Did women yonkerty yonks ago remove hair?

[Buddleja]

I often wonder when I'm watching a programme/film set way back (currently watching Spartacus; blood and sand) if the women really would have been as smoothy hairless as they actresses are.

Any beauty historians out there shed any light?

I'm no historian, but I think sugaring is a very ancient method of hair removal. I'm sure someone will be along soon to explain more......

The Egyptians used a few methods - pumice and sugaring

OK so they would have!!

I can stand by my 'tsk they wouldn't have had shiny white straight teeth' though can't I?

I thought the Hays Code of the 1930's was the driving force of depilation, in the US/UK at least? It may be urban myth though.

All those glamourous photos of the female stars in their slinky bias-cut dresses, any inkling of underarm hair was considered to be too suggestive of pubic hair and therefore discouraged - hence they all shaved, and the habit spread as a fashion, with ordinary women aping their film idols.

Anyone know anything about it please, am curious now.

As for the teeth - they probably had better teeth than modern society, given that the diet wouldn't have included the amount of sugar that ours now does?

No, their teeth were awful, ancient jawbones often have abscesses, some of them were fatal . Acupuncture was used to treat tooth decay thousands of years ago, etc.

They didn't have decent toothpicks, the quality of the average person's diet was pitiful so their teeth didn't grow in that well either, plus they got teeth knocked out and overcrowded (it's a myth to think that malclusion is a modern phenomena).

Ordinary people didn't remove much body hair 100 years ago, they didn't have time or money to easily do it. Women in Europe didn't cut their head hair at all for centuries (they dressed it instead, hence the origin of 'hairdresser').

And That's why the men have such hairy faces in most the old photos, shaving was a pain and they just hacked off their head hair with knives most the time.

Brilliant - now I feel justidifed at tut tutting and the perfect and hairless bodies witht the sparkling white perfect teeth.