To wax or not to wax ????

[Cheesecakecutie]

Hey ladies...Is it authentically vintage to wax your legs?? or leave them ?....I am referring to in the 40"s ....I do not shave anywhere and only do my armpits for special occasions...or a particular dress..... This is due to my belief that it is a social conditioning that is a bit over the top....All the chemicals in veet cannot be good for you....and all those razors clogging landfill sights...yuck. But i am asking as my man likes the thought of smooth hairless legs...not that mine are hairy as they have never been shaved. And if they did it in the 40's i might be swayed....What do you think ladies....?????

[KittyT]

you could be swayed only if they did it in the 40s?

i hate to be rude, but who cares if it's vintage or not? many of us may (or may not) be living a "vintage lifestyle", but we're also still living in the 21st century.

i mean, regardless, i'm sure most of us still have a cellphone inside that vintage handbag we're carrying.

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I have olive skin, dark hair, and have been shavin' forever. Maybe I'm just a product of my times but I'm ok with that.

I'm pretty sure bikini waxes aren't 40's either but there's no way I'm going to the beach without one.

[Fleur De Guerre]

Leg *shaving* began in the early 20th century, but I have no idea when waxing started. I think it probably depended on your hair type, location and age/skirt length as to if you'd do it back then! I just know that even if I had never shaved I would still have longish dark leg hair, as that is the very reason I started at age 12! I have been epilating for about 10 years though and *that* has made a difference to my growth and darkness of it, it's reduced both significantly. Also, I am filling up no landfills as I've only used 2 different epilators over those 10 years!

[KittyT]

from http://www.depilatory.com/twentieth.html. This website has a pretty comprehensive history of hair removal!

"Depilatory lotions and creams dissolve the protein structure of the hair. The birth, in 1940, of the first modern depilatory, Nair® Lotion from New York-headquartered Carter-Wallace, Inc., was the result of wartime shortages. Stockings were scarce and legs went bare. Neet®, another old-time depilatory, was imported to the United States from France."

also

" What we call warm wax or hot wax was developed in the 1980s in Australia. Actually, it is a sugar mixture, heated, applied to the skin and then removed with muslin or cotton strips which absorb the wax, allowing it to grip the hair.

The invention of the microwave oven revolutionized the warm wax treatment, improving the process by speeding it up and allowing it to stay warmer without continuous reheating. In 1990, Marzena, market leaders in Australia and New Zealand since 1994, introduced its Sugaring Wax. This product can be heated in a microwave or conventionally on a stove.

Cold wax, in either paste or gel form, is applied to the skin without heating. However, most cold waxes are messy to apply (delivery from container to skin is difficult) and thickness of application cannot be controlled. The colder the room temperature, the more difficult the application and removal; what's more, the product is not in contact with the skin long enough to be warmed to maximum effectiveness.

The wax strip system was introduced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although it involved what were called wax strips, the process was actually derived from the ancient Middle Eastern sugaring process. The modern sugaring method, incidentally, failed to take off commercially until the late 1960s and early '70s."

[jonniangel]

From "Hair Removal Through the Ages" (same website mentioned above)

"Another primitive method of hair removal, actually used by women as late as the 1940s, involved rubbing off the hair by rubbing skin with abrasive mitts or discs the consistency of fine sandpaper."

My mother, who was a young adult in the 40's, told me about this several years ago. Yeouch!

[Nina]

you can still get those now. i know one brand is called silkymitt and i have a friend who swears by it and she has really dark leg hairs.

i know hair removal dates back to at least ancient egypt, where they were quite obsessed with it.

i'd of thought that during the war when legs were bare and sometimes coloured with erm.... gravy mix i think, you would want some hair removal. gravied matt finish legs with shiny hairs? nice!

[KittyT]

From "Hair Removal Through the Ages" (same website mentioned above)

"Another primitive method of hair removal, actually used by women as late as the 1940s, involved rubbing off the hair by rubbing skin with abrasive mitts or discs the consistency of fine sandpaper."

http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/s...ProductID=5534

I've used them before and was unimpressed. One thing that is good about them though are their exfoliating properties. Note that shaving also provides some light level of exfoliation.

[LizzieMaine]

Zip Wax was around and widely advertised ("It's OFF because it's OUT!") as far back as the late 1910s, and you can still find it in most drugstores -- it's a big yellow block you melt in a double boiler and apply with a popsicle stick, and then rip off with the help of muslin strips. I have used it, and it can be quite an adventure....

Waxing gives me terrible ingrowns, though, so I stick to the razor most of the time.

[GoldLeaf]

Waxing gives me terrible ingrowns, though, so I stick to the razor most of the time.

Yeah, it does to me too. I am torn, because I like that waxing makes the hair finer and damages the folicle so it grows in less. However, the ingrowns are unpleasant and my legs look yucky from the little dots all over where I pick them out.