5 Things You Need To Know About Your Hairy Nipples

The first time I noticed a hair on my nipples I was in total denial.

"Huh," I thought to myself. "An eyelash must have fallen off." Cut to 20 minutes later and me holding the tweezers and aiming carefully while refusing to admit the truth: That was no eyelash; my nipples were sprouting hairs. 

I'm blonde and pale and not that hairy. I have never even touched my eyebrows, I don't have enough hair to play with them! Seriously, every day I fill them just to leave the house. 

Needless to say, finding out I magically had hairy nipples took a little bit of time for me to process. 

RELATED: There Are Only 8 Types Of Nipples In The World — Which Do YOU Have?

I started doing some digging on the subject (as I am a nerd) and quickly learned a couple of things: 

1. Hairy nipples are normal. 

2. Not a lot of people talk about hairy nipples. 

Seriously, if you go digging on the web for information about hairy nipples, you're more likely to wind up on a forum where some poor women are screaming into the void asking if it's normal to have three hairs on just your right boob. 

To spare you all that pain, I did a little bit more homework and found out everything essential you need to know about your hairy nipples. 

Let's do this thang! 

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1. Thirty percent of women over 30 have nipple hairs.

Yup, that's right! 

While that 30 percent is less than 50 percent that still means that have a few hairs around your nipples or even a full ring of hairs around the nipple is relatively common among women.

So if you think you're alone, I promise that you aren't. 

Unfortunately, the reason it feels that way is because having hairy nipples isn't something women talk about.

We're taught that having body hair is a bad thing or a masculine thing, when in fact that's not the case, it's just part of being, you know, A MAMMAL.
 

2. They should only grow on your areolas. 

You body is covered with hair follicles. Any place you can get a zit is a place where you can grow a hair. 

It's totally normal to find hair growing on your areolas. It is less common to find hairs growing directly out of nipples.

When that happens it usually during pregnancy and people are mistaking a swelling or clogged milk duct with a stray hair. 

So to sum up, a ring around the nipple of hair = fine. Hair creeping out the nipple = less normal, talk to your doc, could be you are knocked up.
 

3. Hormones are usually to blame for hairy nipples.

Hair growth is controlled by the androgen hormone, a hormone that is found in greater amounts in the male of the species (the hairy creeps, lol, JK, I love you, men).

However, women's bodies produce androgen too, just in lesser amounts. 

When a woman is pregnant, menstrual, going through menopause, or experiencing other hormonal shifts, growing extra hairs around your nipples is very common and all down to your changing androgen levels. 

4. Hairy nipples could indicate a problem, but usually doesn't mean that. 

Pretty much, 9.9 times out of 10, having hair around your nipples is nothing to worry about — especially if you are a naturally hairy person.

You should consider talking to a doctor if the growth is thick and extends to other areas of your body. If this happens you might be suffering from hirsutism, a disorder where androgen is overproduced leading to excessive hair growth and other symptoms. 

Growing hair out of your nipples is also a symptom of PCOS, but again, it's just one of many other symptoms. So if you're worried, talk to your doctor and have a glass of chardonnay. 

The wine won't do anything for your nipples, but it will definitely chill you out. 

RELATED: 8 Things My Boobs Would Say (If They Could Talk)

5. You CAN remove them. 

There's an old wives tale that if you remove a nipple hair it will grow back thicker and darker, and that you shouldn't get rid of them at all because they are dangerous.

This is baloney.

It is perfectly safe to remove your nipple hairs if you do it properly. You can wax (BUT OH MY GOD WHY THE PAIN OF WAXING A NIPPLE), you can tweeze, and yeah, you can even shave (PLEASE DON'T MY NIPPLES ARE CRINGING ON YOUR BEHALF), just be smart about it.

Shaving means you could get a cut, which means you could get an infection and both tweezing and waxing could lead to ingrown hairs, which are painful at best and awful when they get infected. 

Just make sure you treat your body well if you feel like banishing those hairs, and continue going about your business being damned awesome with or without hairy nipples.