PREHISTORY
The history of depilation goes back to cave days, where in prehistoric caves evidence has been found that men of that era used sharpened stones to remove hair from their faces.
ANCIENT TIMES
The ancient Egyptians had an elevated concept of aesthetics and hygiene and they depilated the whole body. The women used depilatory creams made from the blood of animals, turtles, worms or from hippopotamus fat (Eber papyrus 1500 b.c.). They used waxes that they made with sugar, water, lemon, oil and honey or sycamore (sacred tree), sap and cucumber.
The men used razors of flint, then copper and iron.
The Egyptian priests and priestesses could not enter the temples without complying with this ritual.
In Greece, the Greeks considered a depilated body to be the ideal of beauty, youth and innocence. The sculptures from this period show feminine bodies fully depilated and without pubic hair. This was practised amongst the upper social echelons.
They used candles to burn the hair, abrasive elements such as pumice stone, waxes made from animal blood, resins, ashes and minerals.
The courtesans used depilatory cream called “dropax”, a paste consisting of vinegar and earth from Cyprus.
In Rome, the Roman women also did it to look beautiful and they began to depilate their pubic hair in adolescence as it began to appear.
They used tweezers, called “volsella”, “dropax” and resin and tar-based waxes called “philotrum”.
In the public baths there were depilation rooms.
There were specialist slaves, “alipilarius” who in the brothels depilated the pubic hair of the courtesans.
In India they used copper razors and the threading technique.
Depilation of pubic hair had a special erotic significance.
It was an aphrodisiac act.
Muslims, according to the Sunnah, must depilate in order to keep their bodies clean. Muslim women depilated the pubis and armpits. They used the threading technique.
This practice extended to India, Africa and other regions under the influence of Islam.
In China, depilation was a sign of hygiene and purity.
Nuns, in order to be ordained, had to go through the tonsure ritual, and the entirety of their heads were shaved, as can be seen in the frescoes of the Mongao Caves in DunHuang, China.
The Turks consider it sinful for women to allow hair to grow on their private parts. The Public Baths had special rooms, called “hamams”, where the ladies depilated, and they still exist today.
Jewish women depilated using the threading technique.
The depilator would hold the wire in her teeth and form a triangle, holding each extreme with her thumbs; she would then pass the rolled thread over the hirsute area, pulling the hairs up by the root.
The threading technique is still practiced today and has become fashionable in the West.
THE MIDDLE AGES
Women used a paste that contained quick lime and arsenic to depilate their eyebrows.
Many European castles built between 1200 and 1600 AD had a room in which the ladies would depilate.
In the Renaissance (XV-XVIII centuries) depilation continued to be fashionable using bandages impregnated with vinegars and oils.
And they began once again to depilate some parts of the body with tweezers and razors.
Artists painted women with little or no pubic hair, as can be seen in the paintings: “The Three Graces” by Rubens and “Birth of Venus” by Boticcelli.
In the Americas, many villages practiced shaving different body parts.
The Argentinean Aborigines who depilated were the Puelches, Guenaken, Tehuelches, Araucanos and the Avipones. These latter were called “frentones” (“the foreheads”) by the Spanish because they depilated the hair from their faces right up to half way round their heads, including eyebrows and eyelashes.
They used tweezers which they made from sea shells, scissors made from bream jawbone and flints from filed shellfish valves.
XVIII CENTURY
In 1762, Jean Jacques Perret, a French barber, created the first shaving razor with a metal border upon the blade to prevent cuts to the skin.
XX CENTURY
In 1903, King Gillette invents the first shaving razor with interchangeable blades.
In 1920, the use of wax begins from a base of bees wax, resin and paraffin.
In 1931, the first electric razor is invented by Jacob Schick.
Fashion introduces short skirts, uncovered cleavages and arms, and depilation then becomes a necessity for women the world over.
Depilatory creams appear, which chemically destroy the hair, attacking the keratin and partly modifying its growth.
In 1940, the first dual head razor is invented by Remington and he causes a sensation when he announces the first electric razor designed expressly for women.
Thermolysis and electrolysis Electric Depilation become popular.
The concept of electrolysis began more than 100 years ago, with ophthalmologist Charles Michael.
“He connected a needle with electrical cable to a dry battery, he inserted it for a few minutes into an in-growing eyelash, destroying the follicle and the hair never grew back”.
In 1958, Gordon Gould whilst researching microwaves has a brilliant idea, “amplify a flash of light” called “LASER” (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation).
In 1960, Harold Maiman develops and patents the Ruby Laser, the first to be used in dermatological applications.
In 1994, Dr Anderson and Dr Grossman, with a high strength Ruby Laser, begin the era of “selective photothermolysis” and Laser Depilation.
In the last decade, Laser technology and Intense Pulsed Light have had and continue to have a vertiginous development. Today we have equipment with different applications in various medical specialties: laser depilation, angiomas, rosacea, varicose veins, skin spots, wrinkles, keratosis, verrucas, acne, vitiligo, cutaneous photo-ageing, ophthalmological surgery, etc.
Us humans are destined to lose our hair because the warming of the planet will mean that Homo Sapiens can do without this insulating layer against the cold.
This will happen in millions of years; in the meantime we will continue to depilate ourselves as we have done since the beginning of humanity.
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