She Came, She Saw, She Shaved

Let's pause to appreciate one of the most puzzling equations in contemporary society: smooth equals beautiful. Hair on a woman's body was once as normal and unremarkable as clouds in the sky; in fact, it wasn't that long ago.

Today, however, a stray hair is viewed as an aesthetic apostasy, and smoothness has been elevated to an almost religious virtue. How, one might wonder, did this transformation take place?

To answer that, we need to go back to the early 1900s, when the landscape of women's skin was literally altered by a clever combination of marketing power, social aspiration, and gendered persuasion. Previously the proud domain of the moustachioed gentleman, the razor unexpectedly discovered a new frontier: the female body.

Advertisers saw their golden opportunity when sleeveless dresses and shorter hemlines became popular. Through glossy pages and exquisite illustrations, they subtly conveyed to women that smoothness was not only desirable but necessary. They proposed that a woman was most beautiful when her skin was completely hairless, bare, and unblemished.

With Machiavellian genius, the campaign succeeded. In 1915, Gillette's Milady Décolleté Razor was promoted as a symbol of femininity rather than vanity. A shimmering symbol of sophistication, cleanliness, and desirability, the razor quickly evolved from a grooming tool to a badge of contemporary womanhood. Once innocent, hair was banished from the spheres of social acceptance.

However, there is a fascinating paradox hidden beneath this glossy exterior. Women must be polished to perfection, according to the same patriarchal prism that once ruled that they should remain modest and natural.

Smoothness evolved into a silent symbol of social grace and self-respect, a moral aesthetic. Being unshaven meant being rebellious, even careless, rather than just being hairy.

In an effort to regain the freedom to define beauty according to their own standards, many young women are starting to challenge this artificial norm. With its celebration of fuzz, stubble, and the unabashedly natural, social media has evolved into a mirror and a megaphone.

Perhaps choice, the ability to use the razor or to forgo it, is more beautiful than smoothness. Because beauty emerges in confidence rather than conformity when diktats and dogma are removed.

Therefore, keep in mind that the equation was created by a marketer, not by the hand of nature, the next time we associate smoothness with beauty.