What do you think about hair removal?

Most of us find it difficult to discuss anything related to our ever-changing bodies, and body hair is no different. Having a discussion about body hair can be like stepping through a minefield. Some may get embarrassed, some embrace it. Looking at a few countries our members are from, body hair removal unexpectedly appears to be a less divisive issue one way or another. To be more precise, let’s look deeper into body hair removal to see the different perspectives on body hair in countries and how they advertise their products!

　In Vietnam, since shaving is not established as a social norm, we do not have a domestic hair removal product but use imported products instead. Even though there are also other methods such as using the ascent of electrolysis, pulsed light and more advanced laser technology, hairless bodies is still an uncommon ideal except among people of Generation Y and Generation Z. Besides, there are some misconceptions regarding what 'shaving body hair' actually is. People tend to refer to ‘pubic hair’ when hearing the term 'body hair shaving'.

In Indonesia, a lot of women have certainly heard their parents or their peers say the words: “Why won’t you shave your body hair?”. It’s more than a matter of hygiene for them: how people perceive you can change based on if you decide to shave or not. Young girls often feel ashamed and feel obligated to shave their armpits and/or legs because of it.

The advertisements for shaving products are subconsciously making people believe that shaving their body hair can give them more confidence in life, and have a more positive outlook. Furthermore, waxing them off is also becoming a popular practice, with various wax salons popping up in different cities.

As many young girls and women feel ashamed of their body hair, many ads lean into showing ways they can overcome that shame. However, Indonesians who don’t shave their body hair don’t face as big of a social stigma as people in countries like Japan do. Because of that, body hair shaving products aren’t sold widely in every drugstore, and only a few brands fill the market.

In Japan, body hair removal product advertisements can be found here and there, and its marketing and messages conveyed greatly vary depending on the location.

One of the most accessible mainstream ads are video ads on YouTube. It is easy to find youtube ads about girls deciding to get rid of their body hair after being cruelly rejected by her boyfriend on their date, or about a plain girl who only gets confessed after shaving her body hair. Some catchy lines can be easily picked up, such as "all the pretty girls have hair removal" or "unwanted hair is embarrassing".

Another well-known advertising method is transit advertising in which they display posters on trains, platforms, and ticket gates in stations. These advertisements, especially laser hair removal advertisements, are mostly seen in Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Harajuku, where young people regularly go to. Surprisingly, in some ways this marketing method conveys messages about women’s empowerment. Besides indicating the interrelation between absolute beauty and the necessity of abandoning body hair, this transit advertising method also emphasizes hygiene without using any direct expressions.

Moreover, ads of hair removal products for men are becoming more popular as well. Similar to women, men themself also have different attitudes toward body hair among different generations.

What do you think about this? This time, we focused on only three Asian countries, but even within the same region of Asia, there are so many differences in the image and behavior of body hair. There might be new ways of thinking about it that you hadn't thought of before. In this article, we have focused on the differences between countries from a more general perspective, but the attitudes toward body hair also vary from generation to generation.

In this series, we have discussed it as one of the standards of beauty, but if countries, regions, and generations change, it may not be a standard of beauty anymore.

Q. Can you choose by yourselves whether we should shave your body hair or not?