Your Brazilian Waxer Has Seen It Before. Whatever “It” Is.

There is usually a moment before someone’s first Brazilian wax where I can practically hear what she is thinking. What if I smell? What if I am darker down there? What if I have too much hair? What if I sweat? What if she thinks my vulva looks weird? What about my stretch marks, my stomach, my butt, the ingrown I picked at even though I knew better? Here is the answer to basically all of it: I do not care. Not in a dismissive way. In a this is a completely normal human body and I am here to wax it way. You booked a Brazilian. I came prepared to see a vulva. Nothing has gone terribly wrong.

Bodies have a scent. That area has sweat glands. Hormones change things. You may have worked all day before coming in. You may be nervous and sweating more than usual. None of that is unusual. Please do not douche, spray perfume down there or scrub yourself within an inch of your life before coming to see me. Normal hygiene is enough. A shower is great. Your vulva does not need to smell like vanilla cupcakes. If you notice a new or unusually strong odor along with itching, burning, sores, pain or unusual discharge, that is different. I am not going to diagnose it during a wax, and it may be worth checking with your medical provider. But a normal human scent? I promise I am not shocked.

Your vulva does not have to match the exact color of your stomach. Labia can naturally be pink, tan, brown, reddish, purple toned or considerably darker than the surrounding skin. Your bikini line, inner thighs and the skin between your cheeks can be darker too. Genetics, hormones, friction, shaving, pregnancy and previous irritation can all affect pigmentation. Sometimes that is simply your natural coloring. I am not looking at darker labia wondering what went wrong. I am looking at the direction your hair grows so I can remove it without making you hate me.

There is no single normal looking vulva. Labia can be different sizes. They can be uneven. They can be more visible or less visible. Bodies change with pregnancy, weight changes, hormones and age. Real anatomy has texture, folds, pigmentation and asymmetry. I am not comparing you to the person before you. I am not grading anything. I care whether your skin looks healthy enough to wax and how I can make the appointment as comfortable as possible.

We are already talking about everything else, so we might as well cover this too. You may be moving your legs around. I may ask you to hold your knees differently. There can be pressure on your stomach. You are nervous. Your entire body may be tense. Sometimes a toot escapes. Congratulations. You remain a human being. Please do not spend the rest of the appointment wanting to disappear through the table. I genuinely do not care. It is not remotely interesting enough to become a story.

You do not automatically have to cancel your Brazilian because your period started. If you are comfortable being waxed, wear a tampon or menstrual cup and let me know. That is it. Just be aware that some women feel more sensitive around their period, so the wax can feel a little more painful than usual. If you already know that time of the month makes your skin and body extra sensitive, you may prefer to schedule around it. But if your period shows up the morning of your appointment, we are adults. Put in a tampon or cup and come get your wax if you are comfortable doing so. Your period is not gross. I am a woman. I have one too.

I think sometimes we forget this part. I am not standing over you as some mysterious wax professional who has never had to take her own underwear off in front of another person. I have a vulva too. I have been the person on the table. I have worried about how I looked and whether something was normal. And then I realized this is literally just a service. It only feels scandalous because we are not used to casually having someone wax our vulva on a Tuesday afternoon. Once I realized how normal the whole thing actually is, most of the embarrassment disappeared. Apparently I took that realization pretty far because I eventually volunteered to be the Brazilian wax model for a cosmetology class of fifteen women. Not one student. Fifteen women. My dignity survived just fine. So it is pretty hard to convince me that your appointment is going to shock me.

Please stop apologizing because you are so hairy. You came for a wax. This would be a very unsuccessful business model if everyone showed up hairless. Wax needs enough hair to grab. Around a quarter inch is a useful general target. If you have been shaving, that usually means letting it grow for a couple of weeks before your appointment. Please do not panic the night before and shave because you suddenly decide there is too much. Now I have nothing to wax. Come as you are. If something needs a little trimming, we can handle it.

Yes. I love you enough not to lie about that. Hair is being removed from the root in a sensitive area. You are going to feel it. But it is not twenty straight minutes of uninterrupted pain. It is a quick sensation with each section, and then it is over. Some areas are more sensitive than others. Weirdly enough, the part people are usually most mortified about, the hair between the cheeks, is often one of the easier areas. Your first Brazilian may feel the most intimidating simply because you do not know what to expect yet. The anticipation can be worse than some of the actual pulls. Once you have done it once, the whole appointment becomes much less mysterious.

Hair grows in cycles. Not every hair is actively growing at exactly the same time. Some follicles are actively growing. Some are transitioning. Others are resting. That is why you may notice a few hairs appearing sooner than expected after your first wax. No, I did not secretly miss half of them. Some hairs may not have been long enough above the skin to be removed yet. With regular waxing, usually somewhere around every four to six weeks depending on your growth, we start catching more hairs at more predictable stages. Over time, many people find that regrowth feels softer and less prickly than shaved hair because we are not cutting it off bluntly at the surface. Waxing is not permanent hair removal, though. Your follicles did not sign a contract promising never to grow again.

I know. You see three random hairs and suddenly the razor starts calling your name. Leave them alone. When you shave between waxes, you cut those hairs back down to skin level and put us right back into dealing with different lengths again. If you want waxing to become easier and more predictable, consistency helps. Your first few appointments are us getting acquainted with your hair growth cycle.

You get a say.

Want everything gone? Fine. Want to leave a strip or a triangle? Also fine. Want the back done but keep something in the front? We can talk about it. There is no Brazilian waxing rulebook requiring you to leave looking a specific way. It is your body. I am just here with the wax.

I care if the skin is irritated, broken, sunburned or infected. I care if you recently had another treatment in the area or are using medications or products that may make the skin fragile. I care if something has changed since your last appointment. Those things matter. Your stretch marks do not. The color of your labia does not. Your stomach folding when you move your leg does not. The fact that you have hair at a hair removal appointment definitely does not. I want the wax to remove your hair. Not your skin.

If you are prone to ingrown hairs, tell me. Digging at one with tweezers can turn a small irritated follicle into inflammation, a wound, a scar or a dark mark that lasts much longer than the hair ever would have. Once freshly waxed skin has had time to calm down, usually a couple of days, appropriate gentle exfoliation and homecare can help reduce ingrowns. Especially if your skin holds onto dark marks easily, I would much rather prevent extra inflammation than spend months trying to fade what happened after you attacked one bump in the bathroom mirror.

Freshly waxed skin is easier to irritate, so give it a little time. For about the first day, avoid unnecessary heat, heavy friction, hot tubs, very hot showers and intense sweaty workouts. If your skin is still irritated, give it longer. And yes, that generally includes sex for the first day too. I know. You will survive. Loose clothing is your friend. So is leaving the area alone instead of inspecting every follicle under bathroom lighting.

There is a reason women keep coming back for Brazilians even though I just admitted they are not painless. That freshly waxed feeling is good. Really good. The skin feels smooth without the rough stubble that can show up almost immediately after shaving. You are not constantly thinking about razor burn along the bikini line. Swimsuits feel different. Underwear feels different. And there is a little confidence boost that is hard to explain until you have experienced it. Nobody else even has to know you had it done. You know. I have had women walk in nervous, clutching the little sheet like their dignity depends on it, and leave wondering why they made such a huge deal about the appointment in their head.

You do not have to lose weight first. You do not need to lighten anything. You do not need perfectly smooth skin. You do not need to apologize for stretch marks, scars, cellulite, pigmentation, discharge, sweat, your period, your stomach, the shape of your labia or the occasional accidental toot. None of it changes the way I see you. I am looking at skin and hair. You are the one imagining a full judging panel. There is no panel. It is just me and some wax. So if you are looking for a Brazilian wax in Bentonville and you have been putting it off because you are embarrassed, come see me at Skin Therapy with Marissa in Bentonville. You are allowed to be nervous. You are allowed to ask me the weird question. You are allowed to tell me this is your first one. And when you leave feeling ridiculously smooth and wondering why you were so worried about it beforehand... I will try not to say I told you so.