Hate waxing? Good news!
Vogue magazine has announced that pubes are officially in.
In a piece under the headline “The Full Bush Is the New Brazilian! Reasons to Give Up Waxing for Good”, Vogue this month explains why exactly we can finally put the razor away.
The “natural look” has been making a comeback since 2013, the article tells us, before peddling some mixed messages about going “full bush”.
Vogue asks “How natural, though, is too natural?”and refers, through a contributor, to the removal of body hair as a “cleanup”.
The last time we checked, a “full bush” is about as natural as it gets. Plus, if you’re a human being who showers at least semi-regularly, there’s nothing unclean about pubes.
But that’s beside the point – the full bush is worthy of celebration, Vogue reckons, but it might be a bit much and also kind of unhygienic.
Nonetheless, we’re told in the piece, “society’s image of beauty seems to be making a collective leap” when it comes to body hair.
Ugh.
Vogue saying that “society’s image of beauty seems to be making a collective leap” is Vogue absolving itself of any responsibility for society’s image of beauty.
The magazine, like pretty much all big female-targeted publications, has promoted a very singular beauty aesthetic since forever.
To have it turn around and give us ‘permission’ to have pubic hair is eyeroll-inducing – and also pretty ignorant.
Their influence might be on the wane in the digital media age but fashion magazines have to shoulder a serious portion of the blame for how we’ve come to look at women’s bodies and what we deem ‘acceptable’.
The article’s saving grace is a quote from feminist writer and actress Tavi Gevinson.
“I don’t really have a take (on pubic hair), beyond whether or not I make the choice for myself,” she tells the magazine.
“I’m not interested in dictating what other women do with their bodies and appearances.”
Maybe there’s something that Vogue could take from that.
Main image: An American Apparel window display in New York featuring mannequins with pubic hair.
