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Every writer has a “just in case” piece – the article they’ll write if their favourite artist dies, their beloved team wins, or the political moment they dreamed of arrives. I had mine all planned out. The piece: the bush is back! A 3,000-word essay about the quiet reclamation of pubic hair in all its unruly glory, replete with hair-raising puns befitting a story of such campy defiance.
But I must face the fact that I may never get to write this piece. Why? Because Kim Kardashian and her underwear brand Skims have ruined it, with the sale of a faux pubic hair thong called “the Ultimate Bush”. Launched last week with a video featuring models in a 70s-styled gameshow called “Does the carpet match the drapes?”, the £34 thong features a triangle of hair made of synthetic fibres to mimic pubic manes in 12 hair colour and texture combos. It sold out in under 24 hours, leaving the internet to wonder: who exactly is this product for? Those who regret lasering it all off? Or folks looking for some retro merkin fun?
Now, I’m normally of the belief that most Kardashian news can be promptly disregarded; but the thing is, dear reader, I was convinced we were but a hair’s breadth (sorry) from a serious big bush revival. There were pubes on the catwalk (see Margiela’s 2024 haute couture celebration of the merkin), and at the beauty counter (the Kiehl’s campaign that used real pubic hair). Online, there was “full bush in a bikini” – a TikTok trend kicked off by a viral video in which a woman delights in seeing precisely that – which became the phrase du jour of women posting in praise of a full thatch, or criticising removal for its ingrown hairs, razor burns and just the whole “male gaze” of it all. And I must give a mention to one user known as President Bush, whose popular “bush aura” readings see her guess what pubic hairstyle a celebrity is sporting based on vibe – the cooler, happier, and more independent the woman, the more silky and abundant the fur. Think big dick energy, bush edition.
Now I admit all of this was a bit of a, ahem, fringe movement (look, these puns have to go somewhere), but in my mind it was sure to grow. Sure, body positivity as a phenomenon had its problems, but as Turkey teeth, Ozempic and tweakments-on-your-lunch-hour inch towards the norm, I can’t help but lament the total abandonment of any “You’re fine as you are” sentiment. Surely, I figured, it would all just get too much – too expensive in a cost of living crisis, too much effort when free time is at an abysmal low – and we’d see a return to something more natural. And why not start with the short and curlies? With more than 80% of women grooming theirs, it’s one of the most common beauty treatments around. Challenge that and who knows what could be next?
But instead we get the pubic hair thong. If you were being generous, you may say it was promoting bushes as desirable. But a look at the thong, in all its neatness, narrowness and symmetry – and the way it casts an intrinsic part of women’s bodies as an accessory – and it’s hard to see it as a win. Rather it’s just more of the same from a beauty industry that has mastered selling us back an ersatz version of our own nature for enormous profit.
When will this madness end?! Why can’t bedhead hair just involve getting out of bed and not bothering to brush it? Or the wet look just be forgetting to dry it? Who will take up the cause of making minimal effort great again?
Probably the one person who could move the dial is Kim Kardashian herself, a woman whose image is so powerful that, according to philosopher of beauty Heather Widdows, it has absorbed the world’s regional differences in beauty and homogenised them. Now there is one beauty standard globally: the Kardashian standard. Indeed, if Kardashian was serious about unleashing big bush energy on to the world, she could simply show us how it’s done and let ‘it’ grow free.
Who knows, perhaps one day Kimmy K will lead us the other way, letting her own body return to its original state without cinchers, injectables and an army of beauticians on call. Now that is a “just in case” piece I’d like to write.
Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK
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