Plucked

Uncovers the history of hair removal practices and sheds light on the prolific culture of beautyFrom the clamshell razors and homemade lye depilatories used in colonial America to the diode lasers and prescription pharmaceuticals available today, Americans have used a staggering array of tools to remove hair deemed unsightly, unnatural, or excessive. This is true especially for women and girls; conservative estimates indicate that 99% of American women have tried hair removal, and at least 85% regularly remove hair from their faces, armpits, legs, and bikini lines. How and when does hair become a problem—what makes some growth “excessive”? Who or what separates the necessary from the superfluous? In Plucked, historian Rebecca Herzig addresses these questions about hair removal. She shows how, over time, dominant American beliefs about visible hair changed: where once elective hair removal was considered a “mutilation” practiced primarily by “savage” men, by the turn of the twentieth century, hair-free faces and limbs were expected for women. Visible hair growth—particularly on young, white women—came to be perceived as a sign of political extremism, sexual deviance, or mental illness. By the turn of the twenty-first century, more and more Americans were waxing, threading, shaving, or lasering themselves smooth. Herzig’s extraordinary account also reveals some of the collateral damages of the intensifying pursuit of hair-free skin. Moving beyond the experiences of particular patients or clients, Herzig describes the surprising histories of race, science, industry, and medicine behind today's hair-removing tools. Plucked is an unsettling, gripping, and original tale of the lengths to which Americans will go to remove hair.

Pluckedmoves beyond current discourse, which is limited to whether shaving and waxing indicate subjugation to social norms or freedom and the practices associated with it. This interdisciplinary study, which unites sociology, anthropology, and history, draws on books, letters, advertisements, magazines, and contemporary interviews to show that determinations of whether hair is & excessive or & peculiar are subjective and flexible, dependent on the person doing the looking, and subject to change based on political, scientific, technological, military, and economic shifts, [A] fascinating new book tracing the history of hair removal since the days when it was done with such delightful devices as clamshell razors or recipes featuring frogs' blood or cat feces, is so very timely., Few people would link the forced beard shaving of Guantanamo Bay detainees with Gwyneth 'I work a seventies vibe' Paltrow, but historian Rebecca Herzig connects the dots in her new book, Plucked., Herzig unites anthropology, sociology, history and psychology in this gripping study... Plucked is an important work, not least because it is so very readable. What's more, Herzig is angry, and anger is the first step towards social change., This is an interesting, serious, and meticulously researched contribution to American history, offering a variety of insights around key topics in the evolution of attitudes and practices relating to hair.

Rebecca M. Herzig is Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Bates College. Her previous work includes Suffering for Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America and, with Evelynn Hammonds, The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics.