Like so many other key learnings, my early references for pubic hair came from Sex and the City (SATC). I remember watching an episode in season three where Carrie gets a Brazillian wax while in LA from a famous beautician. She ends up leaving the appointment, mortified at the idea that everything was gone, leaving her “completely bald”.
Later on, in the first SATC movie, there’s another scene where Samantha shuns Miranda for having pubic hair visibly poking out of her bathers. “How do you even cross your legs?” she asks. To my teen self, this was an interesting dichotomy: you needed to wax, but you couldn’t wax everything.
Want to snoop inside the beauty regimes of other creatives? Head here.
Granted, each scene was set years apart – but perhaps that simply highlights the ever-changing attitudes and beauty standards surrounding women’s pubic hair. Since I’ve entered adulthood, it’s been a tricky line to toe. The more bikinis have shrunk in size, the harder it feels to find a middle ground where I feel fully comfortable.
According to Mel Gav, the manager of five Essential Beauty salons across Victoria and Queensland, and Maria Ruggiero, the franchisee of Essential Beauty’s West Lakes salon in Adelaide, our approach to pubic hair has, in fact, repeatedly shifted over the past couple of decades. From a straightforward bikini wax to styling pubic hair into different (and interesting) shapes, they’ve seen it all.
Fashion Journal: What are the most common changes in how people are styling their public hair?
Mel: In the past 10 years, I’ve seen a preference for no hair anywhere, but I feel the tide is changing. More and more customers prefer our ‘your bikini, your way’ service, where they choose to leave hair on the top of the pubic bone area and only remove hair from the lower labia and the bum crack.
Maria: When I first started, Brazilian waxing was almost unheard of. Eventually, women started to prefer waxing in between the inner labia and around, leaving a ‘V’ in the front.
What styles used to be popular compared to what’s popular now?
Mel: When I started 30 years ago, a very full bikini [was most popular] with only the hair that stuck out of the underwear or swimwear removed. But as underwear and swimwear became smaller and smaller, so too did the demand for more hair to be removed. Bikini briefs and underwear covered a lot more years ago, and there was no need to remove so much hair.
At Essential Beauty, customers didn’t choose to get hair waxed from the pubic bone at first. They preferred us to just trim that area with scissors and [focus on] the hair on the labia. Hair in between the bum crack was never removed. In fact, there was a phase, although a very short one, where customers were asking for what was called a ‘merkin‘, which was essentially a wig for the pubic area. There was also a phase where people liked shapes – such as letters of their partner’s name – the most popular was a love heart. Glued-on diamantes were also a short fashion trend. Our motto is ‘your wax, your way’.
Maria: As time went on, the standard bikini wax turned into what is now our ‘XXX’ (where everything is removed, leaving no pubic hair).
Are people moving towards more or less hair down there?
Mel: Definitely more hair, particularly on the pubic bone area. There’s a lot of laser regret out there. Customers that got laser on the pubic bone wish that they’d only removed the hair from the labia and the outer areas that stick out of the underwear.
Where do you predict these trends going in another five years?
Mel: I think in the next five years, trends will move away from ‘no hair anywhere’ to leaving a nice, neat, trimmed triangle shape on the pubic bone, or as we like to call it, ‘a map of Tassie’. The next generation has learnt from the mistakes of their mums and realise that fashion trends change and it’s best not to laser everything off.
Maria: Thicker eyebrows have been trendy, so who knows, the bush may come back!
For more on pubic hair trends and attitudes, head here.
This article How our pubic hair has changed, according to professional waxers appeared first on Fashion Journal.
2025-04-07 11:27:00
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