Made Up

Say goodbye to expensive leg-waxing in beauty salon misery is what it might have said on the box. The box from Body Shop contained a tub of wax, a bagful of strips of some hemp-like material and an instruction leaflet. Heat the wax slowly in a saucepan, it said. I said, “We’ll be here all night,” as after half-an-hour the block remained resolutely hard and Sandra waited expectantly in the lounge, so I bunged the wax in the microwave and pressed Go.

The dog couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to come in to investigate the sound of hair being ripped from legs, and the squeals of pain and laughter, as the floor was covered in discarded strips of sticky, hirsute fabric, and soon an Airedale terrier was padding about wearing four little hairy-wax sandals. Although I was prepared to press on, Sandra declared the experiment over when her bikini line was next in line, and, all-in-all, wax all over the place, bits I’d missed, and an evening gone, it was decided to say hello again to expensive leg-waxing in beauty salon misery.

Last week I solicited some stories from friends and family about the things women go through to look good. Someone spent 4 months sleeping in make-up rather than let the new boyfriend see her unadorned features, though as she points out, the Alice-Cooper-at sunrise look probably did her no favours either, but as she says, she’s learning to let go. From haemorrhoid cream under the eyes to reduce wrinkles, though some use egg whites, to microdermabrasion which was apparently pioneered by the Spanish Inquisition, involving as it does, stripping away layers of skin to banish those pesky tell-tale signs of ageing.

I hear that this years thing is individual eyelashes which take 2 hours to apply and last about 6 weeks. Then you could have a micro-current electronic facial, which is supposed to lift everything, much like the tit tape one has to use when wearing a backless dress, although I’m told that many use Gaffa tape. Laser hair removal is most efficient, but in the words of my source, “big ouch, really painful”, then you’ll need your acrylic or gel nails, for which infills are needed every couple of weeks.

Colonic irrigation can be employed as a tactic to get you into that too-tight outfit, and someone who did so has also, and I quote, “Been wrapped up like a mummy, steamed, massaged from here to Mexico and back, had strange suction pads attached to the body, been zapped with various electronic instruments, power-washed against a wall in St Lucia (where a better aim would be appreciated) covered in mud, wrestled and thumped by a Thai masseur, salted, scrubbed, oiled, prodded and poked, spent weeks away as a singleton at various spas being starved to death. Had people creep into my room at some ungodly hour to test my metabolic rate as I sleep and when wake up it’s to the promise of a charcoal biscuit for breakfast and all for a grand a week”.

So, my shower and shave takes 10 minutes tops, and before the Jaffa-Cake-and- ginger exfoliant has even been uncorked, I’m suited-up and downstairs with the gin and the records for an hour or so while Sandra prepares. Men and women are oceans apart on this, and none the worse for it, I’d say. You can imagine then how I reacted when I heard that a brother-in-law gets his hands waxed. Although in fairness, you wouldn’t want all that thick, black hair all over the palms of your hands, would you?