But I must warn you. This post contains alarming content and is focused on a singularly disturbing fact: women have body hair!
No, I know, based on magazine ads you’d think we all come out of the womb with bald bodies and perfect coiffures. But we don’t, and most women I know choose to deal with it in some way.
If that is too much for you to deal with, look away now!
(PS, I wish I could flout social conventions enough to say f*ck it, but I can’t. I see hairy legs and bushy eyebrows and I think “dude.” Feminists sisters, do not disown me!)
I’ll deal with leg hair in another post, but this one is reserved for the face – eyebrows, upper lip, whatevs.
In my time I have waxed, bleached, plucked, sugared and wished my Oscar-the-Grouch unibrow away. For a long time, I came upon a solution I liked: waxing at home. Paying for someone else to wax my brows was too expensive for cheap old me and besides, I’ve seen some really bad waxing jobs in my time -- you know, the super-thin-permanently-surprised look.
But when I started planning coming to South Africa, I knew that I couldn’t bring my bulky little hot wax machine with me. And who knew what kind of products I would find here. Would they have the wax I liked? Etc…
So, on I went to the internet, and I found the BEST solution I could have ever come up with: THREADING.
I had seen threading before, but I assumed that you needed someone to do it to you. I had no idea you could do it yourself! Ah, internet, how I love you!
The beauty of it is that all you need is a bit of thread and some practice, and voila, goodbye Frida! *
The basic idea is using a piece of twisted thread to catch and pull hairs:
As the knot slides back and forth, it traps the hairs and pulls them out. The best way to understand the process and learn how to do it is to watch the myriad of YouTube videos on the subject. Here are some of my favorites:
And there are a ton more, so watch all the videos you can to get the idea.
HAVE PATIENCE. YOU WILL GET IT.
It took me a few times to get the tension/rhythm right, and I had to keep experimenting with the length of the thread that I used ... but it was so worth it. Now all I need is a little loop of thread (I prefer 100% polyester) and I’m all set!
(PPS, not to diss my girl Frida Kahlo, I adore her, and make a pretty good one, no?)
PPPS: Those eyebrows were drawn on! My unibrow isn't quite as magnificent as hers! :o)
I've always been a plucker myself but will have to give this a try - looks surprisingly easier than it sounds!
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