Essential Waxing Tips For Men And Women

Waxing can be painful, sticky and frustrating if you don’t know what you’re doing. In many cases people try it once and never go back to it again because their first attempt was less than agreeable.  On the other hand many people find that it gives great long results and swear by it. Here are a few waxing tips to get you started so that you’ll be prepared when the strip of muslin first touches your skin.

Pre Waxing Tips

• Before getting treated, take a warm shower and exfoliate your skin. This will help to open your pores so that the hairs come out more easily and will also eliminate any dead skin cells that may cause pain.
• Delay your morning coffee until after the procedure is done because the caffeine can wind up your nerves causing more pain.
• Apply Emla to the area that you want to work on so that it becomes numb.
• Take a couple of Advil half an hour before your appointment to help ease the pain.
• If it’s that time of the month move back your appointment for two or three days so that you won’t be as sensitive.
• Don’t wax if you have a rash, acne or a skin disorder. You’ll only worsen the situation.
• Don’t even attempt to wax after tanning because your skin may become irritated and infected.
• Make sure that your hair is about ¼” long so that the wax and muslin will be able to pick it up.

The Process

• Make sure to go to someone that is highly experienced and knows what they’re doing. If you want to wax at home first get it done professionally several times so that you can see firsthand how it’s done and then go on your own.
• If you want to wax at home, start by warming up the wax but be careful to not make it too hot or you’ll burn your skin. Apply some wax to a test area of your skin before smothering it on to a larger area just to be sure that it’s not too hot.
• Using a wooden tongue suppressor apply the wax to an area that is about two inches horizontally and four inches vertically. This may seem like a small area to cover but it will give you a precise treatment and won’t allow the wax to get cold and unusable.
• If you’re applying wax to an area that you don’t want to remove all of the hair, such as the eyebrows, keep in mind that wax spreads so you should leave some room between the wax and the hair that you want to keep. Otherwise you’ll end up removing hair that you didn’t want to remove.
• Gently put the muslin over the wax and smooth down. Be sure to leave yourself enough room on the muslin to be able to grab a hold of it.
• Pull the skin back so that it’s taught.
• With one quick movement pull the muslin in the direction of the hair. Don’t go about this slowly- you must be fast.

Post Waxing Tips

• Once you’re done, apply some baby oil to the treated area to remove any excess wax and then dust over it with baby powder .
• Don’t shower for 10 hours and then stay away from the hot shower for a couple of days and go for a warm or cool one instead.
• If you get any ingrown apply some Tend Skin to the area to get them out quickly and easily.
• If you’re waxing your body, be sure to wear loose fitting clothes made from cotton as to not irritate the skin.

While the process may not be totally pain free, it will be much better that if you don’t use these suggestions. Good luck!

First image is from flickr

Second image is from flickr