On social media, reactions to Skims’s hairy thong have been mixed. “I already have one of them for free,” one user posted on Instagram. “Stop, I’m having lunch,” posted another. Many users pointed out the irony of a woman famous for having zero body hair arguing for the return of pubic hair. “Why is capitalism stealing my bush and selling it back to me?” asked one.
Female body hair has always been political, even if it has not always been intended. At the London premier of Notting Hill in 1999, Julia Roberts caused a furore after raising her arm in a red sheath dress to reveal a thick brown patch of armpit hair. At the time, it was assumed to be a bold feminist statement. Only in 2018 did the actress finally reveal that it had simply been an oversight. “I think I just hadn’t really calculated my sleeve length and the waving, and how those two things would go together and reveal personal things about me,” she said.
Whatever you think of Kardashian, while she may have first found fame on the back of a leaked sex tape, she wouldn’t have amassed a personal net worth of $1.7bn without being an astute businesswoman. Two years ago, in October 2023, she launched a range of Skims bras featuring moulded silicone teats that she marketed as a bid to “free the nipple”. That she is now urging her customers to “free the bush”, is perfectly timed.
On TikTok, evidence of a growing backlash against bald, hair-free vaginas has been mounting for some time. Over the summer, Gen Z users were employing the hashtag “full bush in a bikini” to encourage the resistance of societal pressure to be hair-free. The natural look is also part of a wider “man repeller” trend that encourages women to dress and groom themselves for “the female gaze”.
Pubic hair trends will always come and go, but while women have been grooming theirs since ancient Egyptian times in a bid to fit in with existing beauty ideals, the advent of laser hair removal has resulted in what could have been a mutable decision shifting to become a permanent one. On Reddit, there are numerous posts by women regretting their choice. “I’m 40 now, with a daughter of my own,” says one. “What message am I sending to her that I’ve chosen to be as bald down there as a baby?”
