Young Chinese women proudly show off their body hair in selfie contest

Young Chinese women have flocked to show off their body hair in a popular social media contest. 

The trending competition has gathered at least 190 million views after being posted to China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform under the hashtag #GirlsBodyhairCompetition# yesterday.

The organiser wants to encourage women not to worry about their body hair, especially in summer when they wear T-shirts and dresses.  

One participant, known by her screenname ‘Wan Cheng sart’, posted the above images before writing: ‘I am female. Sorry for frightening you.’ She was taking part in a body hair contest

Another candidate posted a picture of her hairy arm with a daddy longlegs. The web user wrote: ‘Mosquitoes can’t bite me. I am a girl. Does anyone have more [body hair] than me’

Female web users have competed to flaunt pictures of their hairy arms and legs, sparking tens of thousands of comments under the thread. 

The photo competition was initiated by an entertainment blogger who claims to be surprised by the responses from web users.

The organiser, known by his moniker ‘Shen Dian Tong Ji Lin’, told MailOnline he decided to organise the selfie contest after one of his female followers sent him pictures of her limbs, complaining about her body hair.

‘Considering now it’s summer in China, many girls need to wear short-sleeved or sleeveless clothing, and many of them have concerns about their body hair, therefore [I] organised this competition,’ said the blogger, who has nearly 10 million fans on Weibo.  

The top three participant attracting the most clicks with their pictures would be awarded 88 yuan (£10), 66 yuan (£7) and 55 yuan (£6) in cash.

One of the most-viewed entries shows a hairy arm with a daddy longlegs. 

The uploader, who claimed to be a woman, wrote: ‘Mosquitoes can’t bite me. I am a girl. Does anyone have more [body hair] than me?’  

One more participant (left) said it was difficult for her to wear long-sleeved clothing in summer because of her arm hair while a fifth female user (right) simply showed her legs in a selfie

Young Chinese women have flocked to show off their body hair in a popular online contest

The post has received more than 42,800 comments and 22,500 ‘likes’. 

One commentator said under the pictures: ‘My mother has always called me a wild man. After seeing the pictures from sisters (other female posters) in the comment section, I should become so confident.’

Another reader, said to be male, posted a picture of his smooth arm before writing: ‘As a boy, I feel I have lost’. 

A third reader joked: ‘That mosquito is like a bird in a forest.’

Other popular candidates included one who claimed her abundant arm hair would ‘tangle’ after each shower and another who billed her own arm as a ‘kiwifruit’ due to the hair. 

One 20-year-old woman, named Yuan Jiayu, shared a picture of her unshaven arm and her roommate’s bare arm. 

Yuan thought the contest provided women who have a lot of body hair an opportunity to express themselves and ‘to let them know “you are not the only one”‘.

‘I think whether a girl has body hair or not, what skin colour she has, if she is white enough or what clothing she wears, things as such all depend on aesthetics,’ Yuan told MailOnline.

‘I don’t care too much about shaving or what other people say about me,’ she added. 

One user, Yuan Jiayu, uploaded a picture (left) comparing her arm and her roommate’s arm while another popular participant (left) joked her arm looked like a ‘kiwi fruit’ due to the hair

This is not the first time women in China have openly showcased their body hair with pride. 

In 2015, hundreds of women took part in a selfie competition to display their armpit hair. 

The organiser of the competition, Xiao Yue, said that women did not need to be hairless to feel beautiful.

‘Women’s armpit hair is considered to be offensive, rude and ungraceful – how come it makes people so uncomfortable?’ the 26-year-old told the Shanghaiist, an English blog covering social news from China.

‘Women’s armpit hair can be adorable, interesting, humorous, sexy, serious, connotative and ever-changing,’ she said.

The armpit hair competition was won by a participants who said she was sick of her boyfriend taking her bare armpits for granted. 

The winners of the latest body hair competition are yet to be announced.