Superfluous hair. What is the reason.

• Causes of excessive hairiness.
• Jo-Jo, the dog-faced boy.
• The bearded lady.
• Excessive growth of hair on the body.
• On eyebrows.
• The arm pits.
• To remove unwanted hair.
• Electrolysis, depilatories.
• "There is no good nor bad but thinking makes it so."

Excessive hairiness, unless it develops so excessively as to become an asset to its possessor—qualifying him or her for exhibition purposes in a sideshow or circus—is a general cause of embarrassment. Just as matter out of place becomes "dirt," so hair out of place becomes a nuisance.

This is particularly true in the case of women who develop long hair upon the chin and face, or on whom a well-defined moustache makes its appearance.

Of course, as women grow old, especially after they have passed the menopause, straggling hairs are not at all unusual. These do not generally cause much annoyance, as they are accepted as evidences of increasing years.

When girls and young women develop a beard, however, the case is different. That they take the matter very seriously is indicated by the fact that seventy-five per cent of all the women who apply for relief from facial hair are between twenty and thirty years old.

The facial hair generally begins to develop noticeably from the sixteenth to the twenty-second year, although occasionally it develops at puberty, and still less frequently may even be developed in early childhood.

The attempt to get rid of the hairs by the use of tweezers only makes a bad matter worse. For extracting the hair from the follicle, without extracting the bulb of nutrition, it would seem, only causes the hair to grow faster, and also coarser and darker in color—thereby making it more noticeable.

The use of depilatories, especially the salts of barium, has been advocated, but the results of this treatment are not very satisfactory. These depilatories have a passing effect, but some of them tend to leave bad scars. So, as a final refuge, the razor is used. And this perhaps is the safest and best of all methods of removing superfluous hair.

What causes excessive growth

While heat and moisture will apparently stimulate hair growth, just as they stimulate plant growth, yet the factors that enter into the development of excessive facial hair are probably atavistic. In other words, it is a "throw back" tendency, and for some inscrutable reason Nature brings forth a condition simulating that which existed in her first attempts to transform a hairy animal into a comparatively hairless man. For the same reason that she forgets to close up the gills which the human embryo inherits from its aquatic ancestors—and which results in that form of abnormality known as "cleft palate"--so does she also neglect to change the hair-development tendency of the foetus into the "human twist," which obliterates all but the soft lanuga hairs. Remember that the foetus is completely covered with hair of some length and coarseness, and that normally the change in type takes place at about the sixth month, so that the primitive hair of most of the body is replaced with this lanuga hair.

When, for some unknown reason, the primitive hair tendency remains, we have such examples as the Kostromo family, the junior member of which will be remembered as Jo-Jo, the dog-faced boy, the bearded lady, and scores of other interesting "throw backs." Esau was one of these individuals, and to make his predicament worse, his hair was red.

The bearded lady, by the way, was frequently accused of being a man, until the genial Phineas T. Barnum put a quietus upon these reports by having the case examined by a committee of doctors. The lady herself went even further into the matter sometime afterwards, when she gave birth to a child. And the really interesting thing to note in this connection is that the bearded lady's child was covered with hair as was Esau.

In a mild way heavy-hairiness is exceedingly common. Hardly an individual but can recall some acquaintance who is afflicted with a thick mat of hair upon the breast, or under the armpits, or who has an extraordinary tendency towards rapid hair growth on the face.

The huge bushy eyebrows which some people acquire, particularly after passing middle age, or the luxuriant eyebrows that interlock at the bridge of the nose, are also slight evidences of this atavistic tendency.

How to remove superfluous hair

While I do not pretend to say that there may not be some depilatories that are relatively harmless, yet, at the same time, I am convinced that the least harmful of all measures, although possibly the most painful, is the use of the electric needle. It is obvious that this can only be used in the case of women, and where the hairs are comparatively few in number.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this method is permanent because the object is to destroy the papilla. If this is destroyed by the first application of the current, there will be no recurrence of the superfluous hair. But it is not always possible to accomplish this at first. Some operators claim that there will be a return of from twenty to fifty per cent of the hairs removed. It is therefore necessary to have the face gone over two or three times, after which there will be no return. It must be remembered that this form of treatment requires infinite patience and must be persisted in for a long time, or until all the hair papillae that produce the undesirable hairs have been removed.

In the hands of an expert, and with the use of a fine needle, no scars will form, or they will be very slight, hardly noticeable to the naked eye. The caution must be emphasized that one should be certain that thee operator is competent and reputable.

Pumice stone as a depilatory

Many men and women obtain excellent results from the use of a pumice stone, the same bath-stone that is usually used for the removal of callouses. Where the hair grows profusely on the arms or on the lower limbs, as is frequently the case with girls and women who bathe much in the salt water, it can usually be quite effectively removed by thoroughly soaking the arms or the limbs, while the hair is naturally softened by the bath, and then briskly rubbing the pumice over the surfaces, until a mild degree of irritation is produced.

For women who are addicted to the use of excessively sheer silk stockings, or for girls or young women who want to appear at their best in décolleté, the use of this pumice stone shampoo affords a very satisfactory solution of their depilatory problems. If the pumice is used long enough gradually to weaken the hair, it may sometimes discourage its growing altogether. This may take some considerable time, and a lot of patience, but I know that in many cases the result can be secured.

After all, "there is no good nor bad but thinking makes it so." Many sensitive people would go to any length to keep their hair in the place in which it should be kept, and remove it from any areas where it may be considered superfluous. Others pay little or no attention to the fact that there are more hairs sticking in their comb and brush after each use of these articles than there are sticking out of the domes of their heads. Probably it's all a matter of taste—as the old lady said when she kissed the cow.

But, as long as our present standards of beauty exist—and they have been pretty well standardized—the vast majority of individuals will always pay homage to the wealth of glittering gold, the cascades of inky silks, or the soft tumble of chestnut that lends to woman her chiefest beauty.

So as long as beauty commands homage, men and women, through better health and more scrupulous attention to hygienic cleanliness and care, will seek to preserve this beauty. And this is as it should be.