Do not try this at home

Yesterday afternoon I got a wild hair and decided to buy a home waxing kit. No, not for my car. I usually shave but have heard how great waxing is, how it lasts for weeks, and how it is so much better than shaving. Being summertime I figured it was time to try it out.

Of course, I could go to a professional hair removal expert and pay her to do it but I would feel silly about that. After all, would I really want to pay a strange woman to apply hot wax to my southern region, stick a muslin strip to the wax, and then rip my hair out? That seems ridiculous! However, doing it myself, or better yet, getting JP to do it, sounded completely reasonable and even a bit fun. That was yesterday.

I went to a beauty supply store after work and asked the clerk for the best at-home kit. She, of course, sold me the biggest kit. As we have learned, bigger is not always better, right? I then called JP and told him what our plans for the evening were. He was thrilled. Really, he was. I think he's a closet depilator.

A few hours later I was sprawled out on the kitchen table, hot wax being applied (which was quite nice), reading the directions as we went along (which was a bad idea).

The process is quite simple: First, you heat the wax in the microwave. Next you use a popsicle stick-type thing to apply the wax in the manner you would apply paste to construction paper as a child. Then you press a muslin strip onto the wax. Then there was a step missing - the how-long-do-you-wait-before-pulling step. Kind of crucial. We try to go ahead and remove one strip. No good - just a bunch of wax, three hairs that were probably so scared they uprooted themselves, and bit of pain. A few tugs later I called my friend D, who is well-versed in these things, for some advice.

So now I'm on the kitchen table with wax and muslin strips stuck to me, JP attempting to reread the directions and my friend D laughing at me over the phone. She informs me that I must have bought an advanced kit because she just buys pre-waxed strips or pays someone to do it with wax and strips like mine. Apparantly professionals melt their own wax and paint it on using advanced techniques that are not meant for amateurs. So she told us how her waxing lady does her thing. Then she told her she's not sure how it's really done because she usually has a few shots of tequila before her appointment to dull the pain. Great. In the meantime, JP has gotten impatient and decides it's time to start clearcutting via the old yank-a-bandage-off technique. Note: you don't pull straight up. JP pulls straight up on the strip. I scream. D laughs. JP marvels at the waxy strip covered with hair from one small patch. I need a drink. D laughs some more and yells at JP to pull another. This goes on for a few minutes until all the muslin has been yanked off and a bunch of wax and hair remains and D and JP are on the phone laughing at me.

Conveniently enough, the kit came with "Wax Off" - presumably some sort of agent used to remove residual wax. We apply this and it doesn't work. JP attempts rigorous scrubbing, which is just what you want on your freshly terrorized skin. We end up in the hot tub attempting to melt the wax off. At this time I've decided that I'll have grown back what few hairs were pulled by the time all the wax is entirely off.

The end result was terrible: it looked like a poorly planned deforestation project had taken place on my right bikini area. The left has one missing patch. My fear is that I'll be in an automobile accident and for some reason some stranger will discover this and laugh. I know it makes no sense to be concerned about that, but neither does pouring hot wax on yourself in order to more efficiently pluck hairs from a region that only one other person ever sees. Sometimes I wonder if I should seek help.