“The bush is back—but it’s got a return policy,” yells the town crier. Kim Kardashian has officially done what centuries of activism and razor burn could not: she made bush…retail? SKIMS released its “most daring panty yet—” a g-string with faux pubic hair, handmade in super sheer stretch mesh. These absurdist panties come in customizable curl patterns, 3 different tones of mesh, and of course, a variety of hair colors. What I’m hearing is: “Your liberation—now available in twelve flattering shades of compliance.” It’s available in sizes: XXS–4X, because equality means everyone deserves a little fake bush.
As a lover of bush and inclusivity, but a critic of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, I don’t quite know where to stand on it. But in my research one thing that’s been made clear: this isn’t just a viral product—it’s the full-circle moment of capitalist feminism. What started as rebellion is now $32 and machine washable (cold only, no tumble dry). The bush has long been political. Its visibility is tied to gender, race, class, sex work, and desire. SKIMS’ faux hair lingerie flattens those histories into marketing, proving how easily resistance becomes a product under late capitalism.
A (Very) Brief History of the Merkin
From what I can find, merkins, or pubic wigs, first appeared in Ancient Egypt. In this proto-merkin era, both men and women often shaved their whole bodies, associating hairlessness with purity and godliness. But some would wear wigs everywhere, including pubic wigs made of human hair or palm fiber (you could call this the original carpet installation). They then made an appearance in 15th century Europe. They were originally used by women (most notably sex workers) who’d shaved but wanted to restore the appearance of pubic hair. This was useful for a few reasons: before modern protection and treatments, the merkin acted as a bit of a buffer. Removable hair kept women safe from pubic lice and other outbreaks of the time. Sooo the real renaissance innovation was the merkin, and we have crabs to thank for it (eat your heart out da Vinci). Fast forward 600 years and the same concept is being sold in “Cocoa Ginger Curly – XL.”
The Modern Merkin
From syphilis to SKIMS (though both probably give the same itch) the merkin has seen things…. Present day, merkins are common in Hollywood for the privacy and comfort of actors. Today, if you see pubes in a movie, it’s most likely a taco toupee!
It’s worth zooming in on the “Pubic Wars” of the 1970s. It was the groovy Cold War fought in the nether region. As second-wave feminism gained traction, body hair became a banner of counterculture. Playboy and Penthouse famously escalated a cultural arms race of how much hair they could show before censors imploded. Suddenly, the presence of pubic hair wasn’t just erotic; it was political, signaling female autonomy, sexual liberation, and loudly refusing patriarchal grooming norms. Advertisers panicked, and politicians clutched their pearls. Hair in print was a middle finger to the beauty industry that had spent decades selling razors, creams, and shame. The decade proved that hair visibility is cyclic—every time women reclaim their bodies, capital scrambles to monetize the rebellion.
Rooney Mara wore a custom red merkin for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011). In a 2022 interview, Ellen Barkin revealed that during filming Sea of Love (1989), director Harold Becker forcibly ripped off her merkin before a nude scene, telling her “Nobody’s looking at you.” She later described this as humiliating and emblematic of how women’s bodies were controlled and disrespected on set. Ellen Barkin’s story isn’t quirky Hollywood lore; it’s proof of how casually women’s bodies were and are controlled on set. A director ripping it off “because nobody’s looking” shows how humiliation was normalized—the industry treats actresses like props. It’s the same logic that now allows fake pubes to be sold as empowerment: control first, profit later.
Renaissance & Enlightenment: The Hidden and the Forbidden
*Bare* with me as I show my art history freak: Most famous female nudes from this era (1300ish-1600ish) like Titian’s Venus of Urbino, or Goya’s La Maja Desnuda are conspicuously hairless. The absence was moral: hair equals lust, so painters edited it out. That being said, there are some real pubic relics…. Even Napoleon couldn’t part with his lover’s part. Legend says, he kept a tuft of Empress Joséphine’s hair in a locket after their divorce like a literal love token. It was on him when he died in 1821, though many say it was pubic hair.
Rumor has it that King Charles II once had a royal wig made of his mistresses’ pubes—somewhere between myth, museum piece, and men’s locker-room rumor. It was allegedly made for the 17th-century Scottish club Beggar’s Benison (dedicated to proclaiming the joys of libertine sex). Though the more credible version names King George IV, who supposedly gifted the club a locket of his mistress’s hair in 1822. I read both stories in this book. Sources are murky, but the tale lingers in the club’s own archives and British folklore as proof that even pubic hair can become royal mythology.
Queer Hair: From Shame to Statement
In queer communities, body hair has always been a declaration of I exist outside your beauty codes. It has been a protest sign you wear under your clothes. Lesbian separatist and radical feminist groups (e.g., the Lesbian Avengers, The Furies Collective) embraced natural body hair as a rejection of patriarchal grooming expectations. Queer men have also played with hair norms. The Castro Clone look (beard, chest hair, denim, flannel) was an aesthetic parody of hypermasculine, “straight-passing” respectability. Here, pubic hair = gender play, authenticity, uprising against the puritanical heteronormative aesthetic.
Now that subversive texture is being printed, color-matched, and marketed by one of the world’s most powerful beauty moguls. Many queer public figures have made explicit statements about body hair, like Claude Cahun’s sculpture of an eye covered in pubic hair entitled “Object” (1936). Icons like Divine, who made their body spectacle their aesthetic, help map the lineage of queer bodies that refuse to be smoothed or silenced. Knowing this, Kim’s thong is giving LGBT+ history but make it insta-fluencer-friendly. For centuries, queer folks grew it out and Kim K just made it marketable.
The Capitalist cycle: Revolution and Razor Bumps: Rinsed and Resold
SKIMS proudly declares their faux hair thong is “handmade”—and I giggled at the thought of artisanal pubes. “Your carpet can be whatever color you want it to be,” the product page chirps—which is somehow both empowering and dystopian. I see this product as another example of the beauty industry’s greatest trick: the problem–solution cycle. They told us to shave, wax, and laser. Now that people have turned away from that norm, they sell the idea of hair back to us in beige netting. While I can get behind the idea of changing up your look, I hate that it’s Kim, the same woman who built her empire on hairlessness and perfection, now repackaging insurrection for profit. It’s like watching the final boss of capitalism unlock—when your oppressor finally sells you your own liberation. The beauty industry is basically a snake eating its own bush.
My Ambivalence — I Love It, But Hate It
I’ll admit it: I love the absurdity. The camp. The sheer theatrical audacity of saying, “You know what this needs? Pubes.” The campaign video is styled after a 1970s game show. The pitch: “Does the carpet match the drapes?”—models are judged by whether their “hair down there” matches the color of their head hair. SKIMS teased it with Instagram Reels. One tagline read “Just Dropped: The Ultimate Bush. With our daring new Faux Hair Panty, your carpet can be whatever color you want it to be.” The game show concept is cute but also echoes old objectification tropes. It reduces bodies to color matching, assessment, and “judging” literally turning your nether region into spectacle.
The marketing leans comedic to soften the provocation. The humor and irony let SKIMS off the hook: it’s “just a joke,” which can deflect serious critique about cultural appropriation or commercialization. The campaign is bodacious, yes, but it’s also cowardly camp that stops just short of critique. The humor shields it from accountability since you can easily play it off as kitschy. They’re leaning into camp, but the visual style on the SKIMS site is still polished, studio-lit, pastel, and modern, which softens the weirdness and makes it look less raw, more “designer fantasy.” But they’re borrowing the energy of body-positive movements without necessarily giving credit. (Cue the “stolen valor” critiques.) Because the product is faux, it sidesteps real bodies that live with body hair (and the discrimination/shame those bodies face). This makes the marketing kind of disingenuous—a fake version of a real, messy, political movement. The marketing is genius, but the concept is plagiarism without citing its sources.
In 600 years, we went from hiding it, to needing it, to shaving it, to growing it out, to waxing it, to… buying it back? The SKIMS bush panty is both iconic and infuriating: it proves how fast counterculture becomes commerce. SKIMS solves feminism the way Febreze solves mold. It’s not the worst thing to ever happen to feminism… but it’s one of the funniest! Maybe the takeaway isn’t “don’t buy it,” but “know what you’re really buying.” And if you’re going to make body hair luxury, at least put a bibliography.