Wax on – Wax Off

Bikini waxing: This job is far from an ordinary run-of-the-mill occupation. As for the growing trend of waxing, it comes with a standard of beauty that filters down from the stars on the silver screen, and before them, it started with the ancient Egyptian women.

“Getting a wax for yourself,” Herringdine says, “it’s almost like a secret. You think it’s like a hidden tattoo—it’s almost like you feel a little naughty. Honestly, you’d be surprised at how many people, especially conservative people, are walking around you with a full Brazilian  and you’d never know it.”

Here at Serenity Wellness Spa & Salon 29-year-old, mother of one sassy 3-year-old, three dogs and three cats, preps her waxing table for her next client. Amber Herringdine has been a master cosmetologist and certified waxier for 10 years. A native of Milledgeville, found her dream job after a two year run at Georgia College State University.

She chose a biology major originally, but at the tail end of her second year, tired of being broke and working at the local mall answering phones, Herringdine took a year off from GCSU. In her time away she decided to get her cosmetology license and never looked back.

She leans back in the cream-colored, cushioned chair of the tea room in Serenity Spa and pushes back the lone pink lock in her blonde pixie cut, with a thoughtful look on her face.

“Honestly, it’s not what I went to cosmetology school for, but there was a need, and yes ma’am believe it or not it’s one of my favorite parts of the job because of the conversations,” Herringdine says.

A session with Herringdine begins in a plum purple room with dark mahogany bamboo furniture that lends to the feel of an exotic jungle getaway. Her client is laying on the cushioned waxing table with a white towel wrap covering her essentials while they jovially exchange the most recent stories about their kids and families.

Blue surgical gloves protect Herringdine’s hands from the 102 degree honeywax and maintain a high level of cleanliness, which she prides herself on.

“The bowls of wax are so hot they are a breeding ground for bacteria and if they are not handled properly things will not go so well. My number one rule is NEVER DOUBLE DIP A STICK,” Herringdine says. “You cant dip a stick and wax an underarm and then go to the nether regions with the same stick. That is just asking for a world of

trouble.”

Her client proceeds to bend her right knee outward and continues to chat about her 10-month-old. Meanwhile, Herringdine dusts on a very fine powder on the first spot so the wax does not stick directly to the skin. She then applies a generous amount of wax to the specific area with a dipstick that resembles an oversized popsicle stick.

Then comes the yanking—the sound and effect is nothing like the toe-curling scene from 40-year-old Virgin, where the main character goes in for a chest wax.

Without even the slightest hesitation in conversation, the first strip of hair is snatched off in a small cloud of powder and wax particles. For more sensitive areas, a smaller dipstick is used to provide a more accurate pull. This process is repeated several times on each side and followed by a light tweezing to pluck the stray hairs for a cleaner, satisfying result.

The key to a mostly painless wax depends on the waxier and their attentiveness to the different growth directions of the hair. A strip of wax cannot be slapped on with any old reckless abandon because the hair will not pull, or it will break off causing several issues.

After all the waxing and detail tweezing is finished Herringdine ends with a hydra-refining eye gel by Repechage, rubbed on the area to reduce the puffiness and redness.

The wax is complete and Herringdine leaves the room and lets her client get dressed while saying, “ It [the session] doesn’t have to be any kind of serious. You can still cut up but still needs to be professional.”

Herringdine carries herself with the stride of a driven woman and speaks with a sweet almost playfully stern southern sass coated with an affectionate politeness. With her soothing voice and laid back attitude on waxing, it’s easy to see how clients call her a friend and open up a more candid side that the outside world may not detect from the surface view.

She is not surprised by much in the waxing room anymore.

“You get desensitized to it, kind of like a doctor, except there are a few strange situations that stick out in my mind,” Herringdine says. “ Boyfriends, affairs, job worries, drug trying, I’ve heard it all in multiple sessions. I like to consider my clients my friends on a certain level.”

A growing trend in waxing comes in the form of a full Brazilian wax, which means completely bare from front to back. A close second to the Brazilian is the “landing strip” which is literally a strip of hair strategically not waxed. The reason typically behind this design is because some women do not want to feel completely bare and pubescent.             The name, Brazilian, originates from a letter written by a man named Pero Vaz de Caminha, an explorer back in the 1500’s. He discovered Brazil and the beautiful nakedness of the people there.

Caminha wrote, “Their privates were so exposed, healthy, and hairless that looking upon them we felt no shame.”

In fact today, 80% of her clients request the full Brazilian, a fashion trend that dates back to before the naked Brazilians, in the time of ancient Egyptian women.

The hairless bodies of the women signified the standard of beauty which was youth and innocence. The trend persevered through the eras to the Greek and Roman times holding the similar ideas of beauty, striving for the youthful look. Waxing continued through time until the queen of France, Catherine de Medici outlawed the beauty trend.

The waxing phenomena surfaced once more in the 1960’s with the creation of the bikini and ever since that time people of every race and gender have been refining their lines and baring all for the barely there swimsuits. The main clients are women ranging from the ages 20 up to mid 50s.

From Herringdine’s perspective, people that come to her are almost mortified about having the most natural thing on their bodies: hair.

“People just don’t like or want hair anymore. Everyone comes into the room saying they are so embarrassed because they are the hairiest person ever, which is untrue in my opinion,” Herringdine says.

Waxing, even Brazilians, are not the dreadful scene that Hollywood makes them out to be. It is an art that requires the delicate yet firm accuracy to get the refreshing feeling that can be your little secret from the world.