Ok, lets talk hair!

I’m sure by now most of you are aware of the rather bizarre conversations I get caught up in… Well I had one the other week (with about 3 different people) about genital shaving. Well it was about general shaving to begin with, and ended up being about genital shaving.

Now I have to ask… HOW is it even possible…? I mean, I get razor burn just looking at a razor!

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

You need some background before I tell you about my current state of razor burn where razors were never meant to go…

Now it has to be said, I really have NO clue about shaving… My foray into this wonderful world of hair-free status was somewhat plagued from the start.

At 13 I noticed that my facial hair was starting to get a bit thicker, which I thought was a bit odd at the time. Now my parents method of dealing with puberty was to say nothing and hope it would, either all go away, or I’d figure it out myself by trial and error. To this end, I was given a 45 or so page book on the affects of puberty by my parents, and that was their entire assistance for me to learn, understand and cope with puberty, sex education, and all the things that went along with it.

So after spending 10 minutes reading it from cover to cover (yes it was that in-depth… More like “Puberty by Pictures!”) I felt fully aware of what was going on, what was supposed to happen and what it all meant.

Looking at my face again, I knew it was time to begin the dreaded art of shaving. I was prepared… my parents weren’t! Even before the book, I knew that to shave you have to have a razor. So I asked my parents to get me one.

*rolls eyes*

BIG mistake!

My father said that I didn’t need a razor, I was too young. He didn’t need one until he was 15, after all, and my mother didn’t want me playing with sharp objects.

*sigh*

Things weren’t going too well so far!

So for the first year and a bit of my pubescent life, I had to spend about 3 hours twice a week in the bathroom with a pair of tweezers… Not quite the introduction to shaving I had been expecting, it has to be said!

After a year, my mother had grown so sick of me spending so long in the bathroom, she decided I should have a razor. But, as my father still thought I was too young, and my mother still didn’t want me playing with sharp objects… I was presented with an old (and I’m talking 1960’s here at a rough guess) Remington Lady shaver.

*sigh* So there I was, with a non-sharp, Remington Lady Shaver (specifically for legs and underarm hair according to the box) to shave my face with, and with it being pretty blunt, the occasional marathon tweezers session thrown in for good grooming measure.

And that was my introduction to life as a teenager, with all the joys of puberty. By the time I was 17 and managing to get a bit more freedom with my pocket money (ie I was devious, underhanded and sneaky in spending it) I finally managed to purchase my own real electric razor. After spending over 2 years hacking my face to bits each morning with a blunt leg shaver, I’d come to the conclusion my skin was way too sensitive to use a standard razor!

And the rest as the say is history… The chunks out of my face eventually grew back (scar-free, I’m pleased to say) and the leg shaver was last seen getting jumped on (by me) and the resulting parts being thrown into the bin
Now the problem is, even now, I end up with a face covered in blood each morning when shaving. I can’t let the hair grow, because it causes a rash, but if I shave I have blood everywhere. So given my, already bizarre shaving history, I did the natural thing… I turned to chemical abuse.

Bring on the Nair!

Went to the store, bought the bottle, stared down the shop girl by explaining in no uncertain terms that I was not going to wear tights unless I had shaved my legs… *smirks* and then got home and read the instructions.

Simple enough, test somewhere out of the way, wait 24 hours, if no reaction, use happily.

I can do that… Tried it on a leg… Waited 24 hours, no problem. Tried it on face, waited required time, rinsed off, examined new lobster like appearance in mirror… Spent 4 hours applying aloe vera to reduce burning rash. Then looked at leg and found matching lobster tint.

Ok, so I guess that is out… On to waxing.

Put wax on hidden area… Put cloth strip over wax… Pull… Scream… Spend next 2 minutes trying to soak cloth strip to remove from flesh. Find yet another patch of lobster… Only this time, with all hair intact… Scream at tub of wax and then throw in bin.

So back to the shaving.

But what’s all this got to do with genital shaving I hear you ask…

Well, fast-forward a few years. I’m now in my early 20’s, and discover that I’m allergic to tap water. Not too big of a problem, only the parts of the body with hair take longer to dry than the other parts, causing itchy rash from prolonged contact with water during bathing…

Now I?m not saying I?ve reached yeti status…

*combs left leg*

*plats hair on right leg*

*weaves socks out of hair on feet*

But any hair takes longer to dry than just skin. Now I could use a hair dryer on my head, that?s not a problem, but honestly, have you tried blow drying your legs of pubic hair… There must be a knack to styling them with a hair dryer, and I guess I just don?t have it
Then it was back to the drawing board. So out with the trusty nail scissors, trim as much as possible, and then finish off with the razor.

All well and good, until I found that I came out in spots anywhere I had shaved after about an hour, which would then develop into a red burning rash within a further couple of hours and would last about 4 days.

I tried that a further twice over the next couple of months, and decided that it just wasn’t worth it, since I was in more discomfort shaving than I was with the water rash!

Well a little later on I read about an Australian housewife who had developed a new and natural hair removal treatment. Now according to the article she was a mother of a slightly “overly hairy” daughter and had developed this product as a natural way of removing the hair from her sensitive skin. Perfect I thought!

Ok, so my first thought was actually “Overly hairy? She’s developed an entire range, never mind overly hairy, the poor girl must be a yeti!!!” and then I thought, “Perfect, I’ll try it!”

Got it, was a little worried when I found it worked in the same was as a wax (i.e. paste it on, rip it off with cloth strips) but the instructions were clear, it was fairly pain free, could be used anywhere on the face or body, would weaken the hair, reduce re-growth and quickly remove all unwanted hair…

Uhh huh!

On most people I’m sure it would… unfortunately I had a chemical reaction with the stuff… It left most of the hair, ripped all the top layer of skin off and stuck to everything! It was very painful trying to wash this green goo off a section of leg that had no top layer of skin on! Then it was off to the cabinet for a bandage, and that was the last time I ever tried that product again!

Anyway, now fast forward to about a month ago. Same product, only a cream, all herbal and for extra sensitive skin. QVC, money back guarantee… and my water rash was getting particularly bad. So I ordered some.

Now a week later, the cream has arrived and I’ve just had a conversation with a couple of people who have started shaving everything!

Funny isn’t it, go back 20 years and men would even go as far as buying chest wigs to make themselves look sexy to women, and now here we are with everyone shaving everything to look or feel they look attractive…

Anyway, you can probably see now, why to this day, I cannot work out how it is even possible to take a razor and shave everything without turning into a red sore and bleeding mass whose hair grows back in the space of hours anyway…

Now if anyone knows how this is done… I’m dying to know! Feel free to share your trade secrets for the rest of us mere mortals!

Oh yes… my current state, I almost forgot…

Well, I tried the cream, two coats and I was about 2 millimetres away from being hair free, smooth, silky and feeling generally slinky…

Unfortunately those 2mm caught and clicked on every item of clothing known to man, including items I wasn’t even wearing at the time! Which, of course caused yet another red itchy rash… But that was over a week ago, it cleared up in a day or two and I was left with a somewhat unattractive stubble on places just not designed for stubble (bring on the razor burn in places razors just shouldn’t go!)

Well, *peers at self* the cream did remove most of the hair, just leaving stubble, and it did slow down re-growth, the only problem now is that the stubble that is left is now so soft, silky and reaping the benefits of all the herbal extracts in the cream, that it just wont come off, no matter how much of the stuff I put on…

*wails*

Why does this always happen to me?

But at least I have the most well conditioned stubble this side of the Atlantic…

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