A quick disclaimer that this was written as a personal outlet. We all live in stressful times and though I am aware at the severity of the pandemic situation, I need to get this out somehow. Excuse the shallow-ness.

Someone on my Facebook feed said “This quarantine will show who really has natural beauty.”

It was accompanied by photos of unkempt nails, overgrown bush of brows, and extreme amounts of body hair. Beauty salons are of course considered non-essential businesses. And in a pandemic, going to one will be like playing with fire.

While most of the world is currently on lockdown right now, I thought “Hey I have all the time in the world. Might as well try to groom myself.” Then I found myself buying a Sally Hansen waxing kit from CVS.

I’m not a stranger to waxing because I regularly get brazilian waxing done for almost a decade now. I was scheduled to start IPL laser hair removal shortly after I finished my underarm IPL package, but I had to relocate here in the US so I never got to that. In hindsight, I should really have invested in IPL for the bikini area because I was paying a lot of money for those waxing visits.

So there I was at 1am, microwaving the wax so it softens. I went to my room and in front of the mirror and tried to apply small patches of wax. I pat the paper strip on one area, inhaled and then ripped it off. The faster I did it, the less pain I felt. I thought to myself, “Wow this isn’t so bad? I’m actually doing it!”

Suddenly, the inevitable happened. The wax started to harden. I was 80% done. I thought maybe I try to push it. I don’t want to walk all the way to the kitchen to reheat the wax. 

It was a lot more painful because apparently when wax hardens, it doesn’t spread out easily. What I got was a big lump of wax that’s unevenly pulling the hair and at greater pressure. In short—it was very painful. I managed to get an additional 10% off but not with consequence of mini-abrasions.

Then I made a hail mary and tried to do one more. Alas—it was no longer spreading. And what I had was a lump of sticky almost hardened wax on the most sensitive area right above the slit. I wanted it to end but I couldn’t strip it off. It also wasn’t possible to separate the wax from the hair. 

The funny thing was, I already was almost done with this brazilian, except for that tiny patch left. 

I have decided at that point that I fucked up, laughed at how silly the situation was and how I’m awkwardly positioned, and went into problem-solving mode. I took the finishing oil out and doused the wax and tried to separate the wax from the skin/hair. “Great. It seems to be working.” 

Eventually most of the wax came off—not all of them, but it was already comfortable enough for me to sleep on. 

That’s it. That’s the story of how I have an unfinished wax job.