letter from the editor: october '04.(hair)

Hair Force

At a recent session, Lidia, my lightning-fast waxer, painted and ripped in the standard places as she rattled off the current trends in hair removal. "Arm hair -- the entire forearms. And toes, and abs. My clients all want to be hairless," she said. Women are emerging from salons as smooth as babies -- or Barbies. Last summer, at an over-the-top Hamptons party, waxers were hired to depilate the hunky male waiters, who wore a uniform of khakis and unbuttoned white shirts. The waiters I spoke to told me they were a little surprised when they were asked to surrender their chest hair, but they cheerfully obliged. They ended up looking as sleek and as boyish as Olympic swimmers. In women, the hairless ideal contrasts with total excess on the head. Real hair is too paltry; only extensions will do and only in shades of bright lemon and platinum. To make that pale hair even more striking, the extension-wearers tend to bathe in lavish amounts of self-tanner until their skin has the lacquered finish of a Peking duck. Then they baste their lips with a thick coat of gloss. This aesthetic -- smooth, bronzed skin, long blonde hair -- originated in the natural look of the late 1960s. The goal was to project innocence and optimism, like a California surfer girl from a Beach Boys song. But that image has been ...