A Woman’s Shaving Company Is Putting Body Hair Front and Center in Its New Campaign

Most shaving commercials for women are missing one critical element: a razor shaving a leg with actual hair—rather than bare skin. Billie, a women’s shaving brand, wants to put an end to this taboo with its campaign dubbed “Project Body Hair,” which includes a 55-second ad showing women with body hair. The company is also donating free photography of women with body hair to the photo stock site Unsplash and is crowdsourcing photos from women with body hair on the site ProjectBodyHair.com. [kickout id="5"] “The campaign is making a broader statement on how woman are portrayed in the razor category,” said Georgina Gooley, co-founder of Billie. “The intent of this campaign is to normalize that women have body hair. It’s unrealistic to see women with perfectly shaved legs." While Billie has been thinking about this idea since the company’s birth seven months ago, the actual ad was created and executed in six weeks in-house and with post-production companies Whitehouse Post and Carbon VFX. Gooley stressed the intent isn’t for Billie to tell a consumer what to do with their hair—or where it’s appropriate to shave. “We wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just your classic a woman sitting on a bathtub,” Gooley said. “The Billie razor is used to shave all parts of your body.” [kickout id="1"] She added that a central part of the campaign isn’t solely focused on shaving; it’s also about the different types of hair women have and removing the taboo around it. While Gooley isn’t aiming for the company to become the poster child for changing taboos around hair shaving or even the blue period commercials, she’d love for Billie to “lead the charge.” The ad will run online, on Billie’s social channels and through paid advertising. The company is focusing online as opposed to print or TV because that’s where the market they’re targeting “spends their time.” Billie’s demographic also played a role in influencing what body hair the ad shows. “The Billie razor is used to shave all parts of your body, and that’s what we really wanted to reflect in the film,” Gooley said. “We show all hair from top to toe—literally toe. We made a deliberate effort to make sure different parts of your bodies with hair were represented in the film.” As for the campaign’s call for women to send in their own photos of their body hair, Gooley said Billie is moderating every single submission to make sure no offensive or trolling photos are added to the library. This is Billie's second major campaign in 2018, with its first aiming to make shaving look fun and delightful. CREDITS Client — Billie Creative Director — Noemie Le Coz Art Director — Katie Minchak Director — Ashley Armitage Director of Photography — Andrew Maso Photographers — Ashley Armitage, Luca Venter Creative Directors — Marie Rönn, Tim Cairns Executive Producer — Amy Kommatas Post-Production Company— Whitehouse Post Executive Producer — Caitlin Grady Editor — Lizzy Graham Post Producer— Jessica Mann VFX/Finishing — Carbon Colorist/Head of Color Grading Carbon — Aubrey Woodiwiss Partner/EP — Frank Devlin Color assist — Bree Brackett Flame — John Price Music — Tomboy by Princess Nokia Sound Design — Wave Studios Audio Engineer — Aaron Reynolds Executive Producer — Vicky Ferraro [kickout id="2"] [kickout id="3"] [kickout id="4"]