aka R’acquel

Greetings to all cruisers on board! I am pleased to announce that The Waxing Salon is now open and we will be presenting the lessons to women and men on how to perform the DIY Brazilian wax in the privacy of your own home (or cabin).

Even though the Brazilian Wax *might* originate from South America, there are compelling reasons for why we must ALWAYS start at Australia first. The first reason is because our continent is often referred to as the land “Down Under”. As for the second good reason, here is a map to show you why:

See the Australian state of Tasmania down there at the bottom? Notice the shape? This is why many Aussies often refer to the southern netherlandic regions of a woman as “Tasmania“. It is also sometimes referred to in a more abbreviated format known as “Tassie“.

Although the shapes of men & women might be a little different Down Under, they still have the same kind of geography with similar prominent landmarks - so some of the tips shared this article can be appropriated by both sexes.

The first important step before attempting any kind of hair removal with wax, is to determine how close your ancestors were to the planet of the apes. Some people are not very hairy with fine hair on their body, while others might strongly resonate with “Gorillas In The Mist” when it comes to Down Under.

One of the easiest indicators to work this out is by looking at the following picture of Australia’s former Prime Minister, Paul Keating. NB - the prominent 5 O’clock shadow.

If i were to shave, my underarms will look exactly like the 5 O’clock shadow on Paul Keating’s face. If you are a woman who faces the same problem, then you know why shaving doesn’t work when you want to wear a sleaveless outfit, let alone a friggin’ swimsuit! For men - it’s those whom are able to grow a full beard and have a lot of chest hair with sensitive skin who understand why it’s important to invest in a high quality shaving cream in order to mimimise irritation of the skin. The hairless look can truly be a bitch when you’re pretty hairy like this!

I can shock people when i say that i have as many chest hairs as my husband, but it’s true! I have 3 hairs and he has 6! As my husband has a very low chest hair count, he is unable to grow a full beard so his ancestory is a lot closer to the Planet of the Goats. (NB - small beards which only grow around the chin area are known as a “goatie“).

Another indicator with cross referencing how hairy you are is by going back to the atlas again. For some people, their Down Under’s will look very much like Tasmania…

For those with closer relations to The Planet of the Apes on the otherhand, their nether regions will resemble something a lot more like South America.

If your body hair grows all the way down to Tierra del Fuego (aka “the asshole”) - then you are definitely what i would call a true Amazonian. (It was in fact, a lovely man who pointed this very important landmark for DIY Brazillian on this map to me in my first article on it a few years ago!).

Are You Experienced Enough For The Task?

The first checkpoint before you start the DIY Brazilian is whether or not you are a complete virgin at waxing. If you have had no experience with the pain involved in waxing your legs, then i don’t recommend you proceed beyond this point. It is highly advised that you practise on your legs first to gain experience. If you can tolerate the pain of waxing your armpits well, then you might be ready for the Brazilian (but it’s no guarantee).

Waxing is a very bloody sport, even more so if you are an Amazonian. Amazonians can have up to 3-4 hairs growing out of a single folicle, so this is the equivalent of uprooting a banyan, baobab or moreton bay fig tree. Expect to see a fair bit of blood during this proceedure.

1 - A “Hard” Wax, preferably designed to tackle the Brazilian Wax specifically.

The wax needs to be very hard which requires heating. I don’t advise the “soft-gel/no-heat wax” or “pre-waxed” strips. There may be other products like this around the world that do work well (and if you know of any, i’d love to hear about it so please add to the comments!). In my experience, these sorts of waxing products are really bad for Amazonians because the can’t grip the hair properly. Remember - it’s banyan & boabab trees you’re dealing with here. You need a wax that grips much harder compared to people who have much finer dandelion flower hairs.

Here is an example of a soft-gel waxing product you shouldn’t use for the Brazilian Wax.

The Australian product known as Nad’s, the famous no-heat hair removal gel created by Sue Ismeil. The product made the Guiness World Record for the most amount of legs waxed in an hour.

I will never forget the first time i saw the television advertisement appear over here. She waxed her daughter’s eyebrows on public television. It was quite revolutionary for me to see such a thing - my goodness, other hairy women like me exist in this world? Like, how liberating!

This product used to be fantastic once upon a time, but it lost my heart about 3 years ago. It no longer works like it used to - the body heat warms it up too much, which renders it quite pathetic & rather dangerous to use now. I dared to buy another batch recently, thinking that *maybe* they’ve lifted their game up since, but no - it was worse. I’m quite angry with this product and do hope to return it to the company with a formal written “not good enough guyz! please fix the problem and make it better!” complaint soon. Perhaps i lucked out with another bad batch that was overlooked by quality control. Pity i didn’t take any photographs of my red & raw armpits to show you just how bad it was! :S

Anywayz, a hard wax is certainly preferable and the new Nads Naughty Bikini Design Kit was brilliant for the job. I definitely should’ve done my underarms with this stuff instead. This product comes with very useful tools included as well, so that’s why I recommend a wax specially designed for Down Under.

It comes with 4 different designs to help you “shape” things Down Under.

From beginner to advanced, there’s the rectangle, burmuda triangle, love heart & lightning bolt …but in my opinion, they don’t work well and I recommend that you ditch this silly gimick and use a pair of tweezers for more precise shaping at the end.

2. Investigate medications to assist with pain relief.

It’s a good idea to look into this option to help your body to deal with pain & inflamation. Aspirin can help. I use panadine which has codeine. I accidentally encountered a weird combo when i was sick and had to take Sudafed Cold & Flu tablet (non-drowsy) with Panadine. As for illegal drugs, i don’t condone them at all - but i do know some have been incredible for helping people in dealing with acute/chronic pain. It isn’t essential to take drugs for this. It is possible to manage the proceedure without it, but it is something you can consider before you start attacking your rainforest of banyans & boababs.

More cognac or dom anyone? =P

3. A very trusty pair of high quality tweezers

Don’t get the cheap shit, invest in a really good one that can pluck the hair without “slipping”. Good ones require much less squeezing pressure from the hand which will save you from experiencing too much muscle strain during the proceedure.

4. Small spatula’s to help you apply the wax.

The tools in waxing kits for legs usually have bigger spatula’s to help you spread a lot of wax over a large amount of area. For DIY Brazilian, you need special “small” ones. The Nad’s kit comes with a really handy mini-spatula which is about 4mm in diameter.

It’s like a really thick wooden BBQ skewer where one end has been sliced off. Very handy to have, so if your kit doesn’t come with something this small - go make one by getting a skewer and using a utility knife to cut a diagonal flat ramp.

5. A coffee kettle to boil water - in easy reach.

What didn’t impress me about the Nad’s Naughty Bikini Wax as that there was no mention of needing to have a microwave as a minimum requirement, so this is essentially the guide on how to use this product without one! Make sure it’s in easy reach, plugged into a socket near the area that you intend to wax.

Actually, the way i worded that sounds almost lewd and could be interpreted the wrong way. When i say the electricity socket, i mean that hole where the electricity comes from when you plug things into it. *cack*

6. A small bowl

This will act as your “baine marie” for your tub of wax to sit inside and heat up.

7. A good mirror, to help you see things better Down Under.

It’s not so easy to peer at the region of Tierra del Fuego, so mirrors are useful for this task. You can manage without one, but this depends on how dexterous & flexible you are with your hands & body.

8. Post operative treatments

Hard wax is difficult to remove from the body, so such products usually come with wet wipes to help you remove any remaining wax at the end & also to help sooth the skin. Will write more on post operative care in greater detail towards the end.

That’s about it for the preparations, but i haven’t made a specific reference with regards to needing a towel to sit on during the wax. This is because some people might have a preference to do it by sitting on the grass of their front yard with the daisies like this…

…or, some might have preferences to do it on their front verandahs with the company of a bald Chinese “good luck” pussy for encouragement & inspiration! (yes, that shot was specifically designed for Gattina’s viewing pleasure)

Please check with the rules & laws of your country before trying anything like this! You will be definitely be charged & locked up by the police for indecent exposure if you did something like this in Australia. =D Please consult with the Captain of the cruise first if you have plans to proceed with this outside of your own cabin.

Read To Wax? Then Let’s Go!

STEP 1 - How Tall Are the Trees Down Under?

Ideal hair length for waxing is between 6mm-9mm. You can trim with scissors, although shaving first and then waiting until it grows back to the ideal length will help better with giving you a “uniform” length all over.

STEP 2(a) - How to heat the wax without a microwave?

This is dependant on whether or not you have a microwave so this step can be interchanable with step 2(b). The following is how to melt the wax without a microwave.

NAD’s advises that you should always have the jar opened when heating the wax in the microwave, but as the kettle method involves a lot of condensation & steam from hot water, it is recommended to keep the jar closed for the initial stage of heating.

1. Boil water in the kettle.
2. Put the tub of wax into the small bowl.
3. Carefully pour the water and make sure that the water level does not exceed the rim of the jar.

4. Take the tub of wax out of the bowl, and make a mental note how the water level drops. This becomes your new maximum height for pouring hot water into the bowl when it’s empty (as putting the tub of wax into the bowl will raise the water level). It’s important to keep the water level considerably lower than the rim, to prevent it from accidentally spilling into the container when it’s opened.

It took me about 5 rounds of sitting the tub in freshly boiled water before the wax product began to melt adequately enough for the job. Be patient, it takes quite a few times of replacing the bowl with new hot water when the temperature of the first boil has cooled down a bit.

You don’t need to have the entire product melted, if there’s enough where you can scoop some from the sides onto the small spatula ok, that’s perfectly adequate.

During the waxing stage, if you find the wax cooling too much - it’s simply a matter of reheating the kettle (in easy reach), emptying the old water out of the bowl, pouring the new hot water back in and then gently placing the tub back into the bowl. For convenience, you can use a bucket or large container to toss the water into nearby, instead of needing to get up to the sink.

The advantage of using this very slow method of heating, (without the entire product molten), is that the heat of the wax is a lot lower compared to fresh out of a microwave. This method generates a very comfortable temperature against the skin, which reduces the chances of it burning you. You should ALWAYS do a temperature test against something like the tip of your finger before applying it on very sensitive parts of your body, regardless of what heating method you use.

If you are using the kettle method of heating, you can proceed with the next step while your waiting for the wax to melt.

STEP 2(b) - Pain Minimisation
If you are worried or very scared about the pain, you DO NOT start with the wax! Pull out the trusty pair of tweezers first, because this is the way to help your body slowly build up a physical tolerance to the pain.

Let’s take another look at Tasmania again…

A good starting point is an area like King Island. You can try the other side if you want - left or right - it doesn’t really matter, whatever suits you but the top corners are really good starting points. Grip a single hair from this region with your tweezers and try to pull it out with a very fast action. The faster you can do it, the less pain it will cause.

To help minimise the pain further, you can pinch that area of skin with two fingers, which will help cut off the circulation of blood a bit. For some people, this first pull could make them scream and it will hurt a lot. The technique of applying pressure like this is very useful in helping you sooth the area if the pain is far too much for you after uprooting the first tree.

The whole trick with this is to get your body accustomed to pain coming from a very small & localised area first. When you continue to pluck a few more hairs with the tweezers in a small spot like that, your body slowly becomes accustomed to anticipating the pain in that specific area.

After you start pulling about 7-8 hairs, it will get easier to tolerate the pain. It might take quite a few more hair pullings for other people, and others may simply still not be able to cope (so give yourself a break if this is the case).

If you’ve found that your body has become accustomed to pulling hair out in that small area, and you can start plucking hairs using the tweezers without needing to apply the pressure with two fingers, you are ready for the next step.

If using the kettle method of heating the wax - you’ll need to intermitently ‘check-in’ to see how the wax is going.

Step 3(a) - Tackling The Bikini Line

For first time waxers in this area - tackling the bikini line is probably the best first goal you should attempt, rather than trying to do the full Brazilian. The bikini line is the body hair which escapes past the outer-edged line of underwear or swimsuits. In some parts of the world, this is sadly the painful minimum requirement that’s considered socially acceptable for swimming at public beaches as hairy pits or bikini lines are generally a big “nono” here.

For the first application of wax, you can proceed with this step, or review step 3(b) or 3(c) as another alternative method.

Start with the larger sized spatula (paddle pop stick, or bigger) and apply a small mound of wax to cover King Island in the same direction as the hair growth. The direction of hair growth usually points downward in this region, start from the top and push the wax downward with the spatula.

Allow the wax to cool & harden, then grab the end of the wax with the tips of your fingers and pull against the direction of hair growth as pictured:

If you get absolutely stuck and can’t do it, you can try to pulling wax in the opposite direction. Although it’s not recommended, it’s likely to hurt a little less doing it that way. It’s ok for you to proceed this way for the first two goes if your body needs to get accustomed to the pain of more than one hair being pulled out at once.

It’s usually better to tackle one side before starting the other if all you want to tackle is the bikini line. The tolerance to pain will increase as you continue, so you might find yourself being able to tolerate a larger application of wax as pictured in “D”.

Although your threshold for pain will be very high after completing one side, in some instances - you might need to start with the tweezers again when it’s time to tackle the other side.

For Brazilian wax, you don’t need to do the entire bikini line first, and can proceed with 123 then ABC.

STEP 3(b) - Creating Islands With Arterial Roads (or Canals)

This is another technique which is applied to the beginning of the Brazilian wax, but it can also be used if you still find the very first application with wax on King Island very intimidating.

Let’s take a closer look at King Island…

Notice the canal of water living in between King island & the mainland? Part of the pain with waxing, is caused by the wax not properly gripping the entire hair shaft at the endpoint where you grab it. It will be much less painful if the application of wax only covers the island itself like this:

To minimise the pain of the initial wax, you can isolate an island by creating a canal (or road) by using the tweezers as pictured below… (removing the hair in the area which follows the blue line)

Step 3(c) - The North European Stick Technique

There is yet another method you can use which uses a similar concept shown in 3(b). Instead of creating islands, you can wax off long & skinny countries that are shaped a little bit like Norway, Sweden & Finland from the side. Let’s cross over to the atlas again for a closer look…

You’ll notice in this diagram how applying a thin line of wax to the side like this, will increase your chances of having the wax grip the entire hair shaft at the ripping point. It’s not 100% perfect, but still a pretty good method in helping you to minimise the pain.

When scooping up a bit of wax with the stick, use a twirling motion to collect the thin trails of wax as pictured below:

Apply a thin line of wax (following the same direction of the hair growth as explained before), which closely resembles the shape of Norway by using the stick, and keep your hand in this position so that the stick sets with the wax as it hardens.

Another photograph which shows how you’re supposed to leave the stick to “set” within the wax:

After the wax has hardened & cooled down, you can then use the stick as a lever to rip the hair off, the same way you would do as normal waxing.

STEP 4 - Locating the Center of Strong Geological Activity

Ready to go further? If you’re a woman, you’ll need to locate the epicenter of where the earthquakes are commonly generated. For men, you need to look for the centre of where the volcano usually errupts. This is where the geography differs a little bit for men & women. As i’m taking the female route with this, men will have to appropriate a little bit further in the sections living below the epicenter.

For those dealing with South America, I have notated the Amazon River & Tierra Del Fuego for further guidance. This map also illustrates why the 123/ABC method of adressing the bikini line can work well for the Brazilian Wax.

STEP 5 - Building Highways (or Canals) Towards the Epicenter

The objective of the Brazilian is to clear as much of the rainforest as you possible can. The usual method is to leave a small patch of hair just above the epicenter so that it leaves something interesting for all the tourists to look at.

The diagram above illustrates how you need to leave a bit of hair remaining in the area for the Bermuda Triangle.

The density of the rainforest becomes much thicker as it gets closer to the epicenter. You will usually find that there are more trees conglomerating in this area, so this why it’s a good idea to consider creating some highways (or canals) to define the borders with a pair of tweezers first (or you can use the North European Stick Technique if you body has acclimatised to the pain).

Once the highways are constructed, you can begin ripping out trees from the inside towards the edge of the continent or the other way around. As there’s more than one way to skin a pussycat, there’s many ways you can approach this, so here are a few examples…

It’s pretty much like town planning & subdividing land. The key is to allow the direction of hair growth to form the contours. It’s very close to the way that land is cleared for rice fields in Asia.

You can subdivide even further by bulding more main roads extending from the main highway, and then subdivide further. The basic proceedure is to take it one small step at a time.

It takes time for your body to get accustomed to the pain. Using the techniques described in this article will help you slowly get there, with time & experience. When you get to this stage of the waxing, the body’s pain threshold is usually so high that the task becomes a lot easier once you reach the area of Tierra Del Fuego.

If you start with the DIY Brazillian first, you’ll often find that waxing other parts of the body becomes very easy - and it can also work the other way around. Waxing the legs & underarms first can also help your body’s pain threshold increase too. Again, this sort of thing requires time, experience & perseverance, so not everyone will be able to manage it in the first go.

..and that’s pretty much all there is to conquering the Brazilian - one small step at a time. This method is fairly time consuming - so it’s very much like playing a highly addictive game on the PS2. It’s important to take a physical break & have a stretch of the body every 15minutes or so, otherwise you could end up with bad neck strain or other muscular pain if you sit in the same position for far too long!

If you’ve managed to get this far by clearing everything Down Under, then you’re ready for the grand finale.

Step 6 - Grooming the Final Design With the Bloody Russian

There’s a few ways you can groom different shapes. The best way is to use tweezers. Pull out a water-based texta or pen. Draw the desired shape and then remove the hairs living outside of the boundary with the tweezers.

If you’re dead set on using the stickers included with the Nad’s kit, then choose the shape of your desire, and the plant the sticker onto the area left over.

Now this is where Nad’s doesn’t tell you how to do this well. Please use a pair of small scissor and trim the hairs that try to escape the borders FIRST, as pictured below:

…and THEN apply the bloody Russian!

Cover the entire sticker with wax and make sure it covers all the hair around the borders, roughly the size of Russia. From this point, the only way is up - so that is the direction in which you must rip the remaining hair with The Bloody Russsian. You might still need to use the tweezers after this proceedure, to pull out the the odd hair that seems out of place in the final design.

If you’ve reached this far, then congratulations on achieving the DIY Brazilian Wax at Home (or in your cabin).

STEP 8 - Maintenance

For Amazonians (or anyone else in fact) - one of the key problems of waxing is that not every single hair will be removed, due to breakage. This is what makes epilators a fantastic device to use afterwards because they can remove really short hair that’s about 2mm long.

Here is a picture of a good quality one. There used to be a very old product in the 80s called “Epilady” and it was simply terrible, so look for a machine which has a series of rotating tweezers like the one pictured above.

For maintenance - it’s important to keep tackling the regrowth of hair as soon as you can. As there will be less hair in the area during this time, it will be less painful to remove at that stage. If you allow things to get really bushy again, you will face the pain of removal similar to the first time all over again. {yeouch!}

No pain, no gain - and i have certainly been through a shitload of it. If you’re just new to the bloody practise, it’s going to hurt like buggery. Time, experience, patience & perseverance will be your only friend until you finally get there.

STEP 8 - Post Operative Care

There are products available which can help with healing & recovery. With sensitive skin, i’ve found that many moisturising & exfoliating products tend to irritate the skin further, but i can recommend the following items.

Ingrown hairs will be inevitable in many circumstances, because there will be times when a hair may break just underneath the skin during the process, and it will have trouble finding it’s way out properly. The problem will grow less the more you wax.

There are products available to help with exfoliation & the prevention of ingrown hairs. Exfoliation is the removal of dead skin cells from the surface of the skin, and ingrown hair prevention products tend to use a similar technique of helping you to remove the dead skin cells.

If you tend to have large pores & very sensitive skin, opt for the exfoliating liquid/gel style of products rather than the ones which contain small abbrasive particles like sand in them, as they can clog the pores causing blockage and irritate the skin further.

I’ve come across a cool product here which is a pair of exfoliative “gloves” that have been great for removing dead skin cells all over the body. They’re a little more gentle & easier to use compared to a pumice stone or loofah.

Whitch Hazel is a very good skin toner which works well at countering inflamation. I can’t find the actual herb here, so despite this product being in liquid form - it’s still been great, especially for the face after cleansing & exfoliating. Apply to a cotton ball, then wipe against the skin 2-3 times during the day.

Freshly harvested from my own garden! The anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal & anti-bacterial qualities that live in the petals of this flower has been a really mind blowing for me to discover years ago in my book of medicial herbs, so this is why i began growing them a year ago.

I had to make an ointment when my face experienced a mysterious rash (like eczema/dermatitis) many years ago. It’s not as “strong” as hydrocortisone cream, but the anti-inflammatory effect still surprisingly very strong & effective as a natural alternative. It can also be made into a tea to help with healing inflamation within the digestive system too, although i haven’t tried that yet.

There’s many ways you can make the ointment or cream from a decoction or oil infusion with the dried petals. The home-made cream made from calendula has been the best moisturiser for me to date.

Just because a product is “natural” does not automatically deem it as safe and some herbal remedies are especially dangerous for use during pregnancy. There are no warnings on Calendula in my book, but as the flower reminds me of the German Chamomile, PLEASE consult & check with your doctor if you are pregnant or on medication before considering any “natural” or “herbal” pathway to be sure.

I don’t have the time to go into the details of the step-by-step DIY recipes for this atm. Similarly, there’s also a DIY on how you can make your own sugaring wax at home too that i hope to add further to this article at a later time, so if you wanna know the details - then just ask!

A Final Word of Warning About the Practise of Deforestation for Women!

A long time ago - it used to be only just the men flooding the floors of public toilets with urine due to very poor aim, but over the last few years, i’ve noticed that quite a number of public toilets for women have begun to experience a growing trend of this phenomena too and i suspect that the Brazilian Wax is to blame.

You need to realise that the clearing of land by the removal of trees for agriculture can cause serious problems with the erosion of top-soil due to the excess “run-off” when it’s not properly managed, but i won’t go into the nasty salinity & rising water-table problems that Australia has been experiencing the last decade or so over here atm!

Women whom are unable to sit down onto the seats of public toilets properly (due to acute paranoia of catching germs), are going to face the problem of excess run-off streaming down the mountain-sides without any trees in place to curtail the flow of water when it rains.

For the ladies who do the Skippy Da Bush(less) Kangaroo squat in public toilets - please consider the parting of your mount fujis for a better aim!

A Brief Commentary About Pain….

My thoughts reflect back to RennyBA’s Frozen Paradise as he says;

“There is no such as bad weather, only bad clothes!”

I’m inclined to agree and would like to add more to that.

“There’s no such thing as painful waxing, just poorly designed underwear & swimsuits!”

This is why the new design of the low-cut “Boyleg” undies or swimsuits is so legendary and in my opinion, as there’s much less body hair you need worry about removing and it’s a lot more flattering on a male or female body imho!

~

That’s about it for now and i hope you’ve enjoyed the tour guide on how to do the DIY Brazilian Wax at Home (or in your cabin). If there’s any parts to this where you need a hand with further explanations, i’m always happy to answer questions.

I’ve spent a lot of time & effort with graphics & photography and look forward to extending this article further with more DIY recipes to help others and hope this article has been useful.

Suggestions, advice, recommendations & comments from others are always welcome!

Au Revoir & Happy Waxing!

© 2007-2008 aka R’acquel | All rights reserved.

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