From painful waxes to irritating shaves. Human hair removal has gone through multiple stages. In prehistoric times, sharp stones were used to cut hair, but it was the Egyptians who took this practice to another level. They made depilatory creams with the blood of animals (turtles, worms) or hippopotamus fat and the waxes were made with sugar, water, lemon, oil and honey.
The fondness for shaving reached such a point in Ancient Egypt that a person could not enter a temple if he was not well shaved with one of the usual flint, copper or iron blades. Hair removal continued to be applied among the elites of Greece and later in the Roman Empire. So common was it at that time that in Roman Britain it was applied to both men and women of all social classes.
English Heritage archaeologists unveiled a collection of tweezers used to remove underarm hair at the late May opening of the renovated museum in Wroxeter, Shropshire, a Roman city called Viriconium Cornoviorum that was once as big as Pompeii. .
They were discovered during excavations that have recently been carried out in the public baths of the site. Among the more than 400 recovered artifacts related to Roman cleansing and beauty practices, most of which have never been exhibited before, are a skin scraper (strigil), perfume bottles, jet and bone jewelry, makeup applicators and amulets to ward off evil.
“The obsession with cleanliness and public image dominated much of the daily life of the Romans,” the researchers say. They attended the community baths daily, and many had their own personal cleansing kit, which included an earpick, nail cleaner, and tweezers.
Tweezers were not only used to remove eyebrow hair, as is customary today, but were used to remove all unwanted body hair. Following the fashions in Rome, and to distinguish themselves from the “barbarians”, the British of that time preferred a clean-shaven appearance.
Often, according to archaeologists, this task was performed by slaves. “Waxing was a painful business,” they add. “The advantage of the forceps was that they are safe, simple and inexpensive, but unfortunately not painless,†explains Cameron Moffett, curator at English Heritage.
“At Wroxeter alone we have uncovered over 50 pairs of tweezers, one of the largest collections of this item in Britain, indicating that it was a very popular accessory,†says Moffet. The philosopher and politician Seneca already wrote it in a letter to a friend where he complained about the noise of the public toilets, pointing especially to the “skinny armpit waxer, whose screams are shrill.”
Although surprising, in Roman Britain the removal of body hair was common among both men and women. Particularly for sports such as wrestling, there was a social belief that men performing this exercise were required to wear only minimal clothing, requiring them to remove all visible body hair.
“It’s interesting to see how this fad has come back again after millennia, for everyone, although thankfully modern methods are a little less unbearable!†says Cameron Moffet.
Viriconium Cornoviorum was a prosperous city of the Roman Empire. The excavations have revealed monumental buildings such as the forum, the market and also the baths where the citizens bathed and socialized. The bathhouse also had a series of semi-detached houses.
In Wroxeter there were a large number of wealthy residents who lived in over a hundred terraced houses throughout the town. “Alongside these ruins that are still visible on the site today are artifacts that provide invaluable insight into the people who inhabited the city,” the researchers say.
Some of the items found, in addition to the tweezers, include figurines of deities, a Roman water pipe that would have been used in the bathhouse, nail polishers, glass bottles for perfume and bath oil, used cosmetic cases for applying eyeliner and shadows, more than 1,000 jet jewelry beads carefully strung on necklaces and amulets in the shape of phalluses and eyes to ward off evil and others related to women’s health and fertility.
