What I am about to share with you is something I don’t normally share with anyone. I am a hairy woman. There. I’ve said it out loud. I am a hairy woman. I have more chin hairs than an old greek woman and her donkey combined and I’ve been known to swear at my mum asking for proof of our apparently ‘hairless’ European ancestry. We, as women, develop very close relationships with our beauty therapists. They pluck, wax, lift and separate our bits. We share our body parts and our lives all within the confined space of four little walls but heaven forbid we meet them in the real world. They are women who know ‘everything’ about us and all of the secrets that we hold between our pores.
I’ve found a waxer woman that I love. She works at home and there aren’t any awkward conversations about what I need done. We had the conversation once. The first time I called I booked the normal eyebrow wax. On arrival, she greeted me with a friendly smile, laid me on the bed and put on some fancy rainforest music and asked me how I was. With polite little chit chat, I slipped in that if there was anything else needing waxing to take care of that as well. She did. Since that day, I make the same ‘eyebrow’ appointment and walk out twenty minutes later with eyebrows plus extras waxed and my eyelashes tinted. It costs me $25 every four weeks and it’s an investment I am willing to make to ensure that my inner Greek stays firmly hidden from the world.
Last weekend I was going to Sydney. I was due for waxing and I had to make an appointment. That’s when disaster struck. My waxing lady recently had a baby and has scaled back her hours. She could only fit me in one afternoon before the trip and it was the same afternoon as a school-planned function. Disaster. A public holiday struck between the trip and no appointment and I was preparing myself to meet a hundred people looking like a partly grown yeti. A last minute stop at Coles and the local Asian run nail shop had a white board out the front with eyebrows spelt wrong. That should have been my first warning, but like I said, I was desperate. The whiteboard said it would be $10. I marched through the doors determined to have the awkward conversation that enabled me to communicate that I needed my whole face waxed.
She ushered me quickly behind the curtain and pointed to the plastic covered bed. I slid up and across with as much grace as I could muster and put my sweaty hands together on my chest. I pointed to the ‘other’ two areas on my face and she nodded in seeming understanding. With a lot of tut tutting, combing, brushing and squinting she plastered my face with wax. Upper, lower, sides, under and in once instance, in. The woman was obviously offended by the stray nose hair I didn’t know I had developed and she proceeded to rim my nostril with warm, melty, unbreathable, brown wax. While trying to avoid the mild onset of claustrophobia by calming my breathing to avoid inhaling wax through my nose to my brain, she must have noticed the perplexed look across my face. ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, I make it better!’ she said at me, nodding profusely and waving her little wax stick across my face and chest.
While feeling a little violated and slightly embarrassed about my offensive face and its inhabitants, I slid from the bed ready to hand over my cash. In no other place do we pay to humiliate ourselves. She charged me $40 for the privilege, told me I look beautiful and began to usher me out the door. With one foot step out of the salon, I was home and hosed, ready to put the humiliation behind me as soon as the redness had disappeared. She moved from behind the bench to wave me off when she screamed, ‘Wait, you need a pedicure!’
‘I know,’ I said back. ‘But I don’t have time right now.’
‘Fifteen minutes, I promise. I make your feet pretty too.’
I rolled my eyes and resigned myself to sit in the chair. The taps were turned on and the ‘pampering’ began. She scrubbed and sliced at my feet and it wasn’t long before she started with the questions. How old are you? Do you have kids? A husband? A boyfriend? Do you live at home with your parents then? None of my answers seemed to be acceptable and even through the language barrier I understood that she was amazed at my life choices. Single, early thirties, not supporting my family and not looking after my body in anyway that she thought was going to catch me a husband. By the time my pampered body left the salon, I walked out the door with red toenails, sliced heels, manicured hands, painted nails, a face more hairless than it had ever been, buffed, shined, partly humiliated and $100 poorer. My morning, impromptu trip to the salon had cost me. Dollars, sweat, skin, a little bit of blood and a whole lot of dignity.
It was on the way out the door that I cursed my wax lady and sang her praises all at the same time. There’s a very good reason we stay loyal to our beauticians. Why we find one and then dread the day they leave us. What I wouldn’t have given for the little nod from Stella, the idle chit chat about our weeks and the update about her kids. I had paid for my desertion with about as much as I could muster, and I promise Stella. I will never stray again.
I have accepted my hairy fate and do worry about the day that my eyesight gets so bad that I can’t see the grey hairs that have sprouted from my face. I know that you will all be too polite to tell me that they are there and I can only hope that my relationship with Stella lasts long enough for her just to continue to take care of it. In the mean time I am happy to admit that the most committed, meaningful relationship that I have in my life is the one I have with my beauty therapist. She knows my face and my secrets better than I do. Love you Stella!
life in big frilly knickers 