LESSONS LEARNED ON THE WAY TO BRAZIL

My husband was coming home for a break from his deployment to Iraq and I was racing around, sprucing everything up. After cleaning the house and coiffing my hair, I took a look down south and decided I could benefit from a little spring cleaning there as well. I tend to go whole hog on any endeavor I undertake, and so rather than doing a modest landscaping, I decided to bite the bullet and go all the way. After all, no pain, no gain, right? And I figured a little pain would be worth the end result. Little did I know that “little” would not even begin to cover it when I made an appointment at my local spa for a Brazilian Bikini Wax.

For those of you wise women who have not gone to Brazil, let me explain. A normal bikini wax basically strips bare the area revealed in a swimsuit. You can take it pretty extreme, just leaving the “landing strip”, if you prefer. But a trip to Brazil means it all comes off, baby. It’s a one-way ticket…no hair, no where. No front-hair. No back. No booty-crack. Nothing. Now, this wasn’t my maiden voyage to Brazil, but the first trip had ended rather unsuccessfully. I had attempted a home wax job on my bikini area but after a valiant effort, I still couldn’t get the area as bare as I had hoped, and so I followed up the waxing with a big dollop of Nair. BIG, BIG MISTAKE. NEVER EVER TO BE REPEATED. Let me just say that I spent the rest of the day with a cold diet coke wedged between my legs, in agony. The intense burning was unimaginable. Like lemon juice on a fresh wound. I was not about to trust that rather tender spot to my own folly again. I was heading to a pro.

I told the spa receptionist, “I am half Jamaican. Do you know what that means? Has she worked on anyone with really stubborn hair before?” She assured me that the aesthetician was VERY good and not to worry. Apparently, she didn’t pass that tidbit on, because when my sweet blonde aesthetician got a gander at me full frontal, I could see the anxiety beginning.
I’m not a wolf-woman or anything, but I do have very, very stubborn hair. I can shave my legs and have five o-clock shadow by 10am. I am NEVER going to go bald. I don’t think ANYONE in my family, for generations, has had hair loss. So, for my aesthetician to pull any hair out of any part of my body completely defies nature. And believe me, Mother Nature was not about to lose.

She tugged for over an hour with no results. When she wasn’t getting anywhere with my front, she flipped me over to try the back. She started out very gently, with my torso covered demurely by a sheet. We had light-hearted conversation and high optimism. By the end though, she was huffing and puffing, the sheet had fallen to the floor and I was bracing myself against the bed in the birthing position. No more conversation or laughter or pretenses at modesty. She was up close and personal with my yoo-hoo, giving it her full concentration and full strength, all to no avail. “I…CAN…NOT…BE…LIEVE…THIS!”, she gasped as she tugged away furiously. I asked her, between grimaces, “So…are you busy with lots of women coming in for Brazilians now that summer is coming?” and she replied, between huffs, “Actually….(GRUNT)…you are my first.” OY. SAY NO MORE. Talk about baptism by fire. Yikes.

She finally gave up, defeated, discouraged and probably exhausted from her hour long tug o’ war, and charged me for just a regular bikini wax. Both she and my bikini area were a little worse for the wear. She came away haggard, her confidence slightly tattered, and my bikini area, red, welty, and slightly balder. I’m sure the image of it still haunts her. It had been a bloody battle but we both had learned some valuable lessons. First, Mother Nature can be a royal biotche, kicks booty at Tug o’ war and sometimes you just have to know when not to cross her. For Jamaicans, that point is most DEFINITELY the bikini line. And second, in regard to Brazilian waxes, sometimes it is just all pain, no gain. Tough way to learn them though. Real tough.