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Sugaring, sugar waxing or Persian waxing is a method of hair removal that has been in use since 1900 BC.Historically, sugar was confined to the regions surrounding Papua New Guinea until the first millennium AD. As a result, it is speculated that honey was the first sugaring agent. Sugaring was also known as sukkar in the Middle East and in Egypt, as ağda in Turkey, and as moum in Iran. The sugaring method dates to ancient times (around 1900 B.C.) in Egypt. It could also be found in North Africa and East Africa, in Arabic cultures and Persian cultures. In 1984 sugaring was brought to the United Kingdom. Hair Removal has been around for centuries, perhaps, some argue, since the dawn of humankind. Tools once thought to be used for scraping fur from animal skins were discovered to contain human hair and are now believed to have been used as crude razors for shaving the face some 20,000 years ago. Threading and sugaring, both ancient methods used in the Middle East, are still used today. Ancient Egyptians waxed hair off with beeswax and sported clean, shaven faces as status symbols. Ancient Sumerians and Romans tweezed eyebrows and facial hair. In the modern United States, people continue to develop and improve hair-removal methods for home use, whether through improved shaving tools, depilatories, or home-waxing products. Sugaring is a centuries-old method of hair removal used in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Sugaring is believed to have been discovered as a form of hair removal in ancient times, possibly by chance, when the sugar paste was formed and used to treat a wound or to dress a burn to help prevent infections from developing and to aid in healing. The removal of the paste would also remove the hair while leaving the skin with very little irritation. |
Ancient Egyptians believed body hair to be unacceptable and unclean and used various tools, like tweezers and shaving, to remove hair. Sugaring was a faster, less painful, and more effective method that would also have exfoliated the skin, leaving it smoother, more supple, and without stubble. Hair regrowth would have been softer and finer, so it is understandable that sugaring became a lasting and preferred method of hair removal around the region.
While sugaring techniques have remained basically unchanged in many of those regions, when the technique arrived on U.S. soil it started to evolve dramatically. Now there are two very different types of sugaring, just as there is with waxing: (1) the strip removal method and (2) the no strip method. It is important to recognize the differences between the two because they have different effect on the skin and hair.~Read more in Part 2
*Source: Milady's Hair Removal Techniques
