lthough hair on men’s bodies is traditionally seen as a manly trait, models, actors, and weightlifters are increasingly turning to the oucherama of body waxing, for smooth chests. Many men secretly visit beauty parlours to have their backs and shoulders waxed. And we thought it was only women who were told to go through pain to be unnaturally smooth! Most advertising and propaganda on the curly subject, however, is still directed at the gals. Magazines regularly warble on about that perennial hot weather problem: the abominable bikini line. Perhaps it’s time to face the fact that manufacturers are not producing enough swimsuits with low-cut legs that women want to wear.

Anyway, do you think articles on hair removal have anything to do with the accompanying ads? What about the ‘promotions’, in which what is basically an ad for hair-removal products is presented like a typical story with the magazine’s layout and design style and a file photograph of a model with shorn legs? Let’s get this straight. Magazines are unlikely to run a whole page of stuff on hair removal unless somebody is directly or indirectly paying for it.

I had my legs waxed for the first time as research for this project. Here are the results: it hurt like hell; my legs felt bald, startled and affronted; it cost too much and would ‘have’ to be done again in a few weeks (oh no, it wouldn’t); plus it made my legs itch like crazy for several weeks afterwards.

Every ‘expert’ and doctor will tell you that hair does not grow back thicker and darker after it has been shaved, waxed or plucked but women say differently. Many people who fall into shaving away and rigorously plucking out most of their eyebrows, including models, have found that their eyebrows never grow back, or never the same way.

Eyebrows are essential to the look of the face, which is why drawn-on false ones and plucked-practically-to-oblivion ones look so strange. They change the whole shape of the face and can give you a permanently quizzical, puzzled and witless expression. If you are determined to change your eyebrows, please don’t shave them, not even once just a little bit. Plucking underneath is much less stressful than on the top of the brow. Whether you wax or pluck, it is going to hurt.

There are many ways women remove natural hair. There is shaving, which doesn’t last long; waxing, which hurts; depilatory creams (virulent chemicals that dissolve the hair: spooky); electrolysis (in which a needle is poked into each hair follicle at the root of the hair and electrocutes the hair, which falls out and mostly does not grow back) which can leave permanent scarring if not done correctly and can also hurt and is meant to be permanent but sometimes has to be repeated several times on the same follicle; and plucking, which also hurts. Despite advertising claims, laser hair removal is not cheap, nor is it always permanent.

Drugs to make you less hairy can have truly horrifying side effects and, in fact, are very, very rarely needed. Unless you have a history of abnormal menstruation or other symptoms of a hormonal disorder, the amount of hair you have is probably just your natural amount and nothing to do with a medical problem.

Whatever the fashion among your friends, hair removal is not compulsory.

PS: Try not to laugh if the person waxing your legs describes herself as an aesthetician.