Shaving and Hair Removal

The above advertisement for a lady's "decoletté" razor from about 1915 tries to sell women on the new idea of body hair removal.

In the 19th century, evening gowns began to be fashioned that lacked sleeves entirely and were held up in place only by small spaghetti straps. The famous Portrait of Madam X shows us one such early example. However, despite the idealizations paintings and sculpture of the era might present, the act of shaving one's body hair was not immediately put into vogue. Historical pictures show that shaved armpits were not always expected on women -- even attractive and scantily clad ones -- even through the 1930s. If you've ever read the naughty literature of the era, you find that pit hair was even considered fairly titillating and sexy.

This is not to say that the whole concept of hair removal was unknown in the Edwardian era. Unibrows and female mustaches have been commonly troubling women for centuries. However, depilatories and tweezers were usually the preferred methods for dealing with these problems; shaving razors needed to undergo some modifications before they became an acceptable possibility for use on the female body (imagine trying to shave your legs with a straight razor!) Electrolysis was also newly discovered and already in use.