From The Email Files…

Hair removal 101…
(FYI – this is NOT a personal experience! Wax? I don’t touch the stuff!)

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All hair removal methods have tricked us with their promises of easy, painless removal – The epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now…the wax.

My night began as any other normal weekday night. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: Maybe I should pull the wax out of the medicine cabinet.

So I headed to the site of my demise, the bathroom. It was one of those cold wax kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand and then they get warm and you peel them apart, press it to your leg (or wherever else) and hair comes right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean I’m no girly girl; I am mechanically inclined enough that I can figure it out. *YA THINK!!!*

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. Cold wax my rear end (Oh, how this phrase haunts me!)

I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. OK so it wasn’t the best feeling, but it wasn’t too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-ra, fighter of all wayward body hair and smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure I apply the was strip across the right side of bikini line, covering the right half of my v-g-na and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek Yes, it was a long strip)

I inhale deeply and brace myself. RRRRIIIPPP!!!!

I’m blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!….OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I’ve only managed to pull off half of the strip. crap!!! Another deep breath and RRIIPP. Everything is swirly and spotted. Do I hear crashing drums???

OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy – A wax covered strip with my hairy pelt, that has caused me so much pain, sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip! There’s no hair on it. Where is the hair. WHERE IS THE WAX??? Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip. I touch. I am touching wax.

Crap.

I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair.

Then I make the next BIG mistake……………….remember my foot is still propped up on the toilet. I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down. Noo!!!!!!!! I hear the slamming of the cell door. V-g-n- Sealed shut. Butt?? Sealed shut.

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself “Please don’t let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off” Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I’ll run the hottest water I could stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax covered bits and the wax should melt, and I can gently wipe it off right???

*WRONG!!!!!!!*

I get in the tub – the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment – I sit. Now, the only thing worse that having your nether businesses glued together is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub. In scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn’t melt cold wax.

So, now I’m stuck to the bottom of the tub!! God bless the man that convinced me I should have a phone in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend thinking surely she’s waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone.

It’s a very good conversation starter: “So, my butt and who-ha are tuck to the bottom of the tub!” There is a slight pause. She doesn’t have a secret trick but does try to hide the laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located on my bottom “Are we talking cheeks or hole or what?”

She’s laughing out loud by now…I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else’s night.

While we go through various solutions. I resort to scraping the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike, and I slip into glazed donut land.

My friend is still talking with me and my hand reaches towards the saving grace….the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point. I rub some on and OH MY GOD!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids, scared the dickens out of my friend, but I really don’t care. “IT WORKS!! It works!!

I get a hearty congratulations from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my disbelief and despair…………………………….

THE HAIR IS STILL THERE – ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

So I shaved it off. Heck, I’m numb at this point. Next week I’m going to try haircolour……