April 9, 2012 - Written by: Yazmin Joy

Battle of the Fuzz

So my mate and I were having coffee the other week trying to get on with some essay work and as usual we began talking about non-essay related topics. Her boyfriend was coming to visit and so she needed to pop into boots on the way home to get some wax strips. It was at that precise moment that I had the revelation that I am constantly at war. Yes, me! The peace warrior that I am is engaged in CONSTANT CONFLICT… and I am not talking about my current altercation with my neighbours regarding my morning Cyndi Lauper singing I see your true colours… NO! I am talking about a vicious confrontation with (dum dum dum) my own body hair. I am talking about the battle of the FUZZ people. And it is Uuuuuur-Gaa-LY!

Plucking, shaving, waxing, bleaching, lasering, epilating… They all sound like torture methods don’t they!?

Well boy’s I can tell you now… they are mind numbingly tedious and some are just a glorified socially acceptable form of self-harming (but with silky smooth results).

I am not shitting you… in the hours I spend removing my excess body hair I could have joined the debating team, genetically modified my own mini-me clone, trained for a marathon, but instead countless hours have been spent sitting on my shower floor in uncomprimisable yoga style positions trying to apply hair removal cream to my lady bits before standing upright in a starfish position for TEN whole minutes waiting for the cream to melt off my keratin.

The whole procedure it like a self-inflicted torture session. It’s a load of bollocks really when I think about it… but geeze I don’t wanna be known as the hairy one in my friends group do I!?

Choose your weapon carefully…

I mean what is completely baffling to me is that in this day and age, the 21^st century, there is no fool proof, easy, painless way of getting rid of excess body hair for good. Even electrolysis isn’t guaranteed long lasting results.

Now (nudging in closer) let me let you in on a little secret… when it’s cold and I am not going to be showing off my bod in a bikini or on a night out – I figure WHY in the name of Simon and Garfunkel – should I bother huh?

After all, with this recent sudden cold spell I am not ashamed to admit I delayed my waxing appointment by a few weeks in a desperate strategic attempt to try and maintain some of my own body heat. I mean that’s what the extra fuzz is there for right?

Now of course no woman wakes up in the morning and goes: ‘oh my goodness what a lovely glossy sheen my leg hair has today. Oo PERFECT sunshine and tropical heat… let’s show off these bad boys in a miniskirt.’ NO! When I wake up and it’s hot and sunny I think: ‘Fuck. It’s time to EXTERMINATE or suffer in jeans’.

As a student, it’s bleddy expensive too! Geeze it costs an arm and leg just to get your hoohaa waxed these days. And what a variety; Brazilian, playboy, you can even get ones pubes artfully sculpted into various shapes and designs.

One beautician told me spent an afternoon waxing a womans vag crop into a heart shape for her boyfriend on Valentines. How romantic.

For those chicks who undertake the act themselves – respect – you must be as nimble as a Wham! Bar – coz hell I need a professional when it comes to that area.

What really gets me… is that some (- not all – SOME – coz I know many of you dudes are impressivly clued up) men think that women should have lushious, healthy head hair and are simultaneously are under the deluded impression that women are hair free everywhere else.

I watched this beastly program on telly a few years ago where this woman, obsessed with body hair removal, decided to take part in a serious prime time documentary – where she would go au natural for three months or so to uncover why and how body hair has become such a taboo.

Now after about three weeks her boyfriend of eight years dumped her!!! Not even kidding. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing.Wake up and smell the persulphates man!

Okay some women’s body hair is more visible then others and yes sometimes it’s down to genetics, but fellas (if you are one of these young men in dire need of education) seriously WE ALL HAVE BODY HAIR! Chill the fuck out.

I wish I looked this graceful!

I’m not saying I think women should rebel and abandon hair removal – I’m just saying that we should all be aware that we are not born hair free.

It’s not just hair that is growing from my body that annoys the hell out of me.

My malting head hair constantly clings to me to the point at which I just wanna scream.

Sometimes I’ll just be casually running my fingers through my well conditioned hair to find great tufts of it leaving it’s spouting patch and migrating into all the inconvenient crevasses of my living space, where they remain, only to crop-up in unexpected places as if my own body was producing it just to torture me.

It gets in my bed, gets stuck to the bottom of my water glass, stragglers hanging from my woolly jumper… It’s like living with an Afghan Hound, except it’s NOT living with an Afghan hound at all – you’re just living with your own body.

Ugh.. I think it’s just that ghastly feeling when long stands become tangled in everything. That awful sensation when a stray hair hitchhike’s a ride in one of my socks and gets wrapped around my toes…. cringe! Makes me wana vom just thinking about it. Highly irritating and just plain repulsive.

This made me giggle.

But Seriously, Let’s try and Get Philosophical

One must be grateful that one has hair at all and that I am in a part of the world where access to hair removal products and facilities are made (pretty) easy.

So when I think about the Battle of the Fuzz it makes it more bearable NOT to think of this as a ‘battle’ RATHER more like just re-enforcing a restraining order on it. Body hair and the metro-woman can co-exist after all. I think one just needs to accept that maybe it will never be a battle completely won (Unless I suddenly win the lottery and open up my own Trichology research centre).

Have a great week peeps.

P.s. credit where credit is due… my mate coined the title and I stole it for this article! (If you’re reading) Mwah!

Tags: beauty body hair humour Joy rant waxing