PAIN!

I have just put my bikini area through some slow, painful torture in the name of curiosity. So, I have this little thing called dark hair. I don't just mean on my head, it's all over. Dark body hair. So, of course, I get a bit of flack for dark arm hair and a teensy mustache. Thanks, Greek heritage. But let's start at the beginning of this tale.

Several years ago , I had a foray into the world of arm shaving, courtesy of my gay roommate. His arms were always silky smooth, so I thought I'd give it a shot. But of course, a guy I had gone on a couple of dates with was like, "Did you shave your arms?", in the middle of a date. Tactful dude, very nice. Way to get a girl's guard up. So I maintained that look for a while, because it was so smooth, and my arms weren't shadowed constantly. And the good thing about arms, they don't get razor rash or ingrown hairs. So one yay for shaving arms. But now I'm back to my natural look, whatever.

But there is one area I can't cover up: my face. So this past weekend I decided to take the plunge, and worked up the courage to buy some wax strips and take that bastard off! My mustache, not my face.

Fuck OW!! I can't remember what waxing my legs felt like, because the last time I did that, I was about 13, and my mom ripped the strips. I don't live with my gay friend anymore, sadly, so I didn't have anyone to assist me in this terrifying process. So I finally gathered my metaphorical balls, and peeled the strip and stuck it. Ok, this isn't too bad. Pulls a little bit, but the warm wax kinda feels nice on the skin... right up until I was lulled into a false sense of security by the warm meltiness on my upper lip and came to the horribly wrong conclusion that this wouldn't be so bad. HA! So rip goes the strip, curse words that would shame a sailor pour out of my numbed mouth and tears well up.

The results are glorious, if a bit reddened, but shit, now I'm lopsided, and must endure that again. Bit the bullet, more pain, more tears, more smoothy smoothness.

All this great smooth skin with slight numbness still after 3 days. Not much of a price. So I thought I would use the other strips in the package for the same slightly uncomfortable but worth it effect. Yeeeeaaaaa... armpit hair is much more deeply rooted in your skin than that baby fuzz of the top lip. I think I pulled a maximum of 3 hairs on one strip, and gave that one up for life.

Then came the bikini strips. Now, I have taken the tweezers to the zone on rare occasions to quickly get those few hairs missed whilst shaving. The strip takes it to a whole new level of pain. And I'm not talking about radical sculpting here; I mean I took the bits of stray hair off the sides where the undies don't cover it. And of course at the awkward angle you must rip to get the best removal, some hairs are left behind, tugged and irritated. So, they say not to wax the same area twice in one session, but I'm not leaving half of the overgrowth, so I stick it back on and rip again. Better results, but still a few strays, but I figure I'll get those later with the tweezers. Now for the other side. This side accessible only by my non-dominant hand, so the removal takes a few more rips; 4 to be exact. This leads to bleeding spots and extreme tenderness. And still a few strays. So then I subject my area to tweezing, and the inflamed flesh decides it would be fun to get caught in the tips and yanked with the hairs.

So finally, after 15 minutes of grooming, I have a sticky, red, spotty, painful bikini zone. Thank you very much wax, but I think I will stick to shaving in this area and keep you for the face.