With alternatives like sugaring and laser on the menu and that scene from The 40-Year-Old Virgin living rent-free in our brains for the past 16 years, body waxing has gotten a bad rap. The hair-removal process might not be the trendiest, but hard wax is still an effective (and not-so-scary) method if you give it a chance at the hands of a trained professional.
In the newest episode of Macro Beauty, Amanda, a hard-wax newbie, tried the hair-removal service for the first time on her fingers, armpits, and nostrils. "I don't have time to think about plucking or shaving, so if I could have the luxury of someone doing it for me that would be great," she says. "I am very squeamish about pain and there's something about wax that is just very gruesome to me."
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To help make her first experience a good one, Amanda went to Jennifer Lopez, a beauty technician at WAX Melrose in Los Angeles. "Hard wax is for all skin types, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to try waxing," Lopez says. To get her client started, Lopez waited for the wax — which usually comes in bead form — to melt completely over heat. Once the wax was liquified, Lopez cleaned Amanda's skin to remove any oils or deodorant, then applied the wax.
"You want to apply the hard wax pretty thick on the skin because you want to make sure that once you remove the hard wax, the whole strip comes off," Lopez explained. "I let it harden for a few seconds, then I go over it with my hands to make sure that it's dry before removing." Lopez tweaks her technique slightly to be extra precise when focusing on smaller areas like the fingertips and nostrils.
Amanda's entire waxing service took about fifteen minutes and, she confirms, was practically painless. "I feel so much smoother," she says. "I would totally do this again." Click play to see the hard-wax procedure up close.