Thought process of a writer, upon waxing her own face

The following is a stream of consciousness report of writer Kara Crabb’s first dabble with face waxing. Terror, humour and beauty transformations ensue.

Do I even need to do this? Is it a statement if I don’t? Maybe I genuinely enjoy removing patches of hair off my body. Maybe I’m not so much conforming to standards of beauty as I am masochistically enjoying a rainy Sunday afternoon. People used to go to church, now they do this. I do this.

I do this because I’m a wom-human being and I enjoy grooming myself. Monkeys groom. Cats groom. So many species groom. To pamper is to be one with nature. It isn’t an act of superficiality, it’s determinism.

No one cares about my face or if I wax it. I’m the only person who will ever notice. Not true: gay men usually tend to notice. But what does it even mean when a gay man notices your facial hair? Is it a compliment, secretly? It doesn’t matter. This is about my personal, subjective opinion, which is definitely not influenced by my social atmosphere.

My nervous system is about to detect pain, am I ready for that? Am I ready?

You know who had a great moustache though? Frida Kahlo. I could be like Frida. Or JD Samson. She is hawt.

It feels ritualistic, really. My mom and my aunt would beckon me to the wax pot and we would gather around it like witches. Just like how they beckoned me to the piercing gun and blasted holes into my four-year-old head, (what a fascinating anthropological scene!) They passed this wax pot down to me and now I must fulfill their legacy. Every three months/whenever I remember I have it, I must pour burning hot liquid onto my face and surrender to the pain.

You know what the real problem is? I don’t have ENOUGH facial hair. It’s too thick to go unnoticed but too sparse to feel truly inspired. How can I achieve such dermatological tenacity? Change my diet? Supplements?

Maybe someday I will produce thicker facial hair but for now I’m stirring a vat of wax with a Popsicle stick, ready for takeoff.

Should I do a countdown? No, just get it over with.
Three… Don’t think about it, just do it, go!

Wow, look at all those beautiful hair follicles. I’m like a farmer harvesting crops of… my upper lip.

It’s gotta get done. You’re disgusting. You’re ancestors were disgusting and now you’re disgusting. There’s no way to not-be-disgusting unless you RIIIIPPPPPP a hundred hairs off your face.

Someday humans will be totally unrecognizable.

How should I do my eyebrows? I never know how to shape them. My eyebrows don’t even look real. They’re so arched they look like caricatures of eyebrows- permanently surprised. What if I had super thin eyebrows, like a chola? Maybe I should just remove all of my eyebrows and paint them on instead. Would that be so terrible? I could find out. I’ve never done it before. Either way it would be an experience. I’d learn from it. Grow from it…

I don’t care. I’m spending way too much time in here. This is why it’s maybe good to go to an esthetician. LOL. My control issues though.

Patches of hair in the shape of Japan. That didn’t even hurt. It’s amazing how many nerve endings there are around the lips compared to the forehead. It’s amazing how tweezing seems to hurt way more than waxing. What mystery and wonder is this short life. The feeling of reward as I stare at this canvas strip full of hair is paramount. God is real.

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