A
Art Mann
Guest
By Anne-Marie Tobin, The Canadian Press
Nurse practitioner Hannah Varto is a straight talker, so it's not surprising that her study of hair removal in the nether regions — of particular interest now that swimsuit season is here — is entitled Smooth Talking.
She approached a colleague because she noticed a lot more young women were going for total hair removal, and she was seeing more rashes, and a lot of herpes and genital warts among her patients.
"Should I tell them not to remove their pubic hair, should I tell them that they should do it, but they should shave and not wax, or — I just didn't know," said Varto, who works in the Child & Youth Program for Vancouver Coastal Health.
Her colleague and co-author Lenore Riddell had been wondering the same thing, but they couldn't find much in the literature.
"We don't quite get it — why are women doing this, especially if they're having outcomes of having razor burn and ingrown hairs and folliculitis? What is the motivation?" Varto said in an interview.
She is also concerned about the lack of regulation for salons and estheticians, and whether there's a potential for disease transmission if a wooden or metal stick goes into a wax pot, is wiped on a woman's genitals, and then the stick is dipped in the wax pot again.
The pair launched a questionnaire that gave them a sample size of 660 women who had ever removed some or all of their pubic hair, to find out more information about the why, the how and any possible consequences.
Read more .
Nurse practitioner Hannah Varto is a straight talker, so it's not surprising that her study of hair removal in the nether regions — of particular interest now that swimsuit season is here — is entitled Smooth Talking.
She approached a colleague because she noticed a lot more young women were going for total hair removal, and she was seeing more rashes, and a lot of herpes and genital warts among her patients.
"Should I tell them not to remove their pubic hair, should I tell them that they should do it, but they should shave and not wax, or — I just didn't know," said Varto, who works in the Child & Youth Program for Vancouver Coastal Health.
Her colleague and co-author Lenore Riddell had been wondering the same thing, but they couldn't find much in the literature.
"We don't quite get it — why are women doing this, especially if they're having outcomes of having razor burn and ingrown hairs and folliculitis? What is the motivation?" Varto said in an interview.
She is also concerned about the lack of regulation for salons and estheticians, and whether there's a potential for disease transmission if a wooden or metal stick goes into a wax pot, is wiped on a woman's genitals, and then the stick is dipped in the wax pot again.
The pair launched a questionnaire that gave them a sample size of 660 women who had ever removed some or all of their pubic hair, to find out more information about the why, the how and any possible consequences.
Read more .
