A woman who refuses to shave her stubble is embracing life as a bearded lady despite years of abuse from strangers.
Klyde Warren, 27, from Nebraska, says she refuses to let cruel comments from strangers – who have branded her ‘gross’ – stop her from loving her fulsome facial hair, which she insists is her favorite feature.
The freelance writer is taunted on dating apps because of her beard, but she remains determined to find a partner who loves her facial hair as much as she does.
The cause of Klyde’s excess facial hair is a mystery and despite it affecting her love life, she said she’s learned to love her natural body, and so negativity from other people doesn’t affect her.
Klyde said: ‘I get a lot of stares and people on Tinder will go out of their way to message me and tell me I’m disgusting and gross.
Klyde Warren, 27, from Nebraska, US, said her fulsome facial hair is her favourite feature and is embracing life with the hair despite years of abuse from strangers
The freelance writer refuses to let cruel comments from strangers knock her confidence as she said she gets a lot of stares from people on Tinder go out of their way to message her and tell her she is ‘disgusting and gross’
‘It does bother me at the time but I’m quite confident. Nobody likes getting comments like that.
‘Some people I date embrace it too much and just see it as my defining feature, but my last boyfriend was really supportive and loved my beard in a healthy way.’
Klyde first started noticing thick facial hair aged 15 and immediately decided to let nature take its course by ditching the razor.
She said her beard is easy to groom and just needs an occasional trim and to be washed once a day.
She said she is taunted on dating apps for her hair but is determined to find a partner who loves her hair as much as she does, after her last boyfriend was really supportive and loved Klyde’s facial hair ‘in a healthy way’
The reason for Klyde’s excess facial hair is a mystery and despite it affecting her love life, she said she’s learned to love her natural body so negativity from other people doesn’t affect her
Klyde first started noticing thick facial hair aged 15 and immediately decided to let nature take its course by ditching the razor and said that she ‘just works on her confidence, it’s ok to be a little different’
Klyde said: ‘It started in school and I had a thicker mustache than normal. I just decided to embrace it straight away.
‘My mother had something to say about it. She didn’t like it at all and told me to get it under control but I didn’t care. I refused to shave it.
‘I just work on my confidence, it’s OK to be a little different.
‘A lot of people are self-conscious but you’ve got to learn to be comfortable in your own skin which can be really hard.
‘The universe wanted it to be this way so I’m going to trust it.’
Hirsutism is a condition which causes women to have thick, dark hair which grows on their face, neck, chest, tummy, lower back, buttocks or thighs.
It is often caused by a change in hormone levels and an increase in hormones called androgens, your body being more sensitive to them or both.
The most common cause is polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which caused the condition for Alma Torres, 27, who lives in the Bronx, New York.
She developed polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) at the age of 15, causing her to grow excess facial hair.
But after eight years of shaving, waxing and bleaching, she decided to grow a full beard.
Speaking in August last year, Alma ditched her razors four years ago to embrace her natural beard – and she’s now using her story to inspire others.
While still a teenager, Alma found herself growing dark facial hair and shaved for the first time aged 16 after receiving negative comments from pupils in her class.
But she celebrated her four-year ‘beard-iversary’ last year, the anniversary of the day she began to let it grow naturally.
She says now she has learnt to love her natural body, so negativity from other people does not affect her.
College student Caiopa Jade Marja, 23, from Farmville, Virginia, was cruelly bullied for the thick, dark hair that grew on her body on her face.
She spent her school days feeling insecure after being relentlessly bullied by her peers for being ‘too hairy’ to the point that she would sneak in a razor every day to shave her face and arms.
It wasn’t until 2016, when she was 19 years old, that she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition that affects how a woman’s ovaries work.
Klyde said that when her facial hair started growing her mother told her to ‘get it under control’, but she didn’t care and refused to save it, saying: ‘The universe wanted it to be this way so I’m going to trust it’
‘I have PCOS, which means a higher testosterone count in my body as a woman. I got bullied quite a bit for being “too hairy” and having facial hair,’ Caiopa said.
The three main features of PCOS are irregular periods, excess androgen, and high levels of ‘male’ hormones in the body and polycystic ovaries, where the ovaries become enlarged.
Caiopa recalled using hair removers on her arms and sneaking a razor into school to shave her face, saying: ‘It was kind of horrifying to think about now.’
In June 2019, she began discovering many social media pages owned by other hairy or ‘bearded’ women, which was a big thing for her as she didn’t know there was a whole community of women like her.
After eight years of regularly shaving, she decided to ditch the razors in December of 2019 and hasn’t looked back since.