cardinal mistake...

here is an excerpt from a text conversation last week....

if you had any questions about where this is going, i'm sure you don't now.  how does a girl who has an esthetician in the family do something so stupid?  that is easy.  your name is flo, you are often times impulsive and don't think things through and you think you can do anything. 

it's a thursday night.  i have plans of seeing a man (the same man i've referred to in the past week, i really like him) in the next couple of days.  i haven't been keeping up on the grooming.  i don't have time to go see my sis.  the next logical step is to attempt this at home.

in case you are thinking of doing this, DON'T!  this is the worst idea you could ever, EVER have.  coloring your hair at home, not a great idea but one hundred times better.  waxing yourself, specifically the nether regions, is right up there on the stupid idea scale as piercing your own nipples, giving yourself a tattoo, and fixing your own ingrown toenails.  all of these things are better left to trained professionals. 

anyway, i jetted off to the store to get my supplies.  i should've picked up a liter of sinfire to aid in my courage but i forgot that step.  surprisingly enough there are many different brands and types of home waxing kits.  there are pre-gummed strips (kinda like ready to go wallpaper), a wax that you heat, slap on, put a strip of some material over it, smooth it out and rip it off, then there is a kind that you heat up, slap on and pull off before it hardens. i opted for the latter version because it seemed most like what my sister uses. 

back home

many of you know that i am rule follower, so it should be no surprise that i read the directions and followed them precisely.  however my experience was NOTHING like the promise that came on the multifolded directions in English, Spanish and French.

step one: heat the product in the convenient little pot it comes in until it is the consistency of honey.  sounds easy enough.  so i start heating.  i can see the hardened wax start to break down into a liquidy state.  it doesn't say if you want it the consistency of easy to pour honey or when it starts to solidify, but i'm using my noggin (sort of) and go for pourable.

step two: use the provided paddle shaped stick, get a fairly large amount and spread (like peanut butter on toast) to the area of your body you would like the hair to be removed.  there is a specification to which direction, at the moment i am forgetting, but i read it several times to make sure i was spreading the correct way.  so i twist up a glob onto my paddle, just like my sis does when she waxes my eyebrows thinking see i knew i could do this,  and apply. 

holy hot!

 

mistake number one:  i did not check the temperature of the wax.  in my head i'm thinking, if i can't convince myself to pull the wax i have probably just burnt it off, either way this is a win, right?  heck no.  that wax was freaking hot and i just touched my delicate skin with it.  a small voice inside my head said are you sure this is a good idea?  just like the devil and the angel on either shoulder i ignored the angel of reason and plunged ahead with the devil.  i let it cool down just a bit, slather on one side of my bikini line, reload the paddle and apply to the other side.  my reasoning go big or go home.

 

step three: before the wax hardens peel up a little corner.  instead of having a strip to hold on to, you use the edge of the wax.  so i've applied to both sides of my bikini line, put the paddle down (careful not to get wax anywhere else) and return to the area to peel up a little corner.  i quickly realize i have a problem.  the left side isn't peeling up at all, it is like i have stuck super glue to my skin.  in a slight panic i quickly try the right side and to my horror i find the same thing. 

 

mistake number two and three:  working in too big of an area at one time and not using enough wax.  in the small print, misleadingly printed in some pretty swirly font that makes you think of dessert, it says something about when you don't use enough wax it hardens too quickly becoming brittle and difficult to remove. well great!  i look down, i'm starting to sweat and wonder what i am supposed to do now?

 

calling my sister was the first thing that came to mind, but i was too embarrassed to tell her what i had just done.  i thought to apply more wax, since i hadn't used enough the first time.  now i have double thick layer on the left side and a single layer on the right. i attempted to rip the left and a small piece about the size of pea gravel came off.  oh crap!  oh crap!  oh crap!  this is not looking good.

 

there is something that happens internally when you are inflicting immense pain on yourself.  for those of you who have never done this, let me just fill you in.  you stop.  now it may be different in a life or death situation, but every time i went to pull the wax i froze.  i couldn't cause myself the pain.  this is where the sinfire would've come in handy.  get sloppy drunk and rip away. 

 

when i got done with the left side, one pea gravel size rip at a time, i sent the above text message to sarah.  i was relieved that she was going to "fix" me the next day, but i still had one more side to go.  if you've ever had a housekeeper you might understand why i continued.  i have had a housekeeper in the past and the night before i knew she was coming i went through the house picking and cleaning up.  i didn't want to her to see how messy we really were.  i wanted her to think i just couldn't get to the deep cleaning.  following the housekeeper theory it only makes sense that i had to remove the wax from the other side, i didn't want her to see my poor spreading job.  okay maybe that isn't quite the same, but at the time it made sense in my head.

 

after about an hour of chipping away this stupid wax, i was done.  i was left with an area of my body that looked like it was having chemo therapy and my hair was falling out.  a patchy mess.  this is not the image i'm wanting the man i'm seeing to be left with. 

 

the expectations of being a woman in the dating world is dreadful. i have talked about this before, we seem to be in the middle of a trend of removing all of our naturally growing body hair.  i see absolutely no problem with trimming it up, because really who wants to be down in that area when your brain is trying to decide if you are flossing or enjoying yourself, but forcefully and savagely ripping the hair out of my body is extremely unpleasant and only something i will endure when involved with someone.  i see no good reason to forgo that pain for just me.

 

thankfully the next day i got my "situation" taken care of.  i have learned a valuable lesson, one i hope you have learned as well.