‘What’s wrong with being hairy?’: beauty salon ad in China comparing women with body hair to orangutans enrages mainland social media

An ad campaign denigrating women who do not remove body hair by comparing them to orangutans has triggered an online backlash in China

Social media observers and official women’s organisations have condemned the ads for humiliating women and for unfair beauty standards

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The company behind the ad says it struggled to find women with body hair for the campaign and says the posters have been “adjusted” following the backlash. Photo: SCMP composite/handout

Published: 9:00am, 8 Feb 2023Updated: 9:38am, 10 Feb 2023

Corrected [9:36am, 10 Feb, 2023]

[9:36am, 10 Feb, 2023]
In response to the story, Strip said that the orangutan is the company’s brand mascot and not a comparison to the female form. Strip also stressed that it would never engage in campaigns that shame or influence people into buying beauty services that benefit the company. In light of the recent public reaction, Strip has since stopped using images of orangutans in its ads in China.

A Shanghai beauty salon’s attempt to promote its hair removal treatments has backfired on mainland social media after likening women who do not remove their body hair to orangutans.

Posters showing an orangutan juxtaposed against several models in before and after pictures from a hair-removal specialist salon called Strip, which is originally from Singapore, caused outrage after photos appeared online earlier this month, Xinhao Caijing reported.

The images of the advertisement went viral on mainland Chinese social media, receiving 4 million views on Douyin alone.

“I’ve made a tipoff against this advertisement,” one person commented. “This company degrades women and materialises women and creates body anxiety among women only for the sake of its commercial interests.”

The company admitted that the decision to use a primate was not the original intention for the ad, but say they could not find a woman with enough body hair to appear in the campaign. Photo: Weibo

“What’s wrong with being hairy?” a second person asked.

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‘What’s wrong with being hairy?’: beauty salon ad in China comparing women with body hair to orangutans enrages mainland social media

An ad campaign denigrating women who do not remove body hair by comparing them to orangutans has triggered an online backlash in China Social media observers and official women’s organisations have condemned the ads for humiliating women and for unfair beauty standards

An ad campaign denigrating women who do not remove body hair by comparing them to orangutans has triggered an online backlash in China

Social media observers and official women’s organisations have condemned the ads for humiliating women and for unfair beauty standards