It’s the weekend, and I’m looking forward to finally getting that mani/pedi that I’ve been in desperate need of for about a good month now. My toes look like talons! If I’m lucky, I’ll have someone braid my hair for me as well since I hardly have time to tend to it with a busy 15 month old. Although I know a nice head of braided hair can give me about 6-8 weeks of breathing room, the hair braiding appointments are always the ones I procrastinate on the most. Why? Because the thought of sitting there all day getting my tender headed scalp yanked makes me wince. But I suffer through the long, painful ordeal anyway. The things we do for beauty, convenience and maintenance.
Speaking of maintenance, I don’t have any hair on my legs so there’s no need to shave them. But I will make sure my underarms are smooth and my eyebrows are waxed and plucked. Then there’s the issue of the bikini line. Normally I Nair it; no shaving for me – it itches as it grows back – and scratching around in that area is not a good look. But Miss Kitty is always well kept, even in the non-summer months. I was toying around with the idea of getting a Brazilian Wax when the warmer beach weather hits. I’ve never had that done before and was seriously considering it until I pondered – “do I really want hot wax around Miss Kitty?”
Not only do I NOT want hot wax around my nether region, I don’t want body hair ripped out from the root around my womanly space either! OUCH! Is it really that deep? I mean, I know it’ll probably be as smooth as a baby’s bottom and the hair won’t grow back for weeks. There will be no razor bumps or chemical burns. But do I really want to yank pubic hair from my body? I think I may pass on that – last thing I need is to suffer the consequences of a bikini wax gone wrong and I’m all red and swollen down there. Nah son…not me.
I bring all this up to say that women do some rather insane things to achieve modern standards of beauty. We wear shoes that cripple our feet. We strap on bras that dig into our chest and shoulders and push our breasts up to our chins. We suck on pantyhose and waist cinchers to firm our stomachs and slim our thighs, wear makeup to hide our imperfections and dye our hair to diminish our grays. And we have this strange habit of yanking out body hair from the follicle – be it our eyebrows, underarms, legs or pubic hair.
Yes, I do have a point here. Women tend to do all this in the name of beauty, but at the same time, we don’t want to be defined by it. We want men to love us for our brains or our personality, but we go get plucked, polished, shaved and waxed so that we can be “beautiful.” Are we being hypocritical? Let’s face it – we wouldn’t be doing this crap to our bodies if it weren’t for men. We’d be some fat, hairy chicks…right? Okay, maybe not fat and unhealthy, but you get my drift.
Now you can say, “I do it for me to feel good about myself” all you want, but we all know that’s a damn lie. No woman is going to subject herself to self-mutilation if it wasn’t for men…or competing with other women. Okay, maybe the mani/pedi is nice to look at or we don’t want eyebrows that crawl across our foreheads – I’ll give you that. But come on…a bikini wax? Hot Wax on Miss Kitty? No…HELL no.
So tell me, what is the strangest, most insane thing you’ve done in the name of beauty? Have any of you ever had a beauty procedure go REALLY wrong and wound up looking like a crazy person, or rushed to the emergency room? Men, you can answer this too. I know a few who have gotten their backs waxed or who shave their chest hair. Do you think we go too far in the name of “beauty?”
