Produced by | Tiger Sniff Youth Culture Group
Author | Slag County
This article was first published on the Tiger Sniff Youth Content public account "That NG" (ID: huxiu4youth). Here, we present the faces, stories and attitudes of today's young people.
"Even the hair on the buttocks is pulled out"是句粗俗的Japan俚语,被收录在《Laughable Japanese Dictionary》里。
It literally means that the buttocks have been plucked out, and it is mainly used to describe the very miserable situation of someone after being cheated or robbed of money; On X, it was also regarded by Japanese netizens as a ridicule of the Japanese government's harsh taxes.
This slang has been used that way for hundreds of years — but now it's time for the Japanese to revisit what it means.
This is because the hair removal craze has brought Japan into a hairless world.
In Japan, even 3-year-olds are targeted consumers in the hair removal industry. This situation led the Asahi Shimbun to announce in a report:
The time of underage hair removal beauty has arrived.
In a recent episode of a TV show, NHK showed the prosperity of underage hair removal in Japan from a macro perspective, which is really worse than the recent fall of the yen.
According to a survey conducted from the beginning of 2016 to the end of 2023, the number of hair removal among elementary and junior high school students in Japan has increased by 810% in seven years, and nearly 6 in 10 Japanese parents surveyed said they have heard of their children's requests for hair removal.
At the beginning of 2024, the data obtained by Rize, a Japanese hair removal agency, after surveying 580 families across the country, also showed a surge in hair removal intentions among minors in Japan
Image source: 愛媛新闻@医療法人社団風林会リゼクリニック
Willingness to bring wealth, and the hair removal fever wave of minors has made the hair removal industry discover a new continent of nuggets. According to Japanese media reports, a nationally renowned hair removal agency has increased the number of underage hair removal by 55 times in the past 10 years.
As more and more institutions get involved in the underage hair removal business, the price war begins to roll up, and it is very extreme: pay attention to the experience of hair removal with one coin.
The first shot was fired by épiler, a hair removal company owned by Esthetic TBC. Around 2020, it advertised underage hair removal on Japanese trains, advertising a hair removal experience for children over 7 years old for 490 yen, with 2 parts to choose from.
And now, the most exaggerated brand I have seen is the chain hair removal brand ジェイエステティック, which really brings down the price of hair removal for Japanese minors, and you can choose any 5 parts to experience hair removal for 330 yen.
Épiler advertisement on the tram
Some people compare the price, and some people compare the guts.
Not only is the underage hair removal industry booming, but bold Japanese businessmen have also opened baby hair removal businesses, such as Dione, which has launched a hair removal experience for children over 3 years old.
As soon as the advertisement appeared, the Japanese were completely confused, what kind of hair can a 3-year-old have except for hair?
In order to dispel parents' concerns about the possible harm caused by hair removal to their children's bodies, various companies have begun to work every day: it is necessary to open a store with a special hair removal device for children that claims to be low-power and harmless, and it is necessary to wipe a placenta-rich skin gel before taking off.
Although some experts believe that hair removal in children too early can cause more damage to the skin and hair follicles than in adults, this call does not stop the younger age of hair removal in Japan.
In the face of this situation, more and more people began to wonder: what is the whole thing, why do you let children remove their hair so early?
A Japanese netizen was unhappy with the status quo and described the current situation of minors frantically removing hair as the end of the world
The hair removal craze is accompanied by hair removal troubles and disputes
In 2023, the National Center for Consumer Affairs of Japan received a report from teenagers (10 refers to 10-19 years old) that the most common consumer issue they asked was hair removal treatment
The reason why everyone from parents to children is crazy about hair removal early is because they are afraid of being bullied.
Just as when we were children in school, there were always people in the class who would nickname or even tease their classmates with early development of secondary sex characteristics and thick hair, Japanese children also face the same troubles and anxieties when they grow up.
According to a survey, 38% of parents who support underage hair removal said that the main reason for support is to avoid bullying their children
A keyword search on Yahoo reveals that thousands of Japanese students face hirsutism anxiety and even bullying:
"I feel disgusting about my leg hair."
"I have more hair than everyone else's, so I'm always being bullied."
"When I was in high school, I was always called a hairball, I was teased by people who took off my clothes, and I was also pointed at when I was soaking in the hot springs."
"My daughter who goes to kindergarten doesn't want to go to school anymore because the boys in the class are laughing at her, what should I do?"
...
The data released by a number of Japanese hair removal agencies also confirms the real hair anxiety of minors from the side:
Half of the underage hair removal clients are 10-12 years old, which is the period of development of secondary sexual characteristics; The most popular areas for hair removal are the hands, legs, feet, and hands, which happen to be the areas that are most often exposed during physical education classes, outdoor activities, and daily study, which are easy to attract attention and ridicule.
Sometimes, the consequence of this ridicule is that children do not go to school, that is, they refuse to go to school.
A Japanese boy is undergoing hair removal
In this state, although the hair removal agency develops the underage business, it is the trend of the world for conservative people, and the people's hearts are not ancient; But for the Japanese children and parents who live in it, it's like an omamori.
For example, a 13-year-old girl in the second grade of junior high school in Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City, was taken by her mother to have her hair removed all over her body. When asked about her mother's reasons for doing this, she explained:
"My daughter was ridiculed at school because of her hair, although the hair removal process was a little painful, but this way the spirit can be relaxed. When I was younger, I was also troubled by thick hair, and at that time, there was no hair removal mechanism, so I used tape and a knife to scrape, and this painful and bitter experience made me understand my daughter's troubles. ”
The troubles of hairy girls shown in the manga
Although the world of minors is not fully understood by adults, children's lives are ultimately influenced by the world of adults.
In fact, the hair removal pressure that is manifested in Japanese children is even more terrifying in the adult world.
Since 3,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, humans have had a culture of hair removal, but in Japan, the situation is even more radical.
Since the Heian period, there has been a culture of hair removal in Japan, and the eyebrow introduction part of women's makeup is to remove facial hair with a knife and a shell, and then apply dai powder to re-apply the eyebrows.
Japanese men were more obsessed with hair removal than women, and the male pop culture of the Edo period considered it a shame to wear a crotch to leak hair, which gave birth to their own VIO (private part of the lower body) hair removal trend.
When taking a bath, take two round stones as hair removal utensils and use them to smooth out the hair on the legs, armpits, lower body and anus.
In the public baths, the men did not shy away from removing their hair, because the sound of hair removal in the public baths at that time was like the croaking of frogs, so much so that they also left a dozen limericks that have been passed down to this day:
Pomegranate mouth
Frog Crying
Hair-cut stone
Hair removal stones left behind by the Edo baths
When Japan embarked on the path of militarism, hair removal culture and fashion culture declined along with it, becoming an unnecessary part of mainstream culture. It wasn't until after the war that the hair removal culture made a comeback.
When Western fashion became popular in all corners of Japan, women began to wear modern underwear in large quantities, compared to the kimono commonly worn by Japanese women before the defeat (in traditional kimonos, Japanese women used the soup character as a substitute for underwear), this new clothing made their skin uncomfortable, and felt stuffy and unhygienic, and this was the beginning of the modern hair removal trend in Japan.
Around 1960, underarm hair removal became popular among Japanese women, as it was during this period that women began to wear sleeveless dresses
Before that, though, women had seen their underarm hair as a symbol of sexiness
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Kuroki Xiang's armpit attracted the attention of Japan back then
If hair removal was just a fashion concept in the past, hair removal is more of a social requirement in Japan today.
You can get a glimpse of this from the visual symbols in the hair removal advertisement:
For newcomers to the workplace, whether or not you can remove hair means whether you can stand out from the job applicants; This is just like the career guidance class that we were warned in our senior year that both boys and girls must wear professional clothes in order to have a good life.
For male professionals, the biggest allure of hair removal in advertising is that it makes people look cleaner, smarter, and more professional.
The hair removal craze not only makes more and more people regard hair removal as one of the workplace etiquette, but also makes him a hard indicator in love.
A 2020 survey showed that more than 90% of young women said they would prefer men with sparse body hair, and 84.5% of female respondents had a positive attitude towards male hair removal.
Hair removal ads for women, on the other hand, emphasize disgust.
On the streets of Japan, female body hair aversion advertisements expressed through the words of boyfriends can be seen everywhere, and this kind of expression is like choosing a product, which can be regarded as a real objectification.
If you've seen enough ads for hair removal in Japan, you'll find that the whole of Japan is stuck in a hair removal craze, and in that sense, it's safe to say that Japan is moving into a hairless society:
Because whether you want to or not, most people who live here have to take this step - and the high-spirited statement of the hair removal agency is the most powerful proof of this.
In the face of this trend, Japanese scholars and opponents began to analyze, some attribute it to the development of the beauty industry, the painless hair removal technology, some attribute it to the development of social platforms, and even the Japanese shame culture, that is, people have weak self-awareness, lack of self-torture, and are always evaluated in the unexpected world.
In short, no one thinks that there is a problem with hair removal technology, but that a world full of singular values such as "hairless is beautiful" is the most unacceptable thing.
Because if there can only be a single right answer to the so-called fashion, if society cannot accept the space of individual choice, then beauty itself is the ugliest oppression.
Whether it's hair removal, or something else.
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