Tarred and Socked

So a while ago Joey and I bought some wax strips. The instructions said to warm the strips between your hands, then peel the plastic off and stick to the waxing area. Press it on nice and good and rip. We tried it the day we got it, and it was actually pretty cool. Tonight it was super hot in my room and I didn't feel like doing anything so I decided to do a little waxing on myself - my arms to be precise. I know I know, who waxes her arms??? I do! Stop laughing at me. So anyway, I sat down on the floor and went to work.

Anyway, so I decide I am going to do this in a batch. Instead of doing it one strip at a time I was going to do all of them at once. I took a bunch of strips and sat on them to warm them. One by one I fastened them to the best places until I had 8 strips covering both arms. What I didn't realize at the time is how that warming between the hands is supposed to work. I know now that when the wax is slightly warmer it allows the hair to sink in. Then when applied to the skin, since it only has one surface area of body heat next to it, the wax cools a bit so it grabs the hair, and so it all comes off with the strip when you yank it off.

My problem is that I probably overheated the strips to begin with when I sat on them. Then to make matters worse it was probably still 27 degrees in my room, so those strips were never going to cool off unless I bought a walk-in cooler. I didn't know this yet though. I was sitting on my floor amoungst yesterday's discarded clothes and I pulled off the first strip. It didn't hurt at all, and the reason for this is the nice gooey wax didn't pull off any hair - in fact the wax didn't pull off at all! In my hand was a perfectly wax-free strip of plastic, and on my arm was a perfect rectangle of purple wax.

OMG I thought, What happened??
Well, I like to think I am a scientific sort of girl, and the reason I hadn't figured out what happened because I hadn't performed enough trials. That was soon to change. One by one I pulled the strips off and the outcome was the same. When I was all done I was not only still hairy, but I was covered in wax. What is worse is that I didn't know it at the time, but wax is actually harder to remove than hair. The strips come with this oil that does a good job of dissolving the wax, but it comes in such a small bottle it is obvious it was only meant to touching up little areas, it wasn't meant to bathe in.

So there I was, sitting half naked on my floor with 8 purple, super sticky rectangles on my arms. I didn't really know what to do. I decided to put the strips back on most of the waxy areas on one of my arms, and I sat there thinking the wax might cool enough to rip it off. As I waited I rested my arms on my knees, only to realize a split second later that now I would have wax on my knees. Sure enough, I had purple circles of wax on my knees. I grabbed a towel and tried to wipe it off, but I just ended up with purple circles of wax and lint on my knees.

I decided if the strips hadn't cooled off by now they were never going to so I let 'er rip. Yes! Some wax and some hair came off! but it was still mostly there. That idea wasn't working so I tried to roll the wax off my skin with my fingers. You guessed it - purple waxy sticky fingers.

By the time I decided I had to go wash off with hot hot hot soapy water I had wax covering most of my exposed skin, and to my surprise I also had a sock stuck to my thigh. If I learned anything today it was some things are just better off done by professionals. Home waxing kits should come with a label: "Warning: Do not attempt at home".