I had a pubic hair transplant — the bush is making a comeback

Healthcare worker Sophia was in her late teens when the Brazilian wax craze saw women choose to banish the bush and go completely hairless during the early noughties. A trend that first began on the bikini-clad beaches of Rio de Janeiro in the seventies, as it swept across the globe, body hair suddenly became unhygienic and out of fashion, while being clean-shaven was bang on trend — and considered synonymous with sex appeal.

For Sophia, now 40, it also offered her a solution to an ‘embarrassing’ problem. ‘My pubic hair was always sparse and patchy. I couldn’t even have a landing strip because of it, so I was forced to constantly shave it all off,’ she tells Metro.

‘It was a big insecurity for me because it wouldn’t grow evenly, so it always looked bad. Even when I had a serious boyfriend I constantly shaved because I had bald spots. It was embarrassing.’. ‘Shaving so much meant I always ended up with ingrown hairs, which I absolutely couldn’t stand, and I resented how much effort it was. Plus I think pubic hair is really sexy — even if no one’s looking at it, you know you’ve got something cute going on underneath your clothes.’.

Throughout her twenties and thirties Sophia tried countless methods to get her pubic hair to grow in properly, from beard oils and hair growth oils to biotin, but ‘nothing worked’. A Wroxeter Roman City exhibition showcased Roman texts which include recipes for hair removal creams or advice on removing hairs with a pumice stone.

This is because you had to be able to afford expensive tools like tweezers to remove hair. Hair removal became less of a status symbol and more of a standard. Gillette razors were introduced to the world but aimed at leg hair – not pubic hair. In the mid 1940s the bikini altered the swimsuit game and razors began to be promoted to remove pubic hair. Until this point, there had been little prejudice around pubic hair being unhygienic and embarrassing.

Shaving didn’t catch on widely though, women in these decades still embracing a full bush and natural body hair. Behind the scenes though, the Brazilian wax (although it didn’t have this name at the time) began to take hold after gaining recognition in the seventies, because of the desire to wear thong bikinis.

Seven Brazilian sisters from just outside Rio, set up a salon in Manhattan where they pioneered what we’ve come to know as the Brazilian wax. Sex and The City made the Brazilian wax, when Carrie Bradshaw had one done by accident. ‘I got mugged,’ she says. ‘She took everything I got.’.

Celebs made it mainstream too. Speaking to US beauty magazine Allure, Kim K revealed she was ‘obsessed’ with laser hair removal. ‘Arms, bikini, legs, underarms… my entire body is hairless,’ she said. Celebs seem to be rejecting the hairless trend. In her cover story with Glamour, model Ashley Graham shared she’d embraced a ‘full bush’.

Janelle Monáe’s music video PYNK saw her wear a pair of pants with pubes peeking out from underneath them, rejecting societal standards that women should be hairless. Interest in pubic hair transplants began and steadily increased over the next few years, as women sought to get their hair back after intensive laser treatments and waxes.

‘I wanted the option of a full grown bush one day, a tiny landing strip another day, or to be completely bare the next day,’ she Sophia explains. But at 35 she still struggled to get it to grow and was tired of shaving, so Sophia eventually opted for laser treatment, paying £456 for eight sessions.

It was never something she thought of as a ‘medical problem’ or ‘serious thing’ worth visiting the doctor over, but curious over her options she took to Google and discovered pubic hair transplants. ‘I thought “finally, something can be done”, it was like I was in charge of the issue at last,’ Sophia explains.

Her initial appointment at the Wimpole Clinic on August 30, 2023 involved a chat with consultant Marie. During the meeting, Sophia was assured that wanting the transplant (otherwise known as a ‘pube plant’) wasn’t ‘weird’ and talked through the process, which detailed the cost and what to expect in terms of the procedure and recovery.

‘I definitely felt self conscious about needing a transplant in the first place – like why couldn’t I just have normal growing pubes?’ she says. ‘I didn’t tell any friends or family I was having it done, it felt super personal, so I kept it quiet.’.

Two months later she had the procedure, which cost £5,000 including aftercare. It’s no small amount, but Sophia says it was worth every penny, making her feel ‘much more in control and more confident.’. Trichologist Marie-Royce Book, who specialises in pubic hair restoration and performed Sophia’s transplant, tells Metro that the process is very similar to that of a classic hair transplant — just with ‘more artistry’ involved.