What do you think of when you think of an ad for women’s razors and shaving cream? We automatically picture an image of a woman with shaving cream already on her leg gently and smoothly swiping a razor across the shaving cream to reveal perfectly smooth skin.

Ads for women’s grooming products almost never feature the hair that you’re removing. Instead, they show off the smooth hair-free skin. What is this telling women?

Gillette is taking a completely different approach for it’s new pubic hair grooming products. Not only is talking about pubic hair often a taboo subject in advertising, but we can’t think of a time we have ever seen it in a commercial…until now.

Instead of real life hair, the brand has released a minute long commercial that features an animated pubic hair that sings and dances. The poor hair kind of makes you feel sorry for it as she explains, “I’m just a pube, and it’s not fair, all I ever wished to be was just another hair. But when they got one look at me, the ruling from society was, ‘Ew, not you.’ Oh what’s a curl to do?”

As the ad continues, the curly hair points out that advertising is one of the reasons hair that grows on your head is considered gorgeous but she isn’t. “It seems like all the ads are showing perfect skin and shiny hair, but what about this other world inside your underwear?” 

The ad encourages women that no matter how they choose to groom their pubic hair, it’s ok. A couple backup pubes even join her to share her message. The ad ends with the lines, “So take care … of your pubic hair. If you trim or you shave or you’re bare down there. Whichever way’s your way, it’s all okay!”

Not once in the ad do we see a woman shaving or using any shaving products. Instead, the entire ad seems to be encouraging women to rethink how they think about their pubic hair. Watch this creative new ad by Gillette below.

Before creating this ad, Gillette conduced a survey of 250 women and found that only 18% of women use the term “pubic.” Meanwhile, 56% of the respondents said they wanted more accurate descriptions of how women groom their bodies.

When Gillette posted this ad on YouTube, the company added a description reading, “It’s time to finally get comfortable with the word “pubic” and the whole area down there. We’ll start—with a song about pubes, sung by pubes. Check out #ThePubeSong and let’s normalize the conversation—because it’s okay to #SayPubic!”

What do you think of this new ad by Gillette Venus?