The Hairless Adolescent

The New York Times (9/14/07) ran an article about Nair's new hair removal product aimed at young teens: "Nair Pretty". This is what the website has to say in introduction to the product - its the "why you have to do this" sell:

"So you're at an age when the childhood fuzz is becoming thicker and coarser hair. It's time to give some serious thought to removing it. If you've never dealt with hair removal before, it's natural to feel a little bit nervous. But you'll soon see, getting smooth, silky skin with Nair® depilatories is simple – and a fun way to treat yourself right!"

According to the NYT article, the product is aimed at middle schoolers, from about age 10. Why should a 10, 11 or 12 year old be giving "serious thought" to removing body hair? Like the vast majority of women, I've done a bit of hair removal here and there in my time, so I'm not a po-faced opponent of it altogether; but why are we so keen to start encouraging our girls to focus on the way they look, and to spread chemicals over their skin in an attempt to retain the outward appearance of younger childhood, at such an early age?

I see that the Teen Health section of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation's website has an in-depth article comparing seven different ways to remove hair from your legs - http://www.pamf.org/teen/health/femalehealth/hairremoval.html. I was a bit surprised to see a hospital website covering this in such a ra-ra way. Incidentally, you consumers out there, it concludes that using the Nair products is one of the least effective ways of maintaining hairlessness. Hot wax at a salon wins. Of course, that costs more money than a tube of "Nair Pretty". Maybe this is an opportunity to encourage teens into saving their allowance... deferred gratification... and all that.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of research out there on this specific subject: if you know of a good article, let me know. In the meantime, you could try Marika Tiggeman and Sarah J. Kenyon, "The Hairless Norm: The Removal of Body Hair in Women" Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 39 (11-12) December 1998 pp. 873-885. Tiggeman and Kenyon's study looks at the hair removing practices among 129 female university students and 137 female high school students. It found that 92% of them were removing hair, and that they removed hair regardless of whether they self-identified as feminist or not. The writers conclude that hair removal is so common as to be hardly worthy of comment, but that it reflects on the stereotyping view of women's bodies as unacceptable in their natural form.

There is a thoughtful posting on this subject/Nair announcement at the Feminist Law Professor blog (see link on left). As the writer, Bridget Crawford, says, "you can be unstoppable — at any age — and have hairy legs."