Why do women shave their legs?

[DALederle]

I was just perusing the posts on wether or not MIS_MIK shave their legs. Basically it becomes some do, some don't and some don't care.
But does anyone know why and when women began shaving their legs.
It is a subject like so many things today. People forget that there was a time, not too long ago, when that wouldn't even have been thought of. Shaving legs and anything else on your body came about because of two inventions.
First was the safety razor and the blades that can be replenished that went into them. I believe it was Gillette that invented that.
The second invention was the motion pictures. Cinema!
That's right, the motion picture!
It was the early starlets in motion pictures, when shooting scenes bare legged or in sheer hose who found out that their leg hair appeared as smudges in the films. You see, they filmed in bright sunlight only back then, 1910 to 1920. And bright sunlight cast shadows on their legs caused by the hair. Even blonde hair caused the shadows.
So the early days of film forced the starlets to begin shaving their legs.
Then the early movie fan magazines found out and reported that the starlets shaved their legs and it became, of course, all the rage for women to do that.
There are old stories, well okay, erotic stories, I have read that waxed on about the beauty of a woman's body hair and her leg hair as well.
So the modern concept began with the female movie stars needing to shave their legs and now most people things it's always been that way.
The sight of leg hair under nylons only bothers people because it's what they are used now.
It didn't bother people before and we could get used to it again.
It the same problem we have with men wearing skirts.
We are no longer used to seeing that, except in sexual terms, and that makes it hard for men to just wear a skirt or kilt at times. The same sort of cause and effect.
Dennis A. Lederle

[Kris]

Here's an interesting article on the subject:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... -underarms

There is a long discussion here:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ulti ... 001144;p=0
I think the most relevant post in that discussion is this one:

Winter Morning said:

posted 03 September, 2006 05:28 PM

Originally posted by Ana Ng:
I've always heard (source: my ass) that women began shaving their legs when nylon was needed for parachutes in WWII. They went without and began shaving. The practice stuck. Or so I've heard.

My mother was in her 20s during the 1940s. She told me that she started shaving her legs then because due to the lack of nylons during the war, she wore leg makeup (including a line drawn up the back of her leg to imitate the seams in stockings) and the makeup wouldn't stick to leg hair.

ETA: Links about leg makeup and how it related to shaving. Forties.net (note: Jazz music plays) , History of Beauty and Hygeine products by Ad*Sense , Safety Razor and Shaving Collectables FAQ , How to shave your legs, armpits, and bikini area correctly.

My mother was actually opposed to me starting to shave my legs when I was a teenager in the 1970s. She said that "Once you start, you never can stop."

Morning

My mother, who was in that same age group, also told about wearing leg makeup and even drawing a "seam" on the back of her legs! Although i never recall her mentioning that as a reason for shaving her legs, it seems plausible.

Kris

[DALederle]

The concept of women shaving their legs because of movie stars doing came from both my mother and her sister. Mom and Aunt Margie were sitting around coffe klatching one morning and lamenting about shaving their legs. Being a young boy who didn't know any better I asked them why theu did it.
That when they told me about how they didn't used to shave their legs but that in the 1920s so many women had begun to follow the starlet look that the rest of them ended doing it too.
I had heard about the underarm shaving from the 1910s too.
Mine came from two "direct" sources.
So if it's not why most women began shaving their legs it is, at least, why women in my family began doing it.

Dennis A. Lederle

[FloralSkirt]

I shave my legs in the summer for the silky smooth feeling. Plus they look great with a skirt!

[miniskirt07]

I do shave my legs as well - it really good as it so smooth cos Im wearing tights all time with mini skirt, I used Braun shaver which pull the hair roots out that keep for weeks, shaving can make hair fast grow, I used this> http://www.braun.com/uk/female-grooming ... xelle.html i can feel the hair pull out but it look good as my legs so smooth.