MY JOURNEY OF SELF DISCOVERY

Genetically, I have been blessed with a thick growth of hair. Just the placement of them went a little wrong. Instead of thick lush black hair on my head, I have thick black jungle on my legs. I didn’t know women needed to shave their body parts so that they don't repel men. I was in a convent school. I started off shaving my legs and hands when I was 14 and I didn't even understand why a naturally occurring process can be repulsive to somebody. Don't men get to choose whether they want to shave their beard or not.

From the dreadful task of shaving every 2 weeks, also came the laziness of wearing skirts and shorts. I used to opt for long sleeves and jeans, only to delay the appointment with my razor for another week.

Coming of age, I started getting attracted to guys in my class. I realized, in-order to gain the confidence to even go and talk to them, I need to feel confident inside out. Imagine my plight if the guy’s arms touched mine and he jumps off his seat from my prickly new born razor shaved hair.  I decided to say goodbye to razors and started going through the messy process of waxing every month. I would go to waxing parlors and go through the painful process of getting my hair plucked. More than the pain, the detest of putting my body on that sticky bed, that was covered in the wax residues of the previous client, was the worst feeling of all. After the entire process was done, I would feel like a caramel candy, with my clothes sticking to my body like a toffee wrapper.

I couldn’t go back to shaving. As per the Friendly-Parlor-Lady, my legs were difficult to wax because of the whole shaving thing that I had been doing for all those years. And if I continue to shave for another 10 years, my legs will resemble that of a chimpanzee.

As I progressed with age and wanted to become more independent. I left my house and my country and came to make my career in the US. Getting full body waxing in the States costs close to 100$-200$ every month. Something that I used to pay Rs.100  for, costs $200 in the States. That’s double the price multiplied by the conversion rate. I understood that I have to this tedious process myself. I did a full-fledged research on the best ways to make is less messy and cheap. I saw multiple YouTube videos on making Sugar wax to making Sugaring wax. I tried roll on waxes, Veet Strips, microwavable wax applicators etc. By the time I would finish doing one leg, I would be exhausted and leave the other leg for another day. This continued for almost 2 years and there was never a day when both my legs were hair-free simultaneously.

I wouldn’t complain so much about it since I wore full sleeves and Padded Jeans with boots on most days of the year. So it hardly mattered whether I shaved or not. Besides, by now I had been enlightened by the “Book of Womanhood: 100 Ways to Screw Your Own Life”, that even our face needs to be cleaned of their almost invisible facial hair.

In between struggling with cleaning the wax on my floor, I came across a device that would pluck hair out like a million tweezers going all over your body at once. It’s called the Epilator. The Epilator unlike waxing doesn’t distribute the pain evenly over the entire area. You can actually feel the pain of each hair getting plucked individually. But, it’s a no mess process. That means, no more sticky wax. Besides, it’s rather tricky to apply the wax on certain corners of your body that epilator can easily access. So I took the risk and got one. The first thing I tried with it was epilating my underarm hair. Unlike most women, waxing my underarms is a piece of cake for me. I realized this when I used the epilator on them and I could feel almost no pain. I thought to myself, “Why do all these girls make such a fuss about the epilator. This was freaking painless.” I was overconfident and my overconfidence silenced my brain, who was trying to tell me that I have thick hair on my legs that have roots deeper than a freaking Banyan Tree. I tried it on my legs and I swear to you, I had a black out for the first 5 seconds. The pain was worse than those bloody flu shots. OMG! I am dead. I had 2 whole legs to wax and at that point I wish I was one legged or probably a doll who can detach her legs, wax them and put them back.

I got used to the pain over a period of time. But, that wasn’t the bad part. Because of the whole plucking and shit, I could see the pores on my legs that made it look like it still had tiny hair here and there. And let’s not even talk about the in grown hair. So all this for nothing.

However, there was this one time. Oh Yes! There is always this one time, when you need to get rid of those hair immediately and you don’t have the patience to use an epilator. That’s when the old friend Mr. Razor comes handy. I had only 15 minutes in hand, my friend was waiting for me so that we could go to the pool. The only thing I could do then was shave everything off quickly.

While doing that I realized, my legs felt smoother and cleaner than after using an epilator. Plus it’s equally less messy. I can see my skin that doesn’t look like an orange. I found my old friend in a new packet and that’s when I threw everything away and stuck to my trusted equipment. I don’t need to carry it around with me all the time. I can always find a shaver where ever I go. Even in convenience stores like 7-eleven.

So this was my journey of self-discovery. Self-discovery of the fact that the Friendly-Parlor-Lady just wants to grow her business by down grading the shaver, while it actually is the best of all.