Hair

Hair

At 52 I had my 1^st bikini wax. Just past my half century mark, me and my sprawling pubic hair—the Kudzu of the mature woman—me and my crawling-down-my-thighs-at-break-neck-speed pubic hair, in an act of submission and curiosity, made an appointment to have my taut tangles torn from my loins.

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I am lying on a soft, cream colored table at the New You Day Spa. Incense is burning, and a tiny, electrically powered water fountain is bubbling in the corner. I’m wearing a t-shirt, socks and underwear. Unsure of protocol, I had to call my twenty year old daughter the day before to find out what bikini wax etiquette entailed. To my great relief, she, light-years ahead of me in the waxing game, assured me that the denuding could easily be accomplished while still wearing underwear.

         I’m waiting on the seductively comfortable glorified gurney, and am thinking about how I’m just moments away from violating a very sensitive part of my body. I am trying to remain hopeful that I won’t end up looking like I have a very bad rash on a very wrong part of my body. What if I have to wear shorts for the rest of the summer to cover my blunder? Why am I doing this and who am I doing this for? But before I can answer any of these questions, in walks Lauren; long, blond haired, beautiful Lauren. She floats in, smiles her perfectly white toothed smile, and then together we peer at the humongous amount of coarse hair that rambles along the edges of my Fruit of the Looms. While she professionally scrutinizes the situation, I imagine she’s thinking, “Crap, I have to go back downstairs and get a lot more wax!” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “What happens if I pee? What happens if it hurts so much that a little bit of pee squirts out at just the wrong moment? Oh God, what am I doing here?” 

 Lauren calmly explains that she is going to apply wax to the overgrown areas, cover them with a cloth strip, and then remove the hair. “Remove” is the word that has me worried. “Remove” reeks of euphemism.

With an extra wide tongue depressor, Lauren slathers warm goo on my jumbled thicket. I have been instructed to hold my underwear far away from the wax. In this position practically everything is exposed, and I realize my panty-on or panty-off worry of earlier is a non-issue.

 The warmth from the wax actually feels soothing, and I begin to relax. Lauren is cheerfully chirping about the upcoming summer, and I am beginning to forget what she is actually about to do.  While bantering back and forth about sunbathing and sunscreen, Lauren is carefully but firmly pressing a strip of cloth onto her expertly laid wax; she smooth’s it onto my groin as if sealing the envelope of a love letter. I think, so far this is great, even tranquil, when RIP! Off comes the cloth, out rips my hair, and a high pitched shriek explodes from my lips. I have no idea whether my pee snuck out or not, because all my bodily sensations are focused on this one area of skin which is crying out from every violated hair follicle, “Why have you forsaken us?”

It takes about five more rips per side to get out what is needed. Upon completion, onlookers will no longer be offended by my unruly pubic hair; I am as smooth and hair-less as a newborn baby’s bottom. “When you get home,” Lauren councils, “you might want to trim the remaining hairs so they don’t poke out by accident.” Back home, I do as I am told. When I’m finished, I look in the mirror, and to my surprise see my twelve year old crotch smiling right back at me.

 Now, as if all this were not bad enough, there too are erroneous facial hairs to contend with. Years and years and years ago, when my first born son was only three, he made an innocent, yet startling observation at our dinner table. After looking carefully at my husband, and then equally carefully at me, he concluded, “Daddies have great big mustaches and Mommies have tiny little mustaches,” it was a moment that made his Mommy so very, very proud. Not!

Currently, my “tiny little mustache” is kept under control by tweezing. Filling my cheeks with air, I puff them out in front of my mega-magnifying mirror, as I can’t see a thing anymore, and use my slim, silver tweezers to tame my pelt. I actually did try to wax my upper lip at home once. I bought a do-it-yourself pruning kit, and read the directions as thoroughly as a jewel thief might study floor plans before a heist. The strips went on, the strips came off, and I was left looking like Adolf Hitler in drag.

Chin hairs have also become an unwanted issue. I have one particularly prongy one on the bottom right of my chin. I’ve alerted my daughter of its existence so that in my dotage she can extract it before I poke out the eye of my yet to be conceived, but very much hoped for, grandchild.

I must admit, I am cautiously optimistic that by the time my grandchild is faced with these same undesirables, either her weaponry will have become more sophisticated and less painful, or, and this is what the hippie in me most wishes for, that all our hairs, wherever they may be on our bodies, be welcomed, embraced, and cherished for their natural beauty and their Goddess given splendor. Amen sistah!