After I posted on Hair Color at Home, our Queercents Fearless Leader, Nina, wondered what I had to say on Waxing at Home! Well, though I implored you to color your own hair, my feelings on this other D.I.Y. beauty ritual are quite the opposite! I don’t wax at home. Why? The hassle and time are not worth the savings and the quality job a professional does is important to me. Below are some thrifty reasons you may choose to ignore my advice.

I’ll come out about what I get waxed: upper lip and bikini area (sometimes extreme!). The brows and chin hairs (Yes, I’m a Hairy Jew!) I choose to pluck myself because in this case, two seconds of the esthetician’s time is not worth my $14.

I am always thinking about the value of my time. As a life coach, I get paid in 45 minute increments. This has made me realize how valuable every 45 minutes of my life are. I have a pretty high pain threshold, but waxing at home has historically proven to be so painful and messy that it takes me forever warming and re-warming, and deep-breathing the pain away.

If you are not afaid, the cheapest of the home waxing kits may be $12. One upper-lip waxing will cost you the same price at the twenty uses in that jar. Savings=$220. A Brazilian Bikini wax may be a whopping $80 or more, I would not reccomend trying it at home.

So much for lesbian stereotypes, my dyke cousin was the first one to introduce me to leg waxing. I do believe that leg waxing may be the one area where you get more for your money and time. Once your skin gets used to waxing, it will hurt less, you will do it faster and (as with all waxing) your hair will grow back slower and you will need to do it less often.

One of my best friends does not like to get her facial hair waxed, It just keeps growing back so fast, that it becomes an expensive endeavor. Home waxing always seems to leave her with ingrown hairs. So, she bleaches. Bleaching must be done often, but is very inexpensive.

Femme Men: So you like to get your backs and bums waxed’¦. These places both actually hurt less than some, so if you have a good friend or partner who thinks it’s fun and kinky to wax you, have at it with a basic home wax kit with muslin strips. It is mostly the fancier spas and specialty waxing shops that will tackle men’s nether-regions and be warned they may charge you more than they would charge a woman for the same amount of surface area.

How to Pay for Waxing Less Often:

In certain areas, after you have been getting waxed for a while and the hair starts growing in more sparsely; try to keep up on plucking out the new growth for a week or two to ‘œbuy’ you time between waxings. At a certain point you will get annoyed and let it grow out so that it can be waxed off again.

*Frugal Hints for Care*

1. A facial scrub on the area a few times a week before and after waxing helps prevent ingrown hairs, but you could be more frugal about it with religious use of a terry wash cloth.

2. And TendSkin is a great product to ward off bumps, but it’s expensive. So, dissolve two asprin in a bottle of warm water. Keep it in the fridge. Shake and apply it cold to the area immediately after waxing and for the next couple days.

3. The only thing my waxer uses on me afterwards is a natural product she swears by’¦pure olive oil. Slather it on for healing and to prevent dryness and chafing.