![\"Merkin](\"http:\/\/pomegranatemag.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2026\/05\/Merkin-Credit-SKIMS-1024x1024.jpg\")
Rachael Gibson, is well aware of how hair can be repackaged to the masses, known as the \u2018Hair Historian\u2019 online, she says: \u201cLast year, I had a lot of conversations with people about the return of the bush and there was a lot of press about the bush being \u2018back’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was saying to all of these people when we did interviews, that the Merkin is going to be back and widely available within six months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A merkin is the technical term for a pubic wig, historically used by sex workers to cover up signs of disease, it has also been used by actors in film and TV to avoid full frontal nudity. They are made from real or synthetic hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her reasoning was not trend forecasting, it was an understanding of a generational reality, that the bush can\u2019t \u2018come back\u2019 if it\u2019s been technologically erased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She says: \u201cSo many women have had everything lasered off, and so when everyone was talking about the \u2018return of the bush\u2019, I thought, well, a lot of people cannot have a bush because you simply can\u2019t grow your hair back once it\u2019s been lasered, that\u2019s it forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the comments (of the SKIMS Instagram account), so many people were saying, \u2018why would I buy this when I can just grow my own\u2019, that is because you\u2019re all too young to have suffered through laser because even if I wanted a bush, I cannot have one because I spent several thousand having every single hair zapped off my body with a laser, and that applies to so many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my generation (as a 41-year-old), if you were a woman\u201d, she says, \u201cyou were told you have to have no body hair, that it\u2019s the only way to be an attractive human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s terrible in so many ways and performative, not just her family, but the culture that made everyone think they had to look a certain way, which is this hairless vision, to then be selling it back to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gibson explains that in art, hairlessness has long been used as a visual tool to censor the female nude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She says: \u201cIn classical art, subjects weren\u2019t generally depicted with any pubic hair and the main theory for that, is that body hair was considered too raw and real, it made the whole thing too sexual to be displayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf she has pubes, it becomes a real woman, and then we\u2019ve got a naked real woman, and that\u2019s not good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt makes the portrayal into this kind of raw, living, breathing, sexual beast, which people wanted to stay far away from in art. So they were just kind of fantastical figures, like a Barbie doll, this isn’t a real representation, this is an idealised form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gibson recalled her favourite painter of the female nude, Sylvia Sleigh, a Welsh artist, famous for her portraits that subvert stereotypes of the female nude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She says: \u201cThey feel really joyous and celebratory of the model\u2019s bodies, exactly as they are, with no pretence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlso Hairy Mary, Mary of Egypt, it\u2019s this idea of othering, she doesn\u2019t look like a normal person. Therefore we know that she is somehow different or special or to be veered or worshipped. It\u2019s such a visual signifier that this person doesn\u2019t look normal, therefore, they are someone to look at and consider differently,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We asked our online readers their opinions, from the SKIMS merkin to their own personal journeys with their bushes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarah, 29, looked back on the first and last time she shaved off all her pubic hair: \u201cI first decided to grow my pubic hair when I shaved it all off for the first time. I absolutely hated how juvenile I looked and felt with a bald pubic area and knew that wasn\u2019t the style for me from that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI shaved because it was the thing to do, the idea of having hair when I was pubescent was horrific and mortifying\u201d, she says, \u201cas this was the true PornHub launch era of the 2000s and no woman had hair down there at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maddie*, 20, says growing out their bush was because of the effort required to shave: \u201cIt was more of a lack of energy to maintain a shaved groin, as well as the fact that the few times I have shaved, there was deep discomfort with itching and ingrown hairs as the hair grew back…how does anyone feel safe putting a razor near their pussy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ocean, 20, recounted the pressure from those around her, she says: \u201cFrom the age of 13, boys and girls around me used to say it was gross or unclean to not shave, so I shaved. One day I was just like wait, why the fuck should I?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKeeping hair on my body makes me feel feminine, powerful and clean\u2026I would now feel uncomfortable without having pubic hair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daisy*, 21, says: \u201cGrowing out my leg hair felt more political to me than pubic hair, pubic hair isn\u2019t as commonly seen, and leg hair really upsets my mum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When asked about their reaction to the merkin, Dani*, 21, says: \u201cIt feels confusing when this happens, as women experience so much pressure to remove pubic hair, resulting in pain, discomfort and financial cost but after all this it can suddenly be repopularised again and sold back to us as a product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the same companies sold us hair removal products would this trend be reversed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Breanne Fahs, a Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, and published author, broke down the expectation of women’s hair removal: \u201cThere is a strong pressure for women to to be hairless\u201d, she says, \u201cin part because hair is associated with power, and hairlessness is associated with powerlessness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis has been true throughout history, as hairlessness has been seen as deference to God or as a patriarchal construct.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fahs says: \u201cRemoving pubic hair symbolically and literally mimics a pre-pubescent body, which again strips women of power and symbolises a distaste for them as adult women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fahs explains that pornography intensified this shift: \u201cThe culture of pornography in the 1980s started to increasingly move toward hairless pubic regions, which then ignited a long-lasting impact that continues today.\u201d She says: \u201cPornography often guides many of the aesthetic choices women make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Racahel Gibson explained that culture leads the shift in change, she says: \u201cEven if you\u2019re not consuming the porn yourself, the expectations of porn then steer the male gaze which would have affected what was in magazines, and then that changes what you think you need to look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s comforting in some ways to realise that everyone has always kind of felt some need to change the way they look to better represent the person they want to be, for fashion, or the myriad of reasons we do things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fahs explains that removal of pubic hair stems from societal expectations, she says: \u201cThey are primarily a result of beauty standards and patriarchal control of women\u2019s bodies. Removing body hair isn\u2019t necessary from a health perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s often expensive, sometimes painful, and often considered difficult or cumbersome. It\u2019s not great environmentally, like the use of water in the shower, razors, chemicals, and it\u2019s a chore that most people dislike\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite proclamations of liberation, Fahs says: \u201cThe expectation for hairlessness leads the vast majority of women to remove body hair despite all of this. Removing pubic hair is still strikingly common, and the trends point toward removal of pubic hair as a trend that is rising, not declining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can sense movement toward or away from bodily freedom. We can smell freedom, sense when it\u2019s closer or further away. But we never \u2018arrive\u2019 at freedom, we are never truly free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat said, we should always strive to do things and embrace things that make us feel freer and that help others to feel the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe fight for bodily autonomy and choices and power will continue long after these recent trends have blown through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike fashion, bodies don\u2019t reset each season. And unlike trends, hair doesn\u2019t need permission to exist. Declaring the bush \u2018back\u2019, ‘implies it ever left or that it belonged to culture, not people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *Individuals are using a pseudonym<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From classical art to Pornhub, from laser clinics to the SKIMS\u2019 merkin, pubic hair has been politicised, fetishised, and now, sold back to us. As trends cycle, Kiss N Tell explores why the bush was never a trend. When SKIMS released a series of thong-style merkins, named, \u2018The Ultimate Bush\u2019 in October of 2025, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,6,22],"tags":[48,50,41,49,32,31],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-body","category-pillar-3","category-culture","tag-body","tag-bush","tag-culture","tag-fashion","tag-relationships","tag-sex"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/pomegranatemag.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2026\/05\/Rachael-Gibson-Credit-Kris-Atomic-683x1024.jpeg\")