Your Body On…waxing
Here's all the dope on the much-needed monthly ritual of de-fuzzing your birthday suit. Ideal hair length for waxing? 0.6 cm.
You're slipping
You're slipping into those super cute demin shorts, but wait; is that hair you feel? Time to schedule the monthly torture session where you voluntarily let a stranger drip hot wax over you and then yank it off in one smooth move. Hair, be gone…but just for a month. Sad smiley emoji.
At the wax dungeon
You strip and pull on a gown, hoping it's herpes-free. The beautician makes you lie down and feels your legs. Awkward! But wait, she is just trying to check the direction of your hair growth. You know what's going to happen next. Anticipating pain, your body releases stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol.
A study published in the PLOS Computational Biology talked about how the anticipation of pain or 'dread' feels worse than pain itself.
Wax on
As you chat about the weather, the lady dips a blunt butter-knife into a piping hot tub of wax. She spreads it thin, places a strip on the area and jerks it off against the direction of your hair growth. And here comes the pain. Your nerves carry the message to the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula of the brain.
If you had any other painful experience, these messages would zip across to your legs to move away from the pain.
Wax off
The hair gets pulled from the root and along with it a part of the top layer of the skin-the epidermis. The epidermis protects your skin, but now you are more prone to infections. You also notice redness and slight swelling in sensitive areas (such as the bikini line). That's blood pooling on the surface. The lady wipes you clean with an antiseptic and sprays on some astringent so you don't break out. Do ask for some cooling lotion to relax your angry-red skin-also barrier protection at its best (aloe vera gel is great). And avoid using a towel on the pubic region or the underarms.
Back home at last
A few weeks later, you may notice a bump…damn you ingrown hair! You are also more prone to acne-like eruptions for the next five to 10 days as your follicles are all open. Check with a doc for topical antibiotics if lesions form. If it's folliculitis-a bacterial infection caused due to trauma to the hair follicles-he may put you on oral meds.
The next time, avoid waxing during the pre-menstrual and menstrual time. Your hair follicle roots are most sensitive then, thereby increasing your chances of getting a boil or an infection. Until the next time then!
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