How Egypt’s Nude Skin & Co is Challenging the ‘Bare is Best’ Mantra

One of the first experiences with shame most girls can recall is that of being introduced to a woman after school, usually sometime in their pre-teens, who makes them strip and holds their arms up rigidly to plaster sticky honey to their pits. Then, violently, she rips it away tugging wisps of hair from young, tender skin. This experience will then go on to be repeated, month after month,year after year, always dreaded.

Any attempt at refusal leads to an ear-ringing tirade by mothers, aunts and grandmothers alike, all of whom wag their pointer fingers and force a promise out of pursed lips to never reveal a body part with any hair.

Body hair has been a long-standing source of shame and taboo in the Middle East, with hundreds of thousands of young girls indoctrinated with the notion that their body hair is an unsightly and unfeminine attribute that must be concealed at all costs. This is further reinforced by cultural norms that equate hairlessness with purity, thus enshrining it as the only acceptable standard of beauty. Consequently, those who do not conform to these ideals are often subjected to ridicule and ostracisation, perpetuating a culture of silence and shame.

Nevertheless, there is a recent surge of women in the Middle East pushing back against these antiquated beauty standards and embracing their natural bodies with pride, one of whom is Raghda Aly, Egyptian entrepreneur and founder of skincare brand, Nude Skin.

“As a woman who wants to feel confident in her own skin, I decided to take the matter into my own hands,” Nude Skin founder, Raghda Aly, tells SceneStyled, “I felt it was necessary for an Egyptian brand to create a product that helped other women feel confident in, and not just comfortable with, their body hair.”

Currently, Nude Skin offers two specialised products: body scrubs and shaving creams, designed for either normal or sensitive skin. These products aim to make the shaving process comfortable by utilising hydrating and rejuvenating ingredients like hyaluronic acid, shea butter, rose water, and vitamin E. Nude Skin’s shaving creams drastically reduce the risk of nicks and cuts, while minimising redness.