Wax on, Wax Off

I started getting my upper lip waxed a few years ago. According to my husband and kids I don't even have a "mustache," but every 6 weeks or so, I'll look in the mirror and in my mind, see a female Magnum PI-sized 'stache' starting back at me. While slightly painful, an upper lip wax is over quickly, and when done, I always feel more like a lady and less like a member of ZZ Top.

Knowing that I'd become comfortable in handling the "upper lip wax" like a trooper, last night I came up with the brilliant idea to give myself a bikini wax. I've always been a shaver but growing up in the 70's and 80's there was never an emphasis on grooming "down there". Back then, everything was a la natural. When bathing suit season came around you might carefully shave your bikini line, but for the most part it was just "tuck and go." With the arrival of the nineties I began to hear about brow, bikini and Brazilian waxes (I blame Sex and The City) but continued to keep it old school until I finally caved in late in the decade and put my Intuition Lady Shaver to some good use. The razor does the trick, but of course as most women know, you have to shave every day if you want to avoid looking like you have a Chia Pet in your pants. 

I headed down to CVS Pharmacy and got the deluxe Sally Hansen waxing kit, complete with wax, wooden wax applicators, hand held mirror, trimming scissors and a pair of paper-like underwear (which I  think you are supposed to wear to avoid getting wax in your urethra?) This particular kit had wax that you applied directly to your bikini area, let dry and then ripped the wax right off. Sounds easy enough. Any moron could accomplish this, right?

First of all the wax, when heated was not unlike a combination of Sue Bee Honey and Rubber Cement. These are two things I try to avoid when it comes to my privates. As instructed, I applied the hot wax (rubber cement) to the stubble along my bikini line in a 2-inch strip. 45 seconds later I ripped that wax off faster than a kid unwrapping a present on Christmas morning. Painful? Yes, a bit. But the worst part of it was that for every 3 hairs that were ripped from my sensitive lady-flesh, 7 hairs remained. Also in my deepest crevices remained some wax, stuck to my skin like white on rice. Never one to give in (actually I am always the first to give in) I tried the same area again, with the same results, along with some bleeding and a rash in the shape of Lake Michigan. This continued on for the next 25 minutes and unfortunately the results were futile. When I finally gave up, I looked like I had gotten into a cat fight with a blender. Chunks of wax lingered where no man has gone before. It was a horrendous hot mess. The wax that did "grab the hair" I had cast aside where it had formed into a freakish sculpture that looked a bit like a deformed mini black Care Bear after chemotherapy. 

Worse, at the age of 38, my back  was starting to get sore and neck was starting to crick from the odd pretzel-like position I had been sitting in. Nothing about this was simple, clean or lady like. In fact, as I threw away my pubic hair chemo-bear sculpture, along with the remaining half jar of wax and accouterments, I caught a glimpse of my pink Intuition razor with aloe strip and ergonomic handle and smiled at it as though it was an old friend. Tomorrow I go back to kicking it old school and that's the way I like it.

val