IPL and the Chocolate Starfish

In my latest reincarnation I'm a Social Media Manager. I'm finding there are certain downsides to having a few clients for my social media management gig these days (I'm in house for one, and freelance for four others), namely that the "Year of Content" has quickly taken a back seat. Because this blogging shit isn't paid, while faffing about on someones Instagram account is, and I have a mortgage to pay.

But it's not the daily grind that you think of when people mention going to work. It's pretty cool and there are the great perks that come with my job. Namely, that I can be in the office, tap tap tapping away on my laptop and then pop in to the next room for some IPL hair removal.

Such an event occurred the other day, and since it involves nudity and genitals I thought "I SHOULD TOTALLY BLOG THIS!". Because embarrassing myself on the internet is part of my very specific skill set. 

Now I am not a fan of the look of a Brazilian wax. In my mind it looks pre-pubescent, and that gives me the heebie jeebies. But I figured it might be a good idea to have one session of IPL the full South American way to reduce the amount of hair, and then just get my standard bikini line done from then on to actually permanently remove ALL of that straggly hair that usually sticks out my bathers. 

I'm no stranger to having people between my legs. You dirty bastards are thinking "oh yeah, I bet!", but what I actually mean is that I've been waxed before, I've had kids, I've had operations down there, so quite a few people have been exposed to my undercarriage. Plus I'm of the age where my giveashit factor is rapidly declining. It's just a vulva, yo.

I prepped for my IPL the night before by briefly considering the whipper snipper for the inital stage, but instead opted for the clippers (that will never be looked at the same by MapGuy mid beard trim). Wrapped in a towel, I lugged the trimmers, and the hand vac (because my Lady Garden was more Lady Hedge) to the bathroom, past MG who piped up "Need a torch? A headlamp perhaps?". Fucker. 

As it turns out, I could have used one. Or a hand mirror. 

I'm super bendy, but even with my attempts at contortion I couldn't see everything and did my best to feel my way around when I got the actual razor blade stage. Feel fanny, swipe swipe, feel fanny, swipe again, smooth, next bit. And on and on it went for seventeen hours until I just about blunted the razor. I'm not kidding - I have the fabulous, and not uncommon quirk, of all my pubes being "double pluggers" or even "triple pluggers"; two or three hairs growing out of each follicle. You're welcome for that visual. 

You have to shave before IPL because the light is distributed throughout the pigment, so having the pigment just under the skin in the follicle means you'll get a more power packed punch where it really needs it. Also, it's super heating that pigment and those hairs will singe. Legit catch fire if you're not careful. 

I head to work the next day and after an hour or so of Professional Facebooking, it was my time to go and get the actual IPL done (yes, we're this far in to the story and I haven't had it yet). 

I hopped on the bed and my lovely coworker, D, quickly did my underarms first - and a few little microscopic hairs that had popped through a millimetre from the night before singed. See, you thought I was joking about catching fire but I'm not. And we don't want a CROTCH FIRE, ya hear? I ripped my pants off doing the whole hide your undies thing - OMG why do we do that? She's about to see my vag but oh dear don't let her see my delicates! - and jumped on the bed legs akimbo. 

I was scared it was going to be super painful, but I'd witnessed (and filmed - you HAVE to watch it!) the gorgeous 1MotherBlogger having her IPL Brazilian and we chatted throughout the whole thing. Surely if you can have a bit of a chin wag it's not that painful... and she was right. Whilst it wasn't fun, but there were only a few really ouchy bits and I too was able to chat away the entire time while D manoeuvred the handpiece all over my bits, zapping my follicles to kingdom come. My underarms actually hurt more, which means I obviously have Labia of Steel. 

Aaaanywho, it came time for me to roll on my side so D could do my butt. Yes, they go ALL THE WAY.

But wait, it gets better. Because I heard the horrifying words "Oh, you've missed a bit shaving. It's OK, I'll get a razor". At which point my colleague, a woman who is so lovely and I enjoy working with, SHAVED MY ASSHOLE. 

She proceeded like it was nothing (because she's a nurse, a consummate professional, and has done this exact thing hundreds of times), and zapped my chocolate starfish. On the pain scale, it was only about a two to three, but on the embarrassment scale of 1 to FUCKING KILL ME NOW, it was right at the top. It's one thing to have your lady lips treated, but it's a whole new experience for a colleague to hold up your buttcheek and go to town. Or, I don't know, maybe it's not for you. You might have a very, err, progressive workplace?  

As the treatment finished I was relieved both that I could put pants back on and that it had barely hurt at all - honestly waaaaay less painful than waxing. In pondering how awkward it would or wouldn't be to look D in the face and think "you've seen me naked", I considered that it would be worse if she'd treated over the hair; I would be left explaining to the Fire Department and Emergency Room docs just how it came to be that my ass hairs caught fire and burnt the office down. 

7 things I hated about being a Beauty Therapist

Image adapted from Sérgio (Savaman) Savarese via Wikimedia Commons

I was a beauty therapist and makeup artist in my time PT (pre-Tricky). After studying feminism at uni the decision to become someone who faffs about with skincare and makeup raised a few soon to be perfectly coiffed eyebrows.

Despite my lecturers almost having heart attacks on my transition to the beauty world, I never saw what I did as anti-feminist. Every day in my job I made women feel better about the skin they were in. I might not have agreed with everything they chose to do, but telling them they can't wax off every single hair on their whole body because I thought it made them look prepubescent isn't very feminist either. Each to their own and all that jazz. Or all that vajazzle as the case may be.

Making women feel beautiful was actually pretty awesome. I was good at eyebrow shaping and given virgin eyebrows could make you look like you'd had an eye lift with a bit of wax and some perfectly aligned tweezers. I was also good at speedy brazillians but that's a different and rather more painful story.

There were definitely downsides to the job though:

1. Forgetting client names/faces. If you spend 90% of the time with your client looking at their vag, it's bound to happen. I'd usher them in to the room, wracking my brain about who it was, come back, remove the towel and BINGO... "So, Janet, how'd your date with Stewart go?". I never forget a vagina.
2. Whiffy clients. Ladies, please, if you've been at work all day and popped in for a quick wax on the way home, you're not at your freshest. It's not hard to use the freshening wipes provided. You're paying for them after all.
3. Manky clients. Completely different to the whiffy clients because these ones just filthy all over. I once had a young girl come in for a massage and the grime around her neck made me want to puke. When she piped up with "if you see any ticks just flick them off, I've just come back from camping", a little bit of my soul died.
4. Cranky latecomers. I get it, shit happens and you're late. But when you arrive 20 minutes late for a 30 minute appointment then yell at me when I tell you we have to downgrade your treatment? Then I get shitty and the urge to not be so gentle with the wax on your labia. Seriously gals, don't piss off your waxer.
5. Unrealistic expectations. Having a client request a makeup style that you know will look horrible and despite trying to persuade them they'll look shit unless you tone it down, they are adamant they want the catwalk look. So you do it... and they hate it... and you have to take it off and re-do it all, putting you behind schedule. The urge to scream "I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO" is rather strong.
6. Feet. Having to touch someone's feet when you have podophobia brings on cold sweats and panic attacks. I went to therapy to help with my issues and I could focus and get through it but I would have to disinfect my hands afterwards. With bleach. I once did a pedicure on a woman who only had nine toes as a result of an "accident" involving her brother and a sharp axe.
7. Assumptions. People generally assumed that I was a Beauty Therapist because I was too stupid to do anything else. They always I assumed I was a high school drop out. I was a uni drop out, GET IT RIGHT! It was with these folk that I'd always use the big words and I'll never forgetting pulling the dihydrogen monoxide joke on one of those bitches clients.

So there you have it. There were more positives than negatives and a lot of that was to do with the girls I worked with who made it fun. I even liked them enough to invite them to my extremely-awesome-but-strictly-budgeted wedding, so that's saying something.

On a side note, if you have a weak constitution, turn on SafeSearch when you *ahem* search for images of a facial.

What do you hate about your job?