The following is a blog post I wrote in 2015. The original can be found here: https://beanxiousaboutnothing.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/lulabelles-anxiety-free-friday-laff-think-before-you-nair/
Let's talk about hair.
Specifically the hair on parts of your body that you want to remain smooth as a baby's bum. It's not that I necessarily feel pressured by society to keep my legs and other parts hair free, I just feel more confident the less hair there is. Which is why I've deployed a few different methods over the years to rid my body of unwanted hair. Shaving with a razor is normally my go-to as it's cheap and relatively painless, but depilatory creams and waxing have shown to be most effective for a smoother-for-longer look.
The latter is a pretty simple approach, you put a cream concoction on the area you want free of hair and you wait a minute or two before rinsing it off. The cream does some weird voodoo science thing where the hair magically disappears after rinsing. You are then left with skin that smells across between nail polish remover and aloe-vera.
Nair is the most popular form of this hair removal cream. I remember as a kid watching their commercials on TV. Where women in tiny skirts would kick up their freshly Nair'ed legs in a dance reminiscent of the Rockettes. I envied them. Mostly for their cute skirts that I'd not be allowed to wear, but you get the idea. It wasn't until years later that I finally got my hands on a bottle of Nair and dreamed of becoming one of the girls on the commercial.
As I explained above, the hair removal process is quite simple with Nair. Just smooth it on with your hands and wipe the hair away after a minute. What they don't tell you on the bottle, or maybe I just don't remember reading it, is that it's inadvisable to use Nair on sensitive areas. Or if you have sensitive skin.
No matter if I just didn't read that part of the label or I just had a "devil-may-care" attitude, I Naired onward. After my legs were smoother than a baby's bum, I turned to my underarms. As any woman will tell you, shaving the underarms takes precision and time to get every single hair. Not having the patience or the time, I excitedly smoothed this cream over my left underarm and waited with gleeful anticipation. I knew I wouldn't have to shave under there for at least two weeks, without new hair growth being all that noticeable.
As I waited for the cream to work its magic, I began to feel a bit of a tingling sensation where I had applied the Nair. When it had done its thing, I went to wipe it off and HOLY MOTHER it BURNED!! At the time I thought it'd go away after a few minutes. I was wrong. Very, painfully wrong. Even after washing it off with soap and water, the pain remained. Now, I've never been in labor, but I remember thinking as I lay awake that night, several hours later, in agony, that this is what labor must feel like. If the baby comes out of one's underarm. Right then I vowed never again to use Nair. And to ALWAYS read the entire warning label of any product I put on my body. Lord have mercy!
Cheers!