Welcome to The Root After Dark, where I get to talk about all the things Danielle Belton (our editor-in-chief), Genetta Adams (our managing editor) and Yesha Callahan (our deputy managing editor) won’t let me talk about during the day. This is going to be fun for me, and I hope it is fun and enjoyable for you as well. Here we go.
I don’t know how or why I went my whole adult life without ever getting waxed down below, but here we are. To be fair, I was never “Teen Wolf” down there or anything, and I mostly handled it in the shower with a razor—but you can only do so much with a razor, as we all know. There are parts of a lady’s special place that you wouldn’t want to put a razor near or risk getting cut. For those places, there is waxing.
I will admit that I was hesitant for a long while because all I could think about was how painful it must be. I asked all my friends who I know either wax or sugar their lady bits about the process, and most of them told me that yes, it does, in fact, hurt, but it’s well worth it in the end. It took a while for me to be convinced.
The turning point for me came in September when a picture of a young lady’s freshly waxed and perfectly greased-up love box floated down the Twitter timeline. I couldn’t stop staring. It was fucking beautiful. I wanted that beauty for myself.
I made a decision. Fuck it, I thought. I’m doing this.
I asked my women friends in Los Angeles if they knew of a good spot I could go to that was clean and reputable. My girl Genoa referred me to a place in downtown L.A. called Wax Candy. She said she had been there before and had good experiences. I trusted her judgment, so I looked up their website.
Their service menu included tips for what to do before and after getting waxed, as well as a diagram showing which parts each type of wax covered. I decided to go with the Brazilian, because if you gonna do it, do it right. Right?
I called on a Friday afternoon and made an appointment for the next morning. That entire night, I stressed myself out thinking about it. Was it going to hurt? How long would it hurt? Was I going to like the outcome? Were my man friends going to like the outcome? Why did I say I was going to do this?
I asked again on the Twitter timeline for tips. People gave me all kinds of helpful advice. Exfoliate before going. Take Advil or Aleve 30 minutes to an hour before the service. Wear loose clothing so as not to irritate it afterward. Moisturize beforehand so it’s easier for the hair to come out.
When Saturday morning came around, I got out of bed and began the process of talking myself out of going. I called my best friend for moral support. I wanted her to tell me it was OK to chicken out. She was having none of that.
“Bitch,” she said matter-of-factly. “You can’t walk around with your pussy looking like your mama’s. Go get the damn wax.”
That did it. I got in the shower and took extra care cleaning, because the last thing I wanted was for someone to be nose-deep in my love spot and be like, “Damn, bitch. Did you at least rinse it off?”
Before putting on my clothes, I slathered as much body butter as I thought I could get away with on the outer surfaces. I wanted to leave no room for error. Right before leaving the house, I popped two Aleve and prayed for the best.
Downtown L.A. is a nightmare when it comes to parking, so instead of driving, I took an Uber. The driver pulled up in front of Wax Candy, and I took a deep breath before getting out of the car. He probably thought that I was going through something, and he was right; I was. I still wasn’t convinced I was going to be OK, but it was too late to back out. We here now.
I walked inside and a friendly receptionist greeted me. I signed in on the guest list, and because it was my first time, I may have signed some other paper, but I don’t remember now because everything at that point was a blur.
The receptionist introduced me to my waxer, Allie. Allie was a cheerful, friendly brown girl on the right side of plus-size, and I was immediately set at ease.
She led me to the waxing room and instructed me to take off my pants and underwear. I decided at the last moment to do my underarms as well, so she told me to go ahead and get completely naked. She offered me a paper gown in case I was too modest to let her see me naked.
I did as instructed and lay on the table waiting for her to return. When she did, she told me she was going to start with my underarms.
“Is it going to hurt?” I asked.
“It depends,” she answered honestly. “It can. I’ll do one strip and see how you feel.”
She did one strip under my left arm and it was so quick, I felt nothing. I was amazed. She quickly waxed under both underarms, and I felt like a champion because nothing made me wince or cry. I hoped the waxing of my pudenda would go just as smoothly.
A Brazilian wax involves removing all the hair from the front, sides and labia as well as your inner “tushy.”
She started at the top, just under my FUPA. I ain’t gonna lie, those first few strips hurt, but it was a quick hurt. The pain lasted only as long as it took her to remove the strip from my skin. She pressed down on each place she waxed, and that seemed to reduce the pain and the length of time it lingered by a great deal.
From my FUPA, she moved to the top of my vulva, then the sides, and finally inside the labia.
The entire time, she kept me distracted with good conversation and laughter.
I know, it’s hard to imagine engaging in laughter while someone is waxing your lady bits, but we really were having a good conversation and laughing all the way through it as she serviced me.
The service involves putting your legs in the butterfly position and at times lifting one leg or the other to provide the waxer access. I got through all the positions just fine, and again, most of it was relatively painless.
We finally reached the part of the service where she had to wax the inside of my butt crack.
“OK,” she said. “What I need you to do is lift your legs and pull your knees as close to your chest as possible.”
Me, knowing all my years of being a ho were finally about to pay off:
I pulled my legs all the way back and let my feet touch the wall behind my head.
She was like, “OK, girl. I didn’t mean all of that.”
I relaxed, and she finished that part of the wax. We were done.
She got a mirror and handed it to me so I could inspect. As I did, she went over me with a pair of tweezers to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, not much unlike what your eyebrow waxer does. Because she was so thorough, there wasn’t a lot for her to grab with tweezers.
When I tell you I fell in love with my pussy all over again ... bitch, I feel in love with my pussy all over again. She was so pretty. And smooth! Touching the top of my mound felt like heaven.
I spent the next week finding reasons to touch it when I was alone. I started doing it so much, I had to consciously remind myself not to reach down there in public. I’m not exaggerating. It was so damn soft. Amazingly smooth to the touch.
I vowed that I would get waxed forever and ever after that. And here comes the downside to it: In order to get waxed, the hair has to have grown to about the size of a fake eyelash. If you can lift it up with your fingers, there’s enough hair to be waxed.
For me, it took about six weeks to grow back to that point. It took another two before I was able to secure another appointment with Allie.
I saw her again on Saturday. This time I felt like a pro, and I was ready. She didn’t have to ease me into it. And because I had already been waxed before, the second process went even quicker than the first. We were done in about 10 minutes.
When she was done, I made a request that I thought she might balk at, but she took it all in stride.
I asked her to oil my girl up and take pictures of her using my phone.
Y’all, Allie turned into a damn photographer shooting a model. She caught my girl from so many angles, and all the pictures looked beautiful.
I have been using them to thirst-trap my male friends ever since.
I cannot recommend getting waxed highly enough.
I got my first-ever Brazilian, y’all, and it literally changed my life.