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Is Shaving Hygienic?
Removing body hair has been popular, especially for women, for a long time, and removing pubic hair has increased massively in the last 15 years or so. A commonly cited reason for shaving body hair (almost always in women) is that it’s more hygienic. A survey carried out in the US in 2016 and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 83% of women surveyed performed pubic hair grooming and 59% of those women do so for hygiene reasons. A YouGov article from 2012 also provided a selection of comments on whether or not women and men should remove their body hair. Here are some of my favourites:
“I think it’s more hygienic (and in my opinion, better looking) when a lady shaves. More hair means more sweat and more sweat can lead to itching, dandruff, rashes and other personal problems if not kept in check”
“Because it promotes cleanliness and is greeted with greater attraction in the western society”
“Shaving or trimming is probably healthier and better looking though in my opinion”
“Personally I think it looks better, requires less soap to wash and more hygienic”
While I’m going to focus on women in this article, I’d like to point out that those last two comments were aimed at men, so the idea that body hair is dirty on women but not on men thankfully doesn’t prevail everywhere.
