Baby Boomer reflects on obsession with body waxing

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

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

Yes, I shave my legs, but I can’t help noticing that women are too worried about their hair lately. Were we women fooled by this obsession with marketers?

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 “objectionable” and therefore needed to be removed. And it turned out that they had the perfect tool. The company now earns 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 make six million dollars a year from waxing, hair and nail treatments.

People are benefiting a lot from this obsession with removing hair. Women not only shave their legs and underarms, but suddenly it became imperative and very fashionable to shave other places as well. I mean OW! When did ripping hot wax off sensitive areas become strengthening?

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

Really ladies?

Does all this seem a little strange to the 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 1960s and 1970s, women felt free to make their own decisions about hair removal and many things to go au natural. These days, women feel embarrassed and somewhat dirty without waxing their groin. What happened?

I don’t want to sound old-fashioned, but aren’t there more important things to think about and do than obsess and spend time and money on removing body hair? In the old days (ok, now I sound ancient) people seemed more focused on spiritual and family matters. They didn’t spend all their time worrying about whether their armpits were shaved correctly. 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 while we’re discussing this, when did women become so helpless? Have you baby boomers noticed that women no longer know how to pluck their eyebrows, shave their legs, or paint their fingernails and toenails? On top of all the money spent on waxing, women spend about $1,300 a year on manicures and pedicures alone. Yes, I splurge every once in a while to get my nails done, but it’s not rocket science to apply nail polish. Wouldn’t you rather take a trip with all that money?

Us boomers didn’t go to the hair salon to “blow dry.” Instead, I deftly operated my own blow dryer like a pro and dunked ends into hot rollers without burning my fingertips to look like Farrah. If we wanted to dye our hair, we would buy 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 multicolored rainbow hair! What’s with that crazy trend?

When women aren’t busy trying to remove every strand of hair from their bodies, they cut or glue in hair extensions to look like a real housewife or one of the Kardashians. Some women become addicted to the more permanent type of extensions that leave natural hair looking like a war zone. Did I mention the pain of ripping the tape out of the more permanent type of extensions? The possibility of baldness? Do you think it is a good idea? Even Jennifer Aniston admitted that her famous locks had been thinned out due to extensions.

Okay, I must confess that in the 60’s it was popular to freeze your hair. For those of you who don’t remember, this process involved a fitted rubber top with tons of little holes. A small metal crochet hook was then used to pull 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 with or teased their hair until it looked like a bird’s nest. Women would comb their hair back until they looked like Marge Simpson, then apply enough sticky hairspray to make the hair scrunch.

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

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

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be too critical. My senior photo shows thin, arched brows that are perhaps a little overplucked. Actually, I can’t believe he walked so proudly like that, 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 baffles me. But wait a minute. Maybe your underarm hair is making a comeback. There’s an Instagram account called Lady Pit Hair that shows women who go against societal beauty norms by growing their armpit hair and dyeing it bright colors.

“Today’s beauty standards really put me off as they constantly police women’s bodies,” says Taylor Carpenter, a 23-year-old whose hot pink armpits grace the page. In addition to the problem of rebelling against the norms that society imposes on us women, she has another reason to lighten the color of her body hair: “Honestly, I really like how they look. When I see my hot pink armpits, it makes me smile.”

Granted, I like the feeling of standing against this cloud of disgust for any unkempt strand of body hair, but I’m still baffled. Is fluorescent green leg hair the next trend? Maybe I’m getting old!