Rebecca M. Herzig

Plucked: A History of Hair Removal by Rebecca M. Herzig is a highly recommended, fascinating look at the history of hair removal in the United States.

I am so glad a Rebecca Herzig didn't listen to her detractors and that she pursued writing this compelling history of hair removal. Plucked covers the various ways people have removed unwanted body hair, with the main focuse on the U. S. In the U. S. today the deliberate removal of body hair is a widespread practice that is taken for granted, but the now seemingly conventional and commonplace act of removing body hair to obtain smooth skin is not even a century old. At the same time forced hair removal has been called torture and abuse (like for the detainees at Guantánamo) throughout history. Plucked also covers the changing social and cultural aspects of hair removal.

Plucked is well researched and well written. While it is not a complete, thorough examination of every aspect of the history of hair removal, it is short, concise and entertaining enough to appeal to a wide audience as well as those who enjoy history texts.

Contents:
Introduction: Necessary Suffering
The Hairless Indian: Savagery and Civility before the Civil War
“Chemicals of the Toilette”: From Homemade Remedies to a New Industrial Order
Bearded Women and Dog-Faced Men: Darwin’s Great Denudation
“Smooth, White, Velvety Skin”: X-Ray Salons and Social Mobility
Glandular Trouble: Sex Hormones and Deviant Hair Growth
Unshaven: “Arm-Pit Feminists” and Women’s Liberation
“Cleaning the Basement”: Labor, Pornography, and Brazilian Waxing
Magic Bullets: Laser Regulation and Elective Medicine
“The Next Frontier”: Genetic Enhancement and the End of Hair
Conclusion: We Are All Plucked
Acknowledgments, Notes, Index

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of New York University Press for review purposes.

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The history of hair removal is way more interesting than I'd expected.

Herzig starts with a poorly understood fact of early American history: the Native Americans were perceived as having less body hair than Europeans, and this (like everything back then) was used to trumpet the Christian/European superiority. Yet even then there was disagreement over whether the lesser body hair was due to a natural deficiency, or, well, to assiduous plucking.

Then we move on, as hair removal becomes a serious business for women, with creams and potions and snake oils that at worst failed to remove the undesirable hair, and at worst caused serious disfigurement. Herzig does a fine job at tracking the attitudes of different eras toward the hair, as the problem is gradually medicalized into "hirsutism" but doctors struggle to define just how much hair qualifies as a clinical problem.

Scientific answers to medical problems became all the rage, and X-ray salons were actually very popular for a time! (Yes, prolonged exposure to X-rays will make hair fall out, but no, it's really not worth getting cancer for.)

At the same time that hair removal practices are evolving, so too are the places where hair is considered "excess." It may not be that surprising to learn that underarm hair is a fairly recent such area, but legs even more so. Herzig spends a blessedly brief time on the bikini-waxing craze, but by the end of the book I felt like I really had a firm grasp on how attitudes toward different types of body hair, and the procedures that arose out of those attitudes, have changed throughout American history. There were plenty of footnotes and it seemed quite well-researched; I would say this is more a scholarly work than one might expect, but well worth a read if histories of somewhat nontraditional topics (e.g., [b:Salt: A World History|2715|Salt A World History|Mark Kurlansky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386925631s/2715.jpg|73206]) interest you. Frankly, this book would be an excellent companion to -- or a follow-up for fans of -- [b:The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York|7054123|The Poisoner's Handbook Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York|Deborah Blum|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1412311363s/7054123.jpg|7305202].… (plus d'informations)

man, we do a bunch of crazy stuff to ourselves...

This book talks about the history of hair removal and is very interesting. Points I found most interesting were how abundance or hair, or absence of hair is linked to superiority or inferiority of cultures. Throughout history amounts of hair or hair growth patterns have been linked to insanity, gender confusion and crime.

Then there are all the different methods that people have used to rid themselves of unwanted hair. Many seem so insane now, that it's hard to believe people would do that to themselves. The amount of money spent on this industry is staggering.

The book is very scientific, parts were a little hard to read, or too technical. Very interesting, but dry.… (plus d'informations)