The history of body hair removal: an intimate journey through women’s history
Because your body has a history, and it’s far more fascinating than the ads want you to believe.
You’re told that being “feminine” means being smooth. You’re sold pink razors, miracle creams, “permanent” hair removal. You’re made to believe that body hair is dirty, masculine, unacceptable.
But what if I told you this obsession is very, very recent?
That for thousands of years, women lived in their bodies without wondering whether their body hair made them “acceptable” or not?
Today, I’m taking you on a journey through time and civilisations. To understand where this norm comes from. To remind you that your body belongs to you, and that it has always had the right to exist as it is.
Antiquity: when hair removal was already cultural
In ancient Egypt: smooth skin as an ideal of purity
Egyptian women removed their body hair, and not just a little.
For them, hair was associated with impurity and animality. Smooth skin symbolised cleanliness, even divinity. Priestesses shaved their entire bodies, head included.
Methods used:
- Bronze or flint razors
- Depilatory pastes made of honey, sugar and oils
- Handmade tweezers
💡 Fun fact: Cleopatra herself is said to have used sugaring, the ancestor of today’s sugar wax.
In ancient Greece: hair removal as a sign of civilisation
The Greeks glorified the athletic male body… but the female body also had to follow certain codes.
What was removed:
- Pubic hair (considered more “youthful” and more aesthetic in art)
- Facial fuzz
- Sometimes underarm hair
Why? Because hair was seen as a sign of beastliness. Civilised humans set themselves apart from animals through the care they gave their bodies.
Methods:
- Pastes made of resin and beeswax
- Flame (yes, they singed the hair… ouch)
- Pumice stone to rub the skin
In Rome: between hygiene and social status
Wealthy Roman women removed their hair to show their social rank. Smooth skin = free time, money, and servants to take care of you.
Working-class women? They had other things to do.
Roman innovations:
- Strigils (curved blades to scrape the skin)
- Public baths, where people took care of themselves together
- The first professional “beauticians” (cosmetae)
💬 Juicy anecdote: Pliny the Elder recommended a mixture of bat blood and hedgehog bile to slow regrowth. Charming.
The medieval Muslim world: hair removal as a purification ritual
In medieval Islamic cultures, hair removal was not a beauty diktat: it was a spiritual practice.
Hair removal is part of the fitrah (sound nature, natural purity)
Men and women were encouraged to:
- Remove underarm hair
- Remove pubic hair
- Trim the moustache (for men)
- Cut their nails
Why? Ritual cleanliness, hygiene, preparation for prayer.
Signature method: halawa (sugaring)
A natural paste made of sugar, lemon and water, still used today in the Middle East and North Africa. Effective, gentle and 100% natural.
💡 What changes everything: It wasn’t a gendered rule. Men removed their hair too. Hair wasn’t “masculine” or “feminine”: it was simply a matter of personal hygiene.
The European Middle Ages: body hair? (Almost) nobody cared
Contrary to what you might think, medieval women did not spend their time removing hair.
Why?
The body was seen through a religious lens. The flesh came second. Body hair? Natural, so normal.
But… some still removed hair
Mostly on the face:
- The forehead (a very high forehead = a sign of nobility)
- Fuzz on the temples
- Eyebrows (sometimes shaved off completely to redraw them)
Methods:
- Tweezers
- Pastes made of quicklime, vinegar and plants
- Sometimes dangerous mixtures (arsenic, orpiment…)
⚠️ Yes, it burned. Yes, it was toxic. But the beauty ideal was worth a few sacrifices.
💬 Culture point: Public baths existed in the early Middle Ages. Women took care of themselves, but without today’s obsession with hairless skin.
The Renaissance: smooth skin becomes an art
With the Renaissance, everything changed.
Beauty became an aristocratic obsession
Pale, smooth, almost unreal skin. Body hair? Too “animal”, too “vulgar”.
What was removed:
- The forehead hairline (sometimes halfway up the head to lengthen the face)
- Eyebrows (very thin, almost invisible)
- Facial fuzz
Inspiration: Botticelli’s portraits, Elizabeth I of England (huge forehead, barely-there eyebrows).
Methods:
- Homemade recipes (plants, ashes, sometimes arsenic…)
- Handmade razors
- Abrasive powders
⚠️ Real danger: Many of these products were toxic. Some women poisoned themselves to be beautiful.
💡 But note: Body hair removal (legs, underarms, bikini line) was still not the norm. The body stayed hidden under clothes.
The following centuries: from Baroque to the 19th century
Baroque and Rococo (17th–18th centuries)
Wigs were everywhere and make-up became extreme, but the body? Still hidden under petticoats.
Hair removal remained rare, limited to the face among the upper classes.
The 19th century: hygienism and the first signs of change
With the industrial revolution, medical discourse on hygiene exploded.
People began to say that body hair “traps odours”, that it is “dirty”.
But widespread hair removal? Not yet. Women still wore long dresses and long sleeves. The body stayed invisible.
The 20th century: the birth of the modern pressure
This is where everything tipped over.
1910s–1920s: fashion changes, the body is revealed
Hemlines rose. Sleeves disappeared. Legs and underarms became visible.
And the beauty industry arrived.
In 1915, Gillette launched the first razor “for women”: the Milady Décolletée.
Adverts started hammering home:
- “Smooth underarms to be feminine”
- “Soft legs to be seductive”
- “Body hair is masculine”
💬 The message: Your natural body is not acceptable. It needs fixing.
1940s–1960s: hair removal becomes the norm
With pin-ups, Hollywood cinema and women’s magazines, the pressure grew stronger.
“Modern” women removed their hair. Those who didn’t? They were seen as unkempt, unfeminine.
The 1970s: feminist resistance
The women’s liberation movement questioned these norms.
Body hair became political.
Not removing it = taking back control of your body, rejecting patriarchal diktats.
But this resistance was quickly crushed by…
1980s–2000s: the hair removal industry explodes
Waxing, laser, permanent hair removal, creams, multi-blade razors…
The industry is worth billions.
And a new culprit appeared: mainstream pornography.
With the rise of the Internet, the hairless vulva became the visual norm. Younger generations grew up thinking that’s “how it’s supposed to be”.
Elsewhere in the world: very different relationships with body hair
In Asia (Japan, Korea, China)
Historically, body hair is genetically less dense.
Hair removal was never a major obsession, until recent Western influence.
Today, influenced by K-beauty and J-beauty, hair removal is becoming more common, but it remains less systematic than in the West.
In Africa
Practices vary enormously from culture to culture.
In some regions, removing pubic hair is part of the rites of passage into adulthood.
In others, body hair is perfectly accepted.
In India
Threading is a centuries-old tradition, especially for the face.
But here too, widespread body hair removal is a recent influence.
What to remember (and never forget)
✨ The modern obsession with hair removal is a recent construct
It mainly took off in the 20th century, driven by industry, fashion, advertising and pornography.
✨ Before, body hair was… normal
Sometimes removed for aesthetic, religious or medical reasons. Never compulsory. Never a condition of your femininity.
✨ Women lived in their bodies, not against them
They didn’t wonder whether they were “acceptable” with body hair.
They existed. Full stop.
Today: reclaim your body
You remove your hair? Perfect. You don’t? Perfect too. You do both depending on your mood? Still perfect.
What matters is that it’s YOUR choice.
Not your partner’s, your mother’s, the ads’, Instagram’s or the beauty industry’s.
Your body belongs to you. It has a history. It has the right to exist exactly as it is.
And you, how do you feel about hair removal? A chore, a pleasure, a choice? Tell me in the comments 💬✨
Whether you choose to remove your hair or not, your intimate skin deserves gentleness. At Secrets de Geishaa, we have created care designed for it, such as our organic aloe vera intimate cleansing gel, gentle on the intimate area, and our intimate musks, simply to help you feel good.
FAQ: your questions about hair removal and body hair
Since when have women removed their body hair?
Female hair removal dates back to Antiquity. Egyptian women were already removing hair more than 4,000 years ago with pastes made of honey and sugar. Greek and Roman women also removed hair. However, the pressure to remove hair from the whole body (legs, underarms, bikini line) is very recent: it dates from the early 20th century, with the first women’s razors in 1915.
Why did hair removal become “compulsory” for women?
Body hair removal became a social norm in the 20th century for several reasons: changing fashion (short dresses, short sleeves), a beauty industry that created a market, women’s magazines, Hollywood cinema, then mainstream pornography, which imposed the hairless vulva as the visual standard. It’s a marketing and social construct, not a natural necessity.
How did women remove hair in Antiquity?
In Antiquity, women used several methods: bronze or flint razors, depilatory pastes made of honey, sugar and oils (the ancestor of sugaring), tweezers, beeswax mixed with resin, and even flame. Pumice stone was also used to rub the skin.
What is halawa (sugaring)?
Halawa is a traditional hair removal method from the Middle East and North Africa. It’s a natural paste made of sugar, lemon and water, heated and then applied to the skin. This ancient technique, also called “sugaring”, is known to be gentler than wax and 100% natural.
Is hair removal part of Islamic practices?
In the Islamic tradition, removing underarm and pubic hair is part of the “fitrah”, the recommended practices of natural hygiene. It applies to both men and women and is about ritual cleanliness, not a gendered beauty diktat.
Is it normal not to want to remove my body hair?
Absolutely. The pressure to remove body hair is a recent social construct, not a natural or medical obligation. For thousands of years, women lived with their body hair without it being a problem. Today, the choice to remove it or not is entirely yours: your body, your decision.
