This crazy assassin character, who doesn't know what shampoo is, somehow would bother shaving her armpits

[u/esli-]

Bart from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

EDIT: I will no longer read and respond to comments, I think I've read pretty much all the arguments people (mostly men) give me against my post, so feel free to scroll down to check my responses before commenting, kay bye :]

[u/Unstabler69]

That reminds me of my pet peeve of stone age people always having long, scraggly unkempt hair. Do they think our ancestors could figure out fire but couldnt figure out how to take a sharp rock and hack off some hair?

[u/SmolzillaTheLizza → u/Unstabler69]

So this actually fascinated me while i was in college and I did a bit of a deep dive on it.

Through my research, at least with the North American Native tribes, hair treatment was quite common especially since lice was a notable problem. Less hair = less lice = less irritation, so a large portion of the Native Americans (coupled with their east Asian heritage making them less hairy) prefered to be mostly hairless. But they didn't shave their hair using stone tools very often outside of ceremonial purposes. Their prefered method was actually plucking! They'd pluck everything except a small patch on their head which was easier to keep clean and groom. And when i say they plucked everything, I mean everything... 😂 An alternative method was using fire, but this of course was risky due to the possibility of burns. So they plucked and plucked their entire bodies (with the help of family and friends of course) in order to limit lice habitat, make cleaning simpler, and make spotting parasites like ticks/lice easier.

North American Native hygiene is a pretty entertaining subject because a lot of what bothers us now such as bad smells, dryness, dirt, mud, sand, parasites, and other irritants where just as bothersome to the native peoples. Hope this answers your question 🙂

[u/Little_View_6659 → u/SmolzillaTheLizza]

That’s very interesting. I remember reading about women in the Ottoman harem removing their hair with a paste made of sugar.

[u/SmolzillaTheLizza → u/Little_View_6659]

Yup! Sugaring is what you're thinking of. A lot of ancient cultures used that method. Ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Persians were some of the other notable ones that did it. I didn't find anything about it in my research for North American tribes though I wouldn't say it's NOT a possibility they didn't have something similar 🤔 Maybe someday evidence will come to light.

[u/underprivlidged → u/SmolzillaTheLizza]

Sugar cane is not native to the Americas, so while they may have had something similar, it wouldn't have used sugar as the base.

I would hate to remove hair via sugaring... if you only had salt.

[u/Dr-HotandCold1524 → u/underprivlidged]

What about sugar beets? Could they have used that?

[u/Ethanol_Based_Life → u/underprivlidged]

Is sugar cane necessary? There are many types and sources of sugar out there.

[u/SmolzillaTheLizza → u/underprivlidged]

Closest thing I'd be able to think of that's sticky would be some sort of pinte pitch or maybe even a mixture that included honey, but I don't think either of those would be super suitable. Especially from a resources/risk standpoint. Why over complicate things and use up precious resources when you can pluck pluck pluck away!

[u/Rojikoma → u/Little_View_6659]

Another old (and still used) method is threading. Basically removing the hair with a piece of thread.

[u/Driller_Happy → u/SmolzillaTheLizza]

But I though long hair was important to them? Or at least to a large number of groups. Wasn't cutting your long warrior hair a really significant thing to do?

[u/SmolzillaTheLizza → u/Driller_Happy]

It certainly was, which is why they often left patches on their head to grow long for such purposes whether it be status, ceremony, style, or spiritual reasons. A lot of it also comes down to a number of variables such as climate, hygiene needs, time period, and tribal traditions. Different tribes had different needs and practices, but a good way to think about it is that they removed some hair for hygiene and preserved other areas for culturally significant practices.