Body hair removal in China
Summer will be here soon! These days the daytime temperatures are above 25ºC in Suzhou. How can that be? Just last week I was still wearing my long johns! But that’s the Yangtze delta area for you: we basically don’t have spring and autumn; the change from winter to summer and viceversa is pretty sudden.
With the arrival of warmer temperatures, we start wearing shorter clothes and show more skin. In many countries, tradition and customs dictate that women should not have hairs in certain body parts. The history of hair removal is very long; in ancient Egypt both men and women would get rid of unwanted hair (which, it seems, was ALL of it except the eyebrows). Several other cultures during different periods in history also practised hair removal. And then we get to the present day. In Spain, my home country, women are expected to have hairless legs and underarms. If wearing a swim suit, the only visible hairs are supposed to be in your head, brows and eyelashes. A bit of hair on your forearms is considered acceptable. Some women don’t agree with this and choose not to shave/wax, but they are still a minority and people who see them might judge them.
What’s the situation regarding hair removal in China?
When I first arrived to China it was the beginning of September. That year it was quite warm until the end of October and I was surprised to see that many Chinese women did not deal with their underarm and leg hairs. I heard other foreigners judging this as disgusting, but I secretly wished I could not give a crap about what people think and just stop waxing.
Until my mid twenties, dealing with my body hair was pretty much a torture. My legs always looked a mine field. After plucking them, many hairs would grow inside the skin and I had to use a needle to dig in and take them out. I often drew blood. During the summer months I would constantly check my legs while sitting on the sofa or on the beach, searching for those treacherous hairs. If my legs were a problem, you can imagine my bikini line. Better not to think about it too much. When I was 26 I couldn’t take it anymore and did the laser hair removal thingie. It was a lot of money, but it gave me peace of mind. It was the money best spent in my life.
But let’s get back to the situation in China. Once, when I was living in Beijing, my friend L. went to the supermarket to buy wax and couldn’t find it. When she asked the assistant, she replied: “Wax? What do you want wax for? It’s winter!”. We knew there were some fancy spa places catering to foreigners that offered waxing services, but they were not close to where we lived. I heard there was a small beauty parlour on the street behind our campus; someone went there for waxing and came back saying they used newspaper strips to pull the wax.
Until very recently, Chinese women didn’t really show off much skin. Think about the old dynasties; both men and women are always depicted wearing long robes. During the 60s, when the western world was raving about the mini skirt, Chinese women were wearing cotton suits with long pants. If removing our hair is something we do partly because other people might not like it, it makes sense to not do it when nobody is going to see it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t care about hairs either if I had to wear this all the time. Pic from here.
Nowadays, if you take a walk in any city or town in China during the summer, you are going to see a lot of ladies with very short skirts or pants, and I’d say more and more of them remove their body hairs, at least in the cities. I guess they are giving up to what they see on advertisements and tv! Regarding this topic, I found this interesting article written by Yuan Ren, a Chinese woman who studied in the UK. The title is very explicit: Why Chinese women like me aren’t ashamed of our body hair.
When I was at university in the UK in the late Noughties, one of the most liberating things about travelling back to my native China for the summer break was not having to worry about shaving. Nobody really cared, so I wasn’t embarrassed to let nature take its course.
In her article, Yuan Ren also notices that more Chinese women are shaving now, but they are mostly concentrated in the cities and it seems to be also an issue of social class.
Zhang Hong, 40, a cleaner, almost ridiculed the idea that she’d be preoccupied with body hair: “That’s for girls with money and influence; we’re in the cleaning business and barely get enough sleep to think about that.”
To be fair, many Chinese women don’t even have a lot of hairs so their removal needs should be minimal. But that’s not an obstacle for the industry. From Yuan Ren’s article:
Aditya Sehgal, the North Asia Regional Director for Reckitt Benckiser’s (RB), which owns Veet, said in an interview with Bloomberg in 2012 that “It’s not how much hair you have, it’s how much you think you have.” He was right. Veet’s sales picked up in 2012 and the brand became one of the fastest growing in China.
In Suzhou, I see more and more poster ads for cosmetic clinics that also offer hair removal services. Are Chinese women on the way to become as obsessed about body hair removal as we are in Spain? Time will tell. But I wish hair removal could be more a personal option than a societal pressure.
Promotion from a cosmetic clinic in Suzhou: from chimpanzee to Lolita for only 980 CNY… Seriously? Chimpanzee? But in case you are interested in the promotion, here’s their website.
Hi Marta, it is the onset of Autumn and cooler days in Australia here and I just had this discussion with someone who can speak cantonese… assumingly. I am interested in learning culture before i even attempt the language
Haha! What was the opinion of the Cantonese speaker? And are you going to learn Cantonese? :)
Here in Kuwait (well in the Gulf as a whole), body hair is not acceptable at all! And it doesn’t matter that most women are dressing very conservatively, there is still an expectation that women should be completely hairless. There are beauty parlours EVERYWHERE (some times 4 on 1 street) and laser hair removal is affordable and easily accomplished.
I read online that in some Muslim countries hair removal is basically a religious requirement. Do you know if it also applies to men, or only to women?
Women only. Islamic teachings do advocate body hair removal for women so I guess that’s why it’s so widespread here.
It applied to both Male and Female according to Islam. The armpit hair should be plugged and pubic must be shaved/cut.
hahahahaha me encantó la última imagen! el cambio de mona peluda a princesa XD
En Chile es lo mismo que en España, es raro ver una mujer que no se depile aunque los brazos parecen estar fuera de la regla porque a veces hay chicas con mucho mucho bello en los brazos (en América Latina tenemos mucho pelo) pero nada nada en las piernas, se ve un poco raro. Yo prefiero depilarme entera o al menos todo lo que se ve pero si que es un martirio… a ti te sirvió el láser? que envidia!! a mi no :( gasté tanto dinero en eso y nones…
También hice un post de esto en mi blog porque me llamó mucho la atención las chicas de China vestidas tan lindas con sus vestidos de princesas pero con la axila y piernas peludas hahaha. Pero si que deben estar cómodas así!
Yo creo que cada quien con lo suyo pero a veces cuesta dejar de sorprenderse al ver una mujer que no se depile, estamos muy condicionados por esa cultura.
Saludos Marta <3
A mí sí me fue muy bien el láser! Hace ya 5-6 años desde que me lo hice y tengo mucho menos vello que antes, y más fino. Antes siempre tenía que estar con la depiladora y las pinzas en la mano pero ahora me paso la cuchilla una vez a la semana y estoy perfecta. Y no más problemas de pelos enquistados. Para mí fue un cambio radical, jaja. Yo tenía los pelos muy negros y la piel muy blanca, me dijeron que por eso me daría bastante buen resultado.
Y síiii, recuerdo tu post jaja. En el artículo que enlacé hablan de una competición de axilas peludas que hubo hace un par de años en weibo!
This is such a great topic! In Australia, the general consensus is to shave. Growing up in Chinese Malaysian culture, there was the consensus (at least in my family and neighbourhood) that it’s better not to shave because body part like bikini area and armpits are meant to be covered – no shave, more modest :D Never shaved my legs because they are naturally not hairy. Pulling out those hairs on your legs sounds so painful!
By the way, I never knew newspaper strips were strong enough to pull wax. I’m guessing you roll up or pile up a lot of newspaper on the wax at one go :D
I have no idea how they did it! I never dared going to that place haha. In fact, before doing the laser hair removal I always took care of my hairs myself (and often made a mess, hahaha).
You are so lucky you are not hairy! I was a grizzly bear!!
Es verdad, qué obsesión con los pelos durante toda la adolescencia y más… Costumbre cultural que nos trae por puertas. Las alemanas con su bigote y pelo en el sobaquillo van tan contentas. Y una vez vi a una filipina muy guapa con las piernas más peludas que un simio. Me impresionó bastante, pero la verdad, que lo llevaba con tanta seguridad y estilo, que hasta le hacía bonito.
Vaya, yo las alemanas y filipinas que conozco si se depilan, jaja. ¿Por tu zona también se dice que las portuguesas tienen bigote? Pero cuando he ido a Portugal no he visto que tuvieran más que las españolas, jajaja.
Nunca he oído hablar del bigote de las portuguesas. Las alemanas sí tía.
Has tenido que flipar con lo de las ropitas de niño esta mañana, jajajaj… Es que las he visto, y he pensado… a ver qué amistades me quedan que aún vayan a criar… M.
No mujer, yo agradezco que te acuerdes de mí, jaja.
Fascinating — thank you for posting! And yes, the whole hairless-women thing is absolutely expected here in the States, too. Another in a long list of ways we’re expected to alter our bodies to make them ‘acceptable’!
Because we are not acceptable in our natural state? Haha! So unfair…
I saw all the pubic hair in the changing rooms of the public swimming pools :D I think shaving/waxing pubic hair shouldn’t be for society to decide but for the person her-/himself. It’s not even visible unless for the siginificant other.
A lot feminists actually do not remove their hair on their legs and armpits, and I think many get shamed for that a lot.
I think chinese people would feel well in Germany, because here, a lot of women do not remove their pubic and bikini zone hair, and only a few people give a damn about that.
German women sound very liberated! I only have one close German friend and she removes her hairs though.
Yeah, it seems like more and more women in Germany are following the hair removal trend, but you can still spot some people in the gym or at the public swimming pools who don’t give a damn about that :D
I think bikini waxes are so much the rage in the U.S. that pubic lice are becoming extinct.
I’m allergic to most waxes, so if I try, I get a rash far uglier than any hair! It’s tweezers or nothing.
Were pubic lice a problem before??? xD
I dunno. I guess it depends on who you were screwing?
But there was an entomologist that specialized in public lice and he was all stressed out that they might die out and then what would he study?
Poor man haha!
It’s such a bother and a pain to shave and wax. Maybe someday we’ll look back on this obsession and wonder why women went along with it. Maybe it will be considered in the same category as corsets and bound feet.
True, it could end up like corsets and bound feet. But it’s taking quite a lot of time, haha!
Body hair removal is such a pain. I shave, but only when I absolutely need to. As for waxing, it’s out of the question for me…I can’t do it. And the one time I dared to remove the hairs on my bikini line, I was in pain down there for almost a month! Ugh!
Hmmmm. Sorry, you’re going to hate me, but I’ve never shaved in my life. I don’t have to. My mom warned me not to do it because I think once she started to shave her armpits she had to maintain it. Plus, I just don’t have hair. People call me the hairless wonder…so this must be from the Thai side, not the Chinese side, right? But I’ve seen some hairy legs on Thai women!
Haha, I don’t hate you, but I definitely envy you!
I think it varies from person to person. In general, Chinese people have way less hairs than Spanish people. But among Chinese people, some are hairier than others! Anyway, cosmetic clinics and waxing salons don’t give a crap about your amount of hair, they just want you to believe that you need to remove what you have!
Hey, Marta! I’ve nominated you for the ‘Mystery Blogger Award’ on my blog. Feel free to reply to it if you wish!
Btw, enjoyed reading this post :D I, too, have seen Chinese women with armpit hair displayed in all their glory on the metros here. To each their own, I guess.
Thanks a lot for the nomination! I will check it as soon as I can, internet is being a bit unstable…
This made me laugh so much! Thank you!
The Spanish are definitely into hair removal. So many TV (youtube ads for me) ads for the deplicators (can’t spell it in English) and street ads for laser removal.
One the flip side, I see lots of Instagram brows too. They’re scary!
I was so relieved when coming to China actually… I completely stopped shaving my armpits, and I only shave my legs if I know my legs will show, and then some sugaring (the best way to wax) to keep the bikini line trimmed. But I do feel a lot of pressure when I go back to Sweden. Both to keep my legs super shaved (here in China, if it’s only a couple of mm I don’t care), and I am very aware of the fact that I might not want to show my arm pits.
Funny thing is that I also feel a little bit of pressure to show off some skin in Sweden. My mum even was telling me to get my clothes off so that I would tan a little, I was too pale. That also doesn’t happen in China hahaha.
I also don’t worry much if my hairs start growing a bit xD But if I’m in Spain… I feel self conscious hahaha.