Shaving, plucking, lasering: most people choose to remove some of their body hair. Some, however, wear it as a trademark, our columnist Dr. Yael Adler.
Times are changing: ten or fifteen years ago, magazines for female readers noted social group pressure when it came to intimate shaving – today it is cosmetic mainstream. Only a few people are still considering whether returning to the bush might not be a commitment to physical identity.
No matter how you feel about it, excessive hair growth in the wrong places can be a real problem, especially for women. With hirsutism, for example, hair grows in classic “male places”: on the face, on the chest, around the nipples, the back, the stomach and increasingly on the arms and legs. Dark-haired and Mediterranean women are somewhat more likely to experience this form of “masculinization”; in general, around three to five percent of all women are affected by it. Their male hormones are elevated; this also occurs as part of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCO), one of the most common metabolic disorders in sexually mature women.
Male hormones give women an extra dose of power and sexual energy, but in addition to increased hair growth on the body, they also lead to hair loss on the head, oily skin and acne.
(Source: Markus Höhn)
Dr. with. Yael Adler is a specialist in dermatology, venereology, phlebology and nutritional medicine (DGEM). She has been practicing in her own practice in Berlin since 2007. She has been demonstrating her talent for communicating complex medical issues in a clear and entertaining way in lectures, event moderation and the media for years. She regularly talks about prevention and therapies in her podcast “Is that still healthy?” Your books “Skin close” and “We don’t talk about it” were at number 1 on the “Spiegel” bestseller list. With her last book “Brilliantly vital! – If you know your body, you stay young longer” The passionate doctor was once again happy about this top ranking.
However, the line between the normal state and hirsutism is fluid, and the actual level of suffering often depends on the self-perception of the respective women. The famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, for example, always drew her small mustache and her closely knit eyebrows in her self-portraits, sometimes even more pronounced than they actually were. In the end, it became her trademark, which she proudly opposed to common beauty ideals.
Hair on your chin? Many women, on the other hand, use tweezers. (Source: Prostock-Studio/getty-images-bilder)
But it is not only women who suffer from true hirsutism that have bristly beard hairs sprouting on their chins. A shift in hormones and an increased sensitivity of the chin hair roots to male hormones mean that for many women over 40, tweezers are now an integral part of their handbag. Popular chin hair detectors include the rearview mirror in the car, the magnifying mirror at home or the changing room of the department store: a tragic place for women, because not only is the hated cellulite vividly illuminated here, all facial hair is also perfectly visible.
During my work in a nursing home, I saw long black or white beard hairs on many old ladies that continued to grow happily because they were obviously no longer seen and therefore not plucked. The consoling thing is that the declining eyesight does not spare the aging target group, including the old men. With such a graciously softened image, the loved one continues to be perceived as the most beautiful woman in the world, even with chin hair. If you, ladies, don’t want to rely on it, you can have the “witch hair” lasered away – but please do so in good time, before it turns gray, otherwise the laser will no longer be able to find it.
But there are also men who don’t mind a little biting of a woman’s body, or who get particularly excited about the thick fluff on their legs or in between. Where what you like is allowed, there is nothing that doesn’t exist, just like in the opposite case: Some women love a man’s heavily hairy back because it seems wild and animalistic to them, others find too much hair on a man to be an absolute turn-off. That’s why many men now have their body hair removed – depending on the region, fashion, zeitgeist and generation.
Whether man or woman, people have devised the most adventurous devices to keep excess or unwanted hair under control: scissors, twirls, small shaving lawn mowers, lasers and flashlights, electrical wires, plucking tools and cold or warm adhesives made of wax or sugar .
