average, with periods that only last 3-4 days. I also happen to have really bad PMS (up to 10 days before my period) and quite a lot of hormonal acne that no skincare or supplements seem to help.
I have been on birth control before, even one specifically designed to help with acne, and it did not help with any of the issues mentioned before, not even the acne (lol).
I would really appreciate if anyone could give me any sort of opinion because I would feel really stupid if I started trying to get diagnosed for some kind of hormonal imbalance only to find out I have been brainwashed by beauty standards and have a perfectly normal amount of hair. Thank you! :)
Posted Jun 6, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC