Wax On, Wax Off

I don’t know if it’s like this for you, but keeping track of my facial hair is starting to feel like a part-time job! Eyebrows, and upper lip were bad enough - now add lower lip, chin, and these crazy neck hairs! By the time I take care of all these areas something else grows and I have to start all over again.

I tweeze, I wax, and I use depilatories. I’ve even tried a device that resembles a nail file. This thing is supposed to “buff” the hair off your face. I was a bit overzealous. I removed the hair but wound up with what looked like rug burns in the corners of my mouth.

Sometimes when I’m watching TV, I gently scan my face with my fingertips looking for strays – tweezers at the ready.

I’ll admit I’m a bit obsessed. I can’t help it. This is how I was raised.

Some girls experience a rite of passage when they start their menstrual cycles or shave their legs. When my mother first heated up her wax pot for me, I knew I was a woman.

“You can’t just bleach it because the hair is still there, “she’d say.

And so it began. Not only did I keep an eye out for my own hairy lip, I began to notice others. Knowing my mother is always on the look out keeps me on the ball. I remember once when I returned home to New York for a visit. My mother said something to me that I’ll always remember. I’m not sure if it was at the gate or the baggage claim…maybe it was in the car on the way to her house. After the big hugs and smiles she turned to me and said, “You have to do your ‘stache.”

To this day, my sister and I will be innocently sitting in my mother’s kitchen – drinking coffee and talking – when Mom will suddenly jump up and exclaim, “Let’s do our mustaches!” She gets out the little pot and puts it on the stove. Sometimes one of my sisters-in-law will be there. “Do you want to do yours?” she asks with a smile like she’s giving out candy.

Mom’s a little too happy about the whole process. We all sit around the table with this brown wax on our upper lips and my mother does her usual Groucho Marx imitation. (“Say the secret word and win a prize!”) This is the easy part. Soon the party moves into the bathroom where Audrey and I take turns sitting on the toilet clutching on to a towel with our eyes closed as our mother yanks the wax and hair off of our faces. She holds wax up to the light and says, “It looks like grass.” Then the really scary part comes. Mom carefully examines our upper lips and nine times out of ten proclaims, It didn’t get it all. We need to do it again.” At this point I start remembering things I’ve done wrong as a kid that maybe I haven’t been forgiven for. Is this a beauty treatment or retribution?

Afterward, as I slather on the moisturizer, my mother says, “I can’t believe how red your skin gets!”

Let’s think about this for a minute. We just put hot wax on my skin, left it there to harden a bit and then ripped out my hair by the roots. My skin is now red and tender – Shocker!

Incidentally, the women in my family are all fair skinned with fair hair and blue eyes. In fact we’re not particularly hairy at all. So I guess we’re just nuts. Nuts with smooth upper lips, but nuts all the same