(Mis)Adventures in Waxing

Guys: Be forewarned. You may be put off by this post.

Girls: I'm sure you're like me. You're sick of shaving all of the time. It's annoying. But you love having smooth legs, right? And if you're like me, you have to shave practically every day to keep the smooth legs. And if you're also so pale that you match a sheet of paper but have very dark hair, well, you pretty much need to shave.

I thought I had the perfect solution. "I'll wax! I've got the warmer, the wax, the muslin, and all of the other stuff I need. I'll be hair-free in no time and it should last longer than shaving at the very least!" People, I'm stupid. I should never listen to myself. Did you know that there's a whole area on the back of your legs? And do you know how hard it is to do a half-back bend to get to it? Also how messy it is to attempt said half-back bend while applying wax? That's when I realized that I should lay out paper towels everywhere. That was the only smart thing I did.

So I waxed. I grimaced, but I got through it. It was, after all, less painful than waxing my own eyebrows (which I do every month). The kids came home from school while I was half way through. "Mom, why are you bent like that?" asked The Boy. "Shh.. I'm concentrating," I muttered as I balanced precariously-- very much like a demented statue-- whilst slathering wax on to my calf. The Girl caught on quickly, "You're waxing your legs, right? Doesn't that hurt? Why is your tongue sticking out?" I ripped off the wax and sighed, "Yes, I'm waxing my legs and it doesn't exactly feel good. And I can't help it if my tongue pokes out when I'm concentrating. God, my back hurts." "Maybe you shouldn't stand like that, " suggested The Boy and then quickly ran away from the Death Rays I was shooting out of my eyes.

I finally got done. I was sticky, but I was done. Now I only had to do my facial de-fuzzing. Again, pale skin + dark hair = fuzz above the lip. That went smoothly and quickly. Now, onto my brows. I'd been thinking about going thinner. I'm a cautious waxer. If I want to change the shape of my brow, I work with tweezers. I just use the wax to get rid of the superfluous hair. Well, I accidentally gobbed on too much wax and I got that thinner brow. Thank god it actually looks good, even if it was unexpected. Since I changed the shape of the one brow, I had to tweeze the other to match. Ain't nothin' worse than mismatched brows, people. Then I went on to wax the other brow.

Right in the middle of pressing down the strip of muslin onto the wax, my contact popped out. It took me a second to realize this. I thought I'd stupidly dropped wax onto my eye and panicked for a bit. (I once glooped some wax on my eyelashes. That was a bitch to get out.) Once I realized what had actually happened, I tried to scoop up the lens with a non-sticky part of my hand and dropped it into my case with some saline until I could wash my hands and pop it back in. That's when I noticed a glob of wax in my hair.

After scraping wax out of my hair, checking the brows and scraping wax off the floor, I sat down and wondered what had gone wrong. Having not found a solution, I've decided that leg waxing? Not worth it. I'll have to seek a less messy and contortionistic method for hair removal. Or pay for it.