Hairy Legs

Marci mentioned hairy legs in yesterday’s comments, and it gave me the idea to discuss those furry buggers today. Now, you’re either religious about shaving your legs, so-so, or you don’t bother unless you have to. I’m a so-so kind of bird. I try to keep on top of it, but sometimes, especially during winter, those hairs kinda keep my legs warm so I leave them to grow like the unruly weeds they are.

Well, there are various ways to get rid of that hair, aren’t there? Yes, and I eff most of them up. Years ago, I had a Ladyshaver, bought as a Christmas present I think. I was in my teens, I know that, and I felt most marvellous for having a “grown-up” shaver. The problem with it was, you know the metal bits at the side of the shaving bit—shit, a writer who can’t explain her damn self—umm, the actually silver bit that does the shaving, the edges of those used to dig into my leg and leave a pair of angry red marks. Also, the bloody thing used to either burn my skin or cause some form of irritation, because by the time I’d finished, not only did I have the thin red marks but also a kind of shading in of lighter red from the main shaving strip. Great!

So then I got, when it first came out, a new-fangled shaver. Called the Epi Lady or something like that, where the oscillating shaving bit took the hairs out by the root instead of just cutting them. Oh my. Let’s all buy one and have the pleasure of having the sensation of a million pin-prick jabs as we position our foot delicately on the bath edge and shave our walking equipment. No, let’s not. By the time I’d finished, I had tears streaming down my cheeks and the urge to throw the Epi-Wotsit down the toilet.

Then I moved onto the shaving cream. You know the kind. With the spatula thing you scrape up your leg after having the cream on for five minutes. It didn’t work for me. Utter crap. First, it smelled like eggs gone bad, and while I strolled around the house waiting for the ten minutes to pass, everyone kept asking everyone else who had farted. With everyone denying being the culprit, and me leaving them to it because hey, it was fun listening, I went upstairs with much excitement at the thought of running that spatula up my leg and seeing the hairs just GONE! 1, the spatula had a rough edge and it felt like it was taking my top layer of skin off, and 2, the hair just bunched up like matted teddy bear—yes, I hadn’t shaved for quite some time at this point—and didn’t come off. The trusty Bic razor had to come out, and shaving off those matted hairs HURT!

So then I decided to just stick with the razor and shave them just before getting out of the bath, using shower gel as an equivalent of shaving foam. This is a good method, unless, like me, you regularly slice half your damn kneecap off, gouge out a divot from the skin over your shin bone, and, mothereffer of all pains, where it feels like that razor has become a machete, taking a chunk of skin off your ankle. I have since learned not to go bull at a gate with the razor and become quite adept, but there have been times in the past where I’ve shaved them dry for lack of time to do otherwise and earned myself chafed red legs that itched like crazy.

I tried waxing once, and it wasn’t my legs. No, for my first and ONLY time of waxing, I decided I’d be clever and wax my bikini line. Oh. My. God. Anyone ever done this? There I was, merrily following the package instructions, which SHOULD look like the following, in my opinion, and soon discovered I wanted no part of the waxing craze:

Step One: Place tube of wax in hot—not boiling!—water. We have to mention the boiling water because we think you’re stupid.

Step Two: Wait ten minutes.

Step Three: Spread wax on the area you wish to remove hair from. Be warned, the wax is very hot and could burn your skin to the point you jump around your bathroom shouting “Argh, argh, argh!” and possibly “Oh, fuck ME that’s hot!”

Step Four: Once you have completed this step, use the strip provided and press it onto the wax. Be sure you don’t press ALL of the strip onto the wax, leaving yourself with no means of having anything to grip. This leads to you having to try and wedge some scissors between your skin and the strip, and also the wax, which will have gone cold, so you can cut your hairs and create the tab of strip you need to grip. If you succeed in doing this without stabbing yourself or causing untold pain, please move on to the next step.

Step Five: Grip the strip and pull AWAY from your body in one fast motion.

Step Six: Once you’re done screaming, wipe the tears from your face, take a deep breath, and try again. We realise the strip didn’t budge an inch. Don’t count to ten and coach yourself to pull. Please just pull. Don’t be disheartened that your skin is throbbing and on fire. Waxing takes some getting used to.

Step Seven: Repeat step five.

Step Eight: Repeat step six…

Step Nine: Continue to repeat steps five and six until the strip has been removed. Please note, this may take several attempts and leave you a sobbing wreck.

Step Ten: Success! You now hold the strip between finger and thumb, complete with ONE hair on it. You’re sweating profusely, your gums hurt from having clenched your teeth too hard, and you vow never to use wax again.

Step Eleven: Revert back to the trusty razor, clenching your teeth again as it snags in the wax-coated hairs and rips them from your body, making you bleed.

So, it isn’t surprising, then, why some women don’t bother shaving their legs or other hairy parts. I won’t even go into how much it hurts when spraying deodorant on a freshly shaved armpit…

Well, you beautiful bunch of readers, it’s Friday and the last day of my week of posting for the month. Next week we have the fabulous Tess MacKall to entertain us. The way we work this is we all have a week. We can post once or all week. If one of us doesn’t post more than once or twice during our week, one of the remaining three hopefully will. So, you might see my crazy arse popping up from time to time before my week rolls around again. You poor sods…

I’m also over at Three Wicked Writers Plus Two today for my regular weekly spot in my Natalie Dae persona, so if you’re interested in joining in, come on over! The post is about an emotional moment for me and my youngest daughter, and I’ll admit I cried while writing it.

Have a great day, a great weekend, and I’ll “see” you soon!