Hair removal, also known as epilation or depilation, is the deliberate removal of body hair or head hair.
Hair typically grows all over the human body and can vary in thickness and length across human populations. Hair becomes more visible during and after puberty and men tend to have thicker, more visible body hair than women. Both males and females have visible body hair on the head, eyebrows, eyelashes, armpits, genital area, arms, and legs. Males and some females may also have thicker hair growth on their face, abdomen, back, buttocks, anus, areola, chest, nostrils, and ears. Hair does not generally grow on the lips, back of the ear, the underside of the hands or feet, or on certain areas of the genitalia.
Hair removal may be practiced for cultural, aesthetic, hygienic, sexual, medical, or religious reasons. Forms of hair removal have been practiced in almost all human cultures since at least the Neolithic era. The methods used to remove hair have varied in different times and regions.
The word "depilation" comes from the Latin "pilus" which means "hair".
History
For centuries, hair removal has long shaped gender roles, served to signify social status and defined notions of femininity and the ideal "body image". In early periods, the condition of being hairless was mostly done as a way to keep the body clean, using flint, seashells, beeswax and various other depilatory utensils and exfoliator substances, some highly questionable and highly caustic. Ancient Rome also associated hair removal with status: a person with smooth skin was associated with purity and superiority. Removing body hair was done by both men and women. Psilothrum or psilotrum () and Dropax () were depilatories in ancient Greece and Rome.
In Ancient Egypt, besides being a fashion statement for affluent Egyptians of all genders, hair removal served as a treatment for louse infestation, which was a prevalent issue in the region. Very often, they would replace the removed head hair with a Nubian wig, which was seen as easier to maintain and also fashionable. Ancient Egyptian priests also shaved or depilated all over daily, so as to present a "pure" body before the images of the gods.
In ancient times, one highly abrasive depilatory paste consisted of an admixture of slaked lime, water, wood-ash and yellow orpiment (arsenic trisulfide); In rural India and Iran, where this mixture is called vajibt, it is still commonly used to remove pubic hair. In other cultures, oil extracted from unripe olives (which had not reached one-third of their natural stage of ripeness) was used to remove body hair.
During the medieval period, Catholic women were expected to let their hair grow long as a display of femininity, whilst keeping the hair concealed by wearing a wimple headdress in public places. The face was the only area where hair growth was considered unsightly; 14th-century ladies would also pick off hair from their foreheads to recede the hairline and give their face a more oval form. From the mid-16th century, it is said when Queen Elizabeth I came to power, she made eyebrow removal fashionable.
By the 18th century, body hair removal was still considered a non-necessity by European and American women. But in 1760, when the first safety straight razor appeared for men to safely shave their beard and not inadvertently cut themselves, some women allegedly used this safety razor too. It was invented in Paris by the French master cutler , author of La pogonotomie, ou L'art d'apprendre à se raser soi-même (Pogonotomy, or The Art of Learning to Shave).
It was not until the late 19th century that women in Europe and America started to make hair removal a component of their personal care regime. According to Rebecca Herzig, the modern-day notion of body hair being unwomanly can be traced back to Charles Darwin's book first published in 1871 "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex". Darwin's theory of natural selection associated body hair with "primitive ancestry and an atavistic return to earlier less developed forms", writes Herzig, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at Bates College in Maine. Darwin also suggests having less body hair was an indication of being more evolved and sexually attractive. As Darwin's ideas polarized, other 19th century medical and scientific experts started to link hairiness to "sexual inversion, disease pathology, lunacy, and criminal violence". Those connotations were mostly applied to women's and not men's body hair.