Posted on August 17, 2007 in Uncategorized
The earliest record of men shaving their faces dates back to 20,000 years ago when archaeologists say men used sharpened rocks and shells as epilators. History also tells us that the Sumerians tweezed their hair while ancient Arabians and Egyptians used string, while others used bronze razors or beeswax, and the Romans shaved their faces. Women in the 1940s rubbed off excess hair by with abrasive mitts or discs.
Lotions and cream depilatories were also used. The earliest form of depilatories were made from resin, pitch, white vine or ivy gum extracts, ass’’s fat, she-goat’’s gall, bat’’s blood and powdered viper. In fact, the earliest depilatory was used way back in 4000-3000 B.C., and was made of a paste comprising orpiment (natural arsenic trisulphide), quicklime and starch.
The Middle East:
The ancient Egyptians believed that a clean-shaven face meant a man of status. They used depilatory creams, razors and pumice stones for a clean look and you might find it surprising to know that both men and women shaved their heads bald and wore fancy wigs. Women also beeswaxed their legs and used depilatories made of starch, arsenic and quicklime.
They also removed body hair with techniques such as body sugaring, (using a sugar-based paste with lemon and other natural ingredients) that was either rubbed or pulled off against the direction of hair growth. However, according to Mesopotamian records, these people always tweezed their brows, and this is borne out by the set of tweezers found in a tomb in Ur, capital of the Chaldeans in 3500 BC.
The process of hair removal called threading is Arabian, which is still popular today.
The Near East:
nHygiene was given a lot of importance in the Indus River Valley of Pakistan. Here, chest and pubic hair were shaved, and the chin and upper lip hair were shaved every fourth day.
Europe:
To have a bare torso has been the height of European machismo the days of the Greeks and Romans. If a young Roman shaved for the first time, he was said to have reached adulthood and his hair was offered to his favorite god as a gift. Besides, European women of the Middle Ages often carried razors and forceps as part of their toilette. But when the Roman Catholic Church gained power, English women were discouraged from using cosmetics. By the mid-15th century, the Anglo Saxons finally tweezed their eyebrows and plucked eyebrows were the height of fashion.
North America:
The Americans tweezed their moustaches, using halves of a clam shell and in 1700 AD, American women applied poultices of caustic lye to singe their hair. In 1844, powdered depilatories first entered the United States market.
South America:
Women of this country have always waxed away hair using secretions from the Coco de Mono tree.
This is how hair removal has come down the ages, and continues to fascinate us. Laser hair removal is the modern-day answer to hair removal techniques of the past
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