Do you wax, shave, use a laser or let it grow?

Offering services from nose, eyebrow, armpit, back, bikini, full leg and miscellaneous spot and patches waxing to permanent laser hair removal, the hair removal industry has become one of the elite multibillion-dollar industries.

Services can range from $22 to reshape your eyebrows, thousands for laser removal or $12 for a razor. The industry is expanding and looks to continue to grow with the current trends that companies such as Victoria’s Secret are encouraging. Celebrities like the Kardashian family are known to have had services of laser hair removal on their bikini lines, helping sell the idea that less body hair is the ideal image for beauty.

“Honestly, when I got into this I started at a small salon and they only did bikini waxes, when I came (to Mario Tricoci) they said I had to do a Brazilian, and I thought, who does that? Well just about everybody,” Annalisa Haaksma, licensed esthetician of 14 years said.

The idea of having a hairless body to look beautiful is seen not only throughout the U.S. but happens in other countries around the world as well. “I have women that say, ‘Wow I feel like a woman’ after their services,” Haaksma said.

As times start to change, the type of client has changed as well. For an industry that once only had a female clientele, the growth in male clients is starting to become more widespread. “A lot more men are not as shy about it anymore. We’re seeing a lot more men come in for their backs and chests and even eyebrows,” Haaksma said.

Going into a spa every four-to-six weeks breaks down hair follicles and provides the same result as if you were to get laser treatments done but at a significantly lower cost. The most pocket-friendly way to remove hair is with a razor, but that has to be done almost daily in order to receive the same results as waxing or laser removal. The convenience of the services is also taken into consideration when cost is a factor.

The industry doesn’t have any particular age group, though waxing in particular reaches a wide audience. “I’ve seen tweens getting brows waxed to grandmas getting a Brazilian,” Haaksma said.

Currently, we’ve seen celebrities, such as Miley Cyrus, embrace the natural hair trend having their underarm hair grow out, significantly challenging what companies such as Victoria’s Secret try to promote as the ideal image of beauty.

“Research has shown and supports that our social environments and social influences, whether that’s media or your peers or magazines and newspapers or social media does absolutely influence how we feel about ourselves and what we think about ourselves,” Leila Azarbad, associate professor of psychology said.

The influence of not only celebrities but also the influence of those around us on what is thought of as beautiful can be used to help build up or tear down the stereotypical idea of beauty.

Azarbad talked about a study where people had three minutes to look through fashion magazines or more educational magazines. The participants were told to focus on images rather than the articles.

Those who looked at the fashion magazine expressed that they felt worse about their body image than those who read educational magazines.

The idea behind what is being put in our magazines or in our stores to be sold as beautiful are what the consumer chooses. If the consumer has the choice in what is beautiful, then why do they choose an image that does not reflect the global population?

“The people that are chosen to be on (TV) are highly attractive, thin people that probably (are) no more than five percent of the population… We see those images and think ‘oh well that’s what is beautiful, I don’t look like that, therefore I must not be beautiful,'” Azarbad said.

Body hair can be a confidence builder for celebrities or it can be an insecurity for a high school or college-aged woman. The insecurities with body image are thought to be influenced by our media and what is on our televisions. Throughout time as societal norms change, the concept of beauty changes too.