DISCLAIMER FOR THE MEN:  Guys, I’m telling you now, you may want to skip over this particular post and read a different one, or go make a sandwich, and maybe watch the game (any sport will do!  Heck, even porn would be better).  Today’s entry is really geared towards the ladies.  Trust me on this one, and consider yourself warned.

As a woman in her late-ish thirties, I’ve noticed a few things have been changing in recent years.  For one, my hormones are completely out of whack.  It’s like they’re angry adolescents, out to prove something.  Their first order of mutiny was to start sprouting hair in gawd forsaken places.  It is precisely this fact that encouraged me to try today’s new thing:  electrolysis.  I mean, granted, it was also seductively dangled in front of me as a voucher… What’s a frugal girl to do?

Now, I’ve been blessed with fair hair, especially since my father could very well be the missing link. He and my brother are probably the hairiest people I’ve ever seen (except for the sizeable bald patches on the tops of their heads – why is that?).  So when I started to notice a few stray hairs emerging on my chin several years ago, I barely paid them any attention, and eventually thought nothing of plucking them out.

Little did I realize that this was precisely the ammunition these hormonal by-products were looking for, and they came back with a vengeance, in much larger numbers, brandishing infinitely deeper roots.  So, I retaliated with the help of my aesthetician, who introduced them to the hot wax.  Alas, this only seemed to infuriate them even more.  Clearly, we needed reinforcements.  So, we decided to pull out the really big gun, and turned to the laser.  Well, that definitely showed the sprinkling of dark follicles death’s door; however, the practically albino small fuzzy patch seemed even more determined to stick around, and simply smirked at our efforts.  So much sass!  Well, desperate times called for desperate measures.

As with many of my new things, I did not completely think this one through, nor did I do sufficient research on it ahead of time.  Sure, I had heard of electrolysis over the years, but I merely associated it with the barbaric beauty practices of the pre-laser sixties and seventies.  Something about getting rid of individual hairs one at a time, and with needles, didn’t exactly appeal to me, go figure.

It was with precisely this kind of trepidation that I stepped into the Advanced Institute of Electrolysis earlier today, and met the founder, Victoria, who has been running the clinic for years, and is now joined by her two daughters.  Victoria used to be a pharmacist, back in the day, and is delighted to be able to explain the chemistry of electrolysis to me, which rings an incredibly faint bell.  Basically, a very thin needle is inserted into the hair follicle and then blasted with electricity to kill the hair, which is then removed, and does not regrow.  The challenge is that it takes time, because you have to treat each hair individually, and different follicles will grow hair at different rates and times.   The big benefit, though, is that, if you can stick it out for weekly or so visits over the course of a few months, the end results are actually permanent, which you cannot say for any other hair removal method.  Believe me, I checked.

If you’ve ever been for a facial before, and endured the ‘extraction’ pain, then this will feel familiar to you, as it’s about the same – surprisingly less painful than I was expecting.   You do feel the very small needle pricks as they’re happening, but Victoria, being very experienced, moves swiftly, so there is little discomfort.  The experience is capped off with the immediate gratification of having the zapped, defunct hairs pulled out on the spot.

I have to say, it wasn’t horrendous.  And the patch bothers me enough, that I think I probably will return for the next few months to just get it over and done with, once and for all.  I probably should have done so sooner, rather than wasting money on all those waxing sessions… But hey, this blog is not called Hindsight 20/20.  So I’m grateful for the introduction to a ‘new’ 130-year old form of torture in the name of beauty, and let’s just leave it at that, shall we?