There are some beauty procedures that are loads of fun to do at home. Giving yourself a spa pedicure, for one. Even the more complicated things like at home highlights can be relaxing if you manage not to totally botch it. But there are some things you should absolutely leave to the professionals. This is something I am unhappy to report, that I am all too familiar with -- and I've got the literal scars to prove it.
I'm not a very hairy person. I've got fair skin and fair hair and it's all sensitive. Don't believe me? I've got the lack-of-eyebrows to prove it. Seriously, it's like I've got some sort of eyebrow shedding disorder. It's a shame, too, because I've longed to go have my face-hair tended to -- there just isn't enough of it to allow for this luxury and rite of womanly passage.
While I can pretend I'm normal and fill in my eyebrows to Brooke-Shields proportions there are other areas of my body where I definitely can't fake it. My bikini area is one of them. I'll be real -- I rock a full on '70s bush. Well, less bush more tumble-weed. Frankly, there's not enough happening there to put it through all the paces that most of the women I know go through. On the rare day I'll be donning a bathing suit, it's shaving or nothing at all.
On my twenty-fifth birthday, I decided that in spite of not really needing to do it, I'd get a bikini wax. You know how thirteen year old girls who don't need them are always very excited about training bras? Yeah, it was like that. Only with wax. Poorly applied to my front-bottom. That's right -- my cheap, ignorant behind was idiotic enough to try and wax my own bikini area for the first time at home solo with no experience.
I don't really know what I was thinking. Maybe it had something to do with looking my best for my birthday? Maybe there was a dude I was hoping to trick into joining me in my sensual love palace? Maybe I had gotten it into my head that having a pubic area that resembled Mr. Bigglesworth would surely make me feel sexy?
Whatever way you slice it -- the whole venture was ill-advised. Because, while the application was comical if painless, the removal of those little strips was like a straight-up snuff film. In addition to yanking out my more little hairs, I also managed to take off the top layer of skin. My nerves shriek thinking about it even now. There will be blood, indeed.
I had to trundle off to my birthday party high on pain-pills and wearing an over-night maxi-pad to staunch the flow of blood. I didn't faint, but I came close. Verily, not one birthday girl got lucky that night. Suffice to say I learned my lesson. I'll never try at-home privates waxing again. Hell, I probably won't try it elsewhere either. But if for some reason the madness strikes me, you can bet I'll be leaving it up to a professional.
What was your biggest at home beauty catastrophe?
Image via © Alyson Aliano/cultura/Corbis