All in the Name of Beauty

All in the Name of Beauty

We woman most definitely have a higher threshold of pain than our male counter parts. This has been proved time and time again through the centuries, however there are a few things we woman do in the name of Beauty that makes me question our sanity.

I mean we willingly torture ourselves daily to obtain that perfect look or that perfect body and for what I need to ask. Life for a man is so easy in the beauty side. Oh yes I agree, men are now taking better care of themselves. They moisturize their skins now, they have have manicures and pedicures, use a hair dryer when necessary but these are in the minority and I applaud their efforts to keeping youthful and well groomed. But we woman really take the prize when it comes to torture and the extreme makeover. Yes ladies we do and you know this to be true! So don't sit there and shake your head at me!

I am not talking about plastic surgery, this I am all for and would have done it myself many years ago if I was 1. Not terrified of needles. 2. Had the money to fix the ravages of time. No I am referring to beauty routines. Almost barbaric in some ways.

Many years ago, I had a friend who was beautician who offered leg waxes and bikini waxes plus the many wonderful slimming products and skin rejuvenation and the body massages. The normal products and services offered by most beauty therapists. She has been asked to do many a wedding and special occasion, however there was this one time when she was quite taken aback at her clients request.

It was Valentine’s Day and the hair salon and beauty salon was brimming with eager ladies wanting to look their absolute best for the day we celebrate in the name of Love. A really wonderful tradition if we keep in mind that this is about Love not how much the present costs. Be that as it may, this is the time when beauty therapists are called upon to perform miracles and hairdressers are asked to turn middle aged woman into Cameron Diaz or Scarlet Johansson. I was visiting my friend who owned her hair salon when the beauty therapist Sonia came down stairs with this look of trepidation on her face.

She called Penny and I over to the back kitchen area and told us she had a bit of a dilemma. Her client had made quite an unusual request and she was not sure if she could actually do what she was requesting. She asked Penny if she had some very red hair dye, and peroxide. Well Penny was a little taken aback and also a little annoyed as hair was her specialty and told Sonia as much. Sonia smiled and was only too happy to let Penny take over the work that was required. The young lady in question has requested the following:

A heart shaped pubic hair area in bright red for her boyfriend that evening. This would require the pubic hair to be peroxided and then dyed red and then shaped into cupid heart. I was just a bystander in this conversation but my raucous outburst of laughter must have alerted all the other hairdressers that something quite amusing was happening in the kitchen area so they came rushing through. Now we all know the customer is King – right and we also know that no one turns away a sale, but even beauty therapists find some requests rather odd and also embarrassing. If anyone has even considered this, please be warned its not for the feint hearted.

Penny dutifully agreed to mix the peroxide and the red hair dye but absolutely refused to be the one who applied the products. Sonia gave her the “Well thank you for that” look and went back upstairs to her customer who by this time was waiting for the beauty treatment of a life time. Sonia applied the peroxide, advising the client that this area was not meant for chemical treatments and that if there was any burning sensation then she was to notify her immediately. Once the hair was white/light honey coloured she applied the red dye and waited the required time. However the big concern was that the dye would colour the surrounding skin as well, so she dutifully trimmed and shaped and waxed the area forming a perfect shaped heart, then applied the red dye.

Twenty minutes later the client left with this very big grin on her face and we smiled with her as we were fully aware that she now sported a red heart shaped private area. I am sure her boyfriend was quite impressed with the effort she put into for their evening. Oh what we do in the name of love. It was only after she left that we all burst out laughing and I swear I could see her climbing into her car very gingerly and that was not a smile I saw on her face. Lets hope her man appreciates the effort but realises it s a look and don't touch situation. Some Valentines evening they are going to have!

Like the Brazilian! Now this is what I ask myself. Do these ladies wake up in the morning and is this what they decide? I need some serious pain today so I am going to go to the salon, where I am going to expose my most private parts and I will have a Brazilian wax. I am sorry I am not that brave and I am sure there is a medical treatment available for those ladies who go this route!

The procedure is one I am told of absolute humiliation and excruciating pain. You lie there while this therapist prepares the hot wax. She then pours this hot skin melting wax on your very sensitive and private area, waits for a few seconds, taps the wax to make sure it is in fact cool enough, then the rips it off. Now this is where I know I would either lose all control of my bladder and would very quickly learn the art of levitation as my body would try to follow the direction of the pull. I mean really ladies; this is torture beyond any sense of sanity. The therapist then repeats this action, asking her client/victim to move into various positions so she can attend to the other areas. Even a body contortionist would object to some of the most degrading positions that are needed to complete the Brazilian wax. I am sitting here typing and still do not understand why we would ever agree to have hot molten wax applied to the one area that is most certainly tender and incredibly sensitive because as we all know wax melts into all the nooks and crannies. We know this is going to hurt, we know that this will require super human strength as the hair is ripped out and hopefully there is no flesh attached to the wax and super human bladder control, yet there are woman who do this on a regular basis. They then pay the therapist for this service. My mind just boggles; paying someone to torture me is not my idea of fun. My ex husbands did a good enough job of that and it did not require HOT WAX!

My only conclusion is that these women arrive stoned out of their minds or have lost all feeling in that area. Who would ever agree to that type of torture is beyond me and really ladies there are easier ways. If you are one of the brave ladies who have ventured into the pits of this type of torture, I salute you and I say next time ask you man to do the same thing for you.

This brings me to my next story, Bern had a friend who was a drag queen artist and this required him to have his male parts taped down between his legs with Elastoplast. This particular gentleman was quite a striking man but a really beautiful drag artist. However he had not learnt the art of hair removal before he taped this maleness down for the first drag queen competition. The competition over and the evenings events over, he was ready to remove the Elastoplast, and all Bern heard was this gut wrenching scream as he attempted to remove the Elastoplast. If any men are reading this I can almost hear their groans in sympathy. He begged her to help him remove it but this is where Bern drew the line at friendship. In fact her words were “I ain't going near that thing, are you insane?” Many hours later and a long soak in a hot Bath; Johan had given himself his own Brazilian. It was very apparent by the way he walked for the next few days that this procedure of removing the Elastoplast had not gone well. He did learn by his mistakes and was better prepared for the following months Drag Queen event.

But more recently I had a reason to smile and giggle. My Sarah and her friend Dom were offered a stint under the sun bed at Dom’s new place of work. This was very generous of the owner of the salon and Sarah was so excited when she told me they were going to be able to use the sun bed facilities. Later that evening I received a sms telling me she was sun burnt. I for the life of me could not think why she was burn as she had not mentioned swimming or some event that would take her out into the sun; until I remembered the sun bed session. So I offered a sympathetic ear and offered homemade recipes for taking the sting out of the sunburn area. She explained that her thighs were indeed very burnt and extremely painful. After admonishing her and reminding her that she has fair skin and needs to be careful, we ended the conversation.

It was only the next morning on the way to work that I got this frantic call for help, the sms read. MY NIPPLES ARE SORE! Well not the kind of message one expects from your daughter or anyone for that matter. My obvious question was why. Well Mom, you remember I told you about the sun bed session, yesssss? I said knowing exactly what was coming next. Well I got my nipples burnt too. “Did you tan topless?” was my stupid question. I sat there and I have to admit, smiled, oh all right I laughed out and said that there was not much she could do about the burn on those areas and told her she had to go to the chemist to get the Burn treatment I used when she got severe sunburn years back. Later that day I get a Skype message telling me she needs to rip her shirt off slowly. My comment to her was “Anyone for roasted nipples and crispy thighs!” Sarah was not impressed and told me I was not helping.

This is not an area that is supposed to see the sun and I really can sympathize with the pain and I can relate because I have done the topless tanning in my youth as I am sure most of us have at one time in our lives, ... and I dare you to disagree with me, we have all tried it and felt quite wild and free with the naughtiness of this exposure. ...the only difference is I used sun block. I have had a very roasted behind when I (almost) had the body that could wear a G String costume, but alas those days are a faded memory. My children used to call my protruding buttocks "Custard and Jelly" that should have been a clear indication that I should not be wearing a G-String costume! The only remedy for this type of burn is getting the burn treatment from the chemist, and Never Never do it again.

This brings me back to my question, why do we put ourselves through torture to obtain that perfect tan, or perfect body or perfect hair style? We Pluck, tweeze, wax, blow dry and use hot irons to obtain that perfect shaped eyebrow, or perfect private area, blow dry our hair until the hair has almost melted, only to use a hot iron hair straighter on it to get that lovely sleek looks. The beauty routine we subject ourselves to in the name of staying young is quite vigorous and painful. Creams with granules of sand or shell of whatever is the flavour of the month to exfoliate our bodies. Creams that need to be applied with a massager for cellulite and then we apply more cream afterwards to moisturize the body and face.

Typical shower routine – Woman

Avoid all mirrors when undressing. Quickly look to see if the coast is clear and no one can see your naked body
Climb in shower; close the door very quickly, once again to ensure no one sees the naked body;
Use all the body creams known to man to slim, peel, cleanse, remove and redefine the body shape.
Wash our hair, then wash it again just to make double sure it’s clean;
Then apply a conditioner that needs 3 minutes for more to really work into the roots of our hair;
Stand on one leg while we try to shave our leg without cutting ourselves to shreds. The Flamingo perfected this look, I still have to learn how to use a razor and stand still on one leg, I do the jump jump around on one leg and have been known to give up just say to the hell with it I will just go ala-natural.
Then this done we shave under the arms and rinse off the conditioner and climb out the shower wrapping ourselves in the biggest towel we can find; making sure that no private parts are exposed.
We then apply the creams, and oils on our now very clean and exfoliated bodies.

Still avoiding all mirrors and if your partner should even attempt to rip the towel from your body you will Karate chop him for sure.
Brush their teeth with their electric toothbrush making sure to brush for at least a minute, then use mouth wash to make sure they are indeed free of germs.

We rush to the bedroom; quickly throw off the towel and throw a bathrobe on, being very careful not to expose the naked body to any peeping eyes.

Still avoiding the mirrors!

We then start on the face, applying these miracle creams that promise to take years off our face and convince ourselves that we actually believe these lies. Eye wrinkle cream, neck lifting creams, puffing wrinkle cream, Age spot removal creams, lip plumping cream and this is before we even start of the war paint oops sorry I mean make up.

First the base is applied, also an anti aging product, various layers of the stuff which blocks the very clean pours and prevents the skin from breathing undoing the hours spent on cleaning our faces!
Then the blushers, eyes shadows, eye liners and blemish stick creams to hide offensive spots that have not been hidden by the base coat.
Now we are not happy to just leave it at that, no we take an eye lash curler. Grasp our eye lashes and pinch them between two round shaped pieces of metal and curl our eyelashes. Nearly ripping them out from their routes.
Next is applying the eye lash extender mascara, nearly blinding ourselves with this sword. Then the eyeliner, sometimes actually blinding ourselves in out attempt to make that perfect frame around our eyes.

And now it’s time for the hair.

Creams applied to the hair, anti frizz, anti heat treatment, and hours spent drying the hair in layers. Clips and more clips used to keep the hair up, then when the hair is dried and looking acceptable, we do the unthinkable.

We take out the straitening iron and iron our hair straight, more than once getting to close to the skin and scorch our foreheads and ears. Thereby drying the hair out and have just undone the work we did on our hair to re-hydrate it. And are we happy with the final results?

No we look at the reflection, pull our eyes up to see if it s time for that face tuck, we look at our necks and wish we had some reason to wear a scarf on this extremely hot day and push ourselves away from the dressing table (should be called torture table) and grab our hand bags but not before we fill it with our tools to face the day. Makeup bag, blemish creams, hair straighter, perfumes and whatever else we think we may need for the day.

We still have to choose out outfit for the day!!!!

Typical shower routine – Men

Stand in front of the mirror, flex out muscles, do the body building actions. Yes even the men with tummies stand there and suck in their protruding bellies and flex their arms and check out their butts in the mirror! We all know this to be True so don't try and deny it you male readers out there. We have seen you do it and as cute as you men are, really, stop showing off it just makes us jealous that no matter how fat, thin, tall short you men are you still love the mirror!

They then turn and hope they have an audience -

They see their wife/girlfriend and proceed to do the shaking of the hips movement with a whoo hooo like a stripper and are so pleased at the look of horror on their partners face which they mistake for desire and pleasure. Satisfied that they are still gorgeous.
They climb into the shower but not without one last look at their naked reflection.
Wash their body with one product, either a body wash which can also be doubled up for washing the hair – some men have no hair to worry about. Or they use their wife or girlfriends shampoo to wash their hair. Stand under the water for as long as there is hot water enjoying the spray of the water.

For those men who shave their faces using their shaving cream or hand soap and with great skill shave their faces, pulling the various faces required for a smooth shave. No pomp or ceremony required. Quick and easy and it’s done.
When the hot water is finished they climb out the shower, check out their reflection once again, throw a towel around their waist…walk past their wife/girlfriend flash her and go whooo hooo swinging their hips…. Apply after shaving cologne slap their faces, brush their teeth with the old fashioned style of tooth brush and they are happy with the results. One last check in the mirror, smile back so happy with life at themselves;

Get dressed, run their fingers through their hair, maybe apply a little hair gel and off they go.

The ladies are still applying make-up, doing their hair, drinking some herbal tea to keep themselves beautiful and young and the men, they are already in the car – hooting and waiting for the ladies to hurry up!. Oh the joys of maintaining the perfect image.

I have given up on this years ago and have decided to let it all just hang out and to hell with it. Round is a shape after all so I am still in shape….and I wear my wrinkles and scars with pride. I am going to be one of those women who skid up to the pearly gates with a smoke in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other and happily exclaim, "That was a great ride and I made the best of it."I mean when we are dead who cares about how beautiful we are, we will be remembered for our deeds and how we treated people and not by our heart shaped love areas! "