Baby Boomer reflects on the obsession with body waxing

What’s the obsession these days with removing body hair? I mean, what about painting on thick brows, excruciatingly painful waxing, and obviously fake-looking hair extensions?

This baby boom must be feeling my age because I just don’t get it.

Yes, I shave my legs, but I can’t help but notice that lately women are too preoccupied with their hair. Were the women fooled by the marketers into this obsession?

According to the book Plucked: A History of Hair Removal, more than 99 percent of American women remove their body hair.

Interestingly, Gillette introduced the first women’s razor in 1915 along with the message that body hair was “unsightly” and “unsightly” and therefore needed to be removed. And it turned out that they had the perfect tool. The company now makes more than $ 9 billion a year in sales.

Brazilian bikini wax was created in Manhattan by seven Brazilian sisters in the early 1990s, who now earn $ 6 million a year from waxing, hair, and nail treatments.

People are benefiting in a big way from this obsession with hair removal. Not only do women wax their legs and armpits, but it suddenly became imperative and very fashionable to wax elsewhere as well. I mean, OUCH! When did it become empowering to remove hot wax from sensitive areas?

In fact, women spend around $ 10,000 and the equivalent of more than four months of their life to wax. Those who wax once or twice a month will spend an average of $ 23,000 over their lifetime.

Really ladies?

Does this all seem a bit strange to baby boomers who fought for the feminist revolution with the conviction that instead of obsessing over physical beauty, women should focus on their intelligence, careers, achievements, and making a difference? During the 60s and 70s, women felt free to make their own hair removal decisions and many chose to go natural. These days women feel embarrassed and somehow dirty without a bikini wax. What happened?

I don’t want to sound old-fashioned, but aren’t there more important things to think about and do than obsessing over and spending time and money on removing body hair? In the old days (well, now I sound old) people seemed more focused on spiritual and family matters. They didn’t spend all their time worrying about whether their armpits were shaved properly. And many would have donated that $ 150 for a full body wax, to remove hair that will grow back very quickly, to a good cause.

And as we talk about this, when did women become so defenseless? Have baby boomers noticed that women no longer know how to pluck their eyebrows, shave their legs, or paint their fingernails and toenails? In addition to all the money spent on waxing, women spend about $ 1,300 a year on manis and pedis alone. Yes, I splurge every now and then to do my nails, but applying nail polish isn’t rocket science. Wouldn’t you rather take a trip with all that money?

We boomers didn’t go to the salon to “dry off.” Instead, I deftly handled my own hair dryer like a pro and dug tips into hot rollers without burning my fingertips to look like Farrah. If we wanted to dye our hair, we bought a bottle of Clairol at the drugstore. We even dared to get a perm! Yes, we looked like poodles, but who cared? And give me a break At least we didn’t look like a Dr. Seuss book with rainbow multi-colored hair! What’s up with that crazy trend?

When women aren’t busy trying to remove every last strand of hair from their bodies, they are clipping or gluing hair extensions to look like a real housewife or one of the Kardashians. Some women get addicted to the more permanent type of extensions that leave natural hair like a war zone. Did I mention the pain of tearing off the tape of the more permanent type of extensions? The possibility of bald spots? Do you think it’s a good idea? Even Jennifer Aniston has admitted that her famous locks had been thinned out by extensions.

Okay, I must confess that frosty hair was popular in the 60s. For those of you who don’t remember, this process involved a tight-fitting rubber cap with tons of little holes. A small metal crochet needle was then used to pull the strands of hair through the holes, one at a time. So it was a bit torturous and the women may have lost some of their hair in the process. And we baby boomers won’t talk about the bristle rollers that women somehow slept on or teased hair until it looked like a bird’s nest. The women combed their hair back until they looked like Marge Simpson and then applied just enough sticky hairspray to make their hair crunch.

But that was different. Something like. Why don’t we change the subject?

Can we talk for a minute about those crooked brows, considered “powerful brows”? These more fashionable brows are supposed to look like works of art, but they look silly to me. Dark brow fillers create these square yet perfectly arched brows that look anything but natural. I have nothing against eyebrows, but should these two arches on your forehead deserve so much attention, cause so much work, and cost so much money? And why pluck your eyebrows if you’re just going to redraw them? I am so confused.

Okay, maybe you shouldn’t be too critical. My senior photo shows thin, arched brows that are perhaps a little plucked. Actually, I can’t believe I walked with such pride like this, but that’s beside the point. At least I proudly ripped them off by myself and it didn’t cost me a penny!

Still, this whole cultural phenomenon puzzles me. But wait a minute. Maybe the underarm hair is coming back. There is an Instagram account called Lady Pit Hair that shows women who go against social norms of beauty and grow their armpit hair and dye themselves in bright colors.

“Today’s beauty standards really bother me as they constantly monitor women’s bodies,” says Taylor Carpenter, a 23-year-old whose hot pink holes appear on the page. Besides the issue of rebelling against the norms that society imposes on women, she has another reason for lightening the color of her body hair: “Honestly, I really like the way they look. When I look at my pink armpits, I am excited to smile. “

Okay, I like the feeling of facing this cloud of disgust for any unwaxed body hair, but I’m still baffled. Is Fluorescent Green Leg Hair The Next Trend? Maybe I’m getting old!