The Story Behind Shaving Armpit Hair

People start shaving their armpits for many reasons. Maybe for cleanliness, maybe for aesthetic reasons. But how did it start?

Via Mental Floss:

American women had no need to shave their underarms before about 1915 ““ after all, who ever saw them? Even the word “underarm” was considered scandalous, what with it being so near certain other interesting body parts. Then came the sleeveless dress. An ad in the fashion mag Harper’s Bazaar decreed that to wear it (and certainly to wear it while participating in “Modern Dancing”), women would need to first see to “the removal of objectionable hair.” They didn’t need much convincing, and by the early ’20s, hairy underarms were so last decade, at least in America.

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