Hair’s the Thing

Who knew body hair was such a touchstone for controversy? Earlier this year, Gillette's “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” created an uproar for suggesting that guys should take a stand against bullying and sexual harassment. Instead of looking in the mirror, some men started pointing fingers and posting a lot of thumbs down on social media. Initially, the spot did its job and there was plenty of recall after the ad ran on television. 


But a couple of months later and with fiscal Q3 results in, some observers are blaming the We Believe spot for poor razor blade results. More likely, Gillette is feeling the heat from lower-cost competitors like Unilever's Dollar Shave, Harry's and many others. In an effort to carve up these relative newcomers, Gillette rolled out a host of new products in 2019—but razors with lights aren't exactly lighting up sales.


Most recently, Nike's new women's sports bra ad features Nigerian-American singer Annahstasia with her curly underarm hair on full display. According to MarketWatch, the au naturale image drew more than 173,000 likes in one day and lots of praise  for supporting the body-positive natural movement over traditional airbrushed and picture-perfect ads. Of course, the ad drew plent of negative comments from users who posted the green vomiting emoji, and writing things such as “This is DISGUSTING.” 


Nike isn't the first to use unretouched photos of women's body hair. Last fall, M.A.C. reposted a photo of a woman modeling one of the brand’s lip liners last fall, the Instagram close-up revealed several facial hairs above her lip. The brand’s UK Instagram page also shared a snap of a woman wearing M.A.C. lipstick with noticeable peach fuzz—and as one might expect, there were plenty of negative comments.


All of this makes us wonder if body hair will become a prickly issue for the global personal care industry.