A DUBLIN salon is offering bikini waxes to girls in response to demand from mothers. Jennifer Traynor, co-owner of Urbanwax, says that “The Little Lady” menu of waxing for girls aged 11-15 came about through clients inquiring about their self-conscious daughters who were determined to be groomed like their mothers.
The menu also offers leg, underarm and arm waxing at prices lower than grown-ups pay. “When they come in to the salon, they and the mother have already decided what they want,” Traynor says.
Traynor says that some children have very dark hair on exposed parts of their bodies, including the swimsuit line. “We just remove the hair that shows. I would never do a Brazilian on an 11-year-old. You have to be at least 18,” she says.
Psychiatrist Prof Patricia Casey counters: “When was the last time you saw an 11 or 12 year old with such obvious dark hair? If that’s the case, they need to go to the doctor, not the salon.”
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Waxing young teenagers is controversial in the US, where it is known as “virgin waxing”. There, it frequently comes with the claim that removing hair in early puberty will result in the hair ceasing to grow. “Virgin hair can be waxed so successfully that growth can be permanently stopped in just two to six sessions,” claims Wanda Stawczyk, who runs Wanda’s European Skin Care in New York city. Wanda’s website claims: “Save your child a lifetime of waxing . . . and put the money in the bank for her college education instead.”
“This is deeply disturbing . . . a creepy combination of infantilisation and sexualisation,” says Prof Casey. “What mother would want to deny their children the right to become adult women? These women are trying to keep their children as children because they’re not letting them go.”
Traynor’s salon doesn’t call its service “virgin waxing”, but says that waxing is preferable to shaving for young girls because it eventually makes hair lighter and thinner, but does not eliminate it entirely.
“There is no medical basis for that belief,” says dermatologist Dr Rosemary Coleman. “Women say to me, ‘I’m waxing regularly and the hair is growing back the same,’ and I say, ‘I can’t believe you actually thought that it wouldn’t be.’” As for waxing young girls, she says: “I think it’s hideous. What sort of message is this giving to the child?”
Waxing children’s pubic hair to deprive them of normal adult bodies is violating their human rights because it is an intrusive practice that violates their bodily integrity, asserts Niamh Reilly, co-director of the Global Women’s Studies Programme at NUIG. “Waxing of a child is a potentially painful and highly invasive procedure – a harmful cultural practice. We are quick to point the finger at other cultures, but there’s a slowness to appreciate that we have our own variations of harmful cultural practice,” she believes.
Rights are not being violated in a criminal sense, she clarifies, but in a moral and ethical sense that society should be willing to discuss. “It’s about creating infantile bodies and it’s about rejecting normal adult women’s bodies, and mothers absorbing and participating in this emerging social practice without thinking about what it means – it’s very problematic on all kinds of levels.”
Clinical psychologist Rosaleen McElvaney believes that mothers who bring their 11-15 year olds for waxing are giving their daughters “a very negative message that there is something unnatural about hair”, although she suspects that many parents are actually bowing to pressure from the girls themselves. “Some parents are going overboard and not setting limits. Just because the daughters want it done, doesn’t mean that they should have it. With these young girls there’s an element of exhibitionism. Why are they so concerned about body hair?”
McElvaney does not think salons are at fault. “The morals should not be their concern. If there’s a demand, they will supply.”
Laura Fitzpatrick, a beauty therapist and waxing specialist in Dundrum, waxes upper lips and legs of 13 and 14 year-olds, but will only give Brazilians (in which all but a thin strip of public hair is removed) and Hollywoods (all removed) to girls aged 16 and over. The youngest teen she’s done a basic bikini on was 14, and she claims the girl needed it because her hair was dark and showing at the edges of her swimsuit.
She disagrees that girls are being infantilised or sexualised. “Some girls are very paranoid about hair showing . . .[waxing] is out of necessity and it’s not about growing up too fast. It’s about training girls in good grooming.”
