I chose to jam this ad for laser hair removal that was made to give consumers a false image of what laser hair removal is really like. It shows a young white woman who has perfect glowing skin that parallels with what the ‘ideal’ image of a woman should be and how women should not have any hair on their bodies to be beautiful. The image of the woman is trying to send a message that she’s happy and carefree by sitting on a skateboard because she got laser hair removal done and doesn’t have any worries anymore which is evident from the lines “no hassles”. This ad overall looks very feminine by the colors and font they have chosen which is basically only targeting women since it’s expected that men have hair but don’t remove it whereas women need to remove it. Other than the general look of it, they use keywords that are used to attract women on social ideals of what a women should be such as “young” and “silky”. This ad also has instances of false information. They try to send messages such as: getting laser will remove your hair forever, you save money and time, your skin will be smooth and soft, you won’t have ingrown hairs, and basically never have to deal with body hair again. Overall, this ad preys on women’s insecurities and makes them believe that in order to be a beautiful woman your body has to be free of hair and your skin should be glowing and perfect. This ad also stresses the idea that it’s only women that should be doing laser hair removal which relates to the old traditional roles of women in society where they have to take care of their image whereas men don’t.

I jammed this ad in a way that removes the misinformation about laser hair removal and adds a more realistic view of the procedure. Firstly, its original use of “no waxing” is because you don’t wax before laser but you do have to shave which they omit for the purposes of depicting a no effort process. I also removed the line of having “smooth and silky skin forever” since it won’t change your skin to make it smooth and silky. I also added the line “non-permanent” since the ad implicitly says that laser is a permanent solution when it’s actually never permanent as hair grows back due to hormones that you can’t control. The image is also photo-shopped so that the woman appears to have bright glowing skin, so I added some hairs to make it more realistic. More importantly, it’s telling women that body hair does not give you that silky and smooth body that is ideal for women to have. A lot of women with more body hair are insecure about it and may feel embarrassed to wear clothes that expose their skin because it’s socially accepted that body hairs are undesirable when it’s a natural thing.

Posts like this shouldn’t target only women as it contributes to pressure for a women to remove her body hair. It should be open to men and women and should not give the impression that removing body hair makes you more beautiful. Laser hair removal is also quite expensive and to advertise is as a solution that is quick, cheap, and permanent is wrong since women will feel pressured to do the procedure which would cost them hundreds or even thousands of dollars. We should be promoting body hair as natural and move towards female body hair to be as socially accepted as men.