Perhaps we're being a little dramatic.
“I’ll fix it. I FIX IT,” she shrieked. “It’s fine, I’ll just wax the rest of your face . . . even it up.”
This was, hands-down, the worst thing that’s ever happened to my face.
This year, the Internet is very keen to tell you that there’s one way to get “wrinkle-free, baby-smooth skin” — and it’s removing all the hair from your face.
“Shave your face,” the beauty stories say, and you will never look back.
Well, I’m here to tell you one thing: Don’t.
One year ago something so embarrassing, so awkward, so cringe-worthy happened to me that I could only tell two people (my mum and best friend) about it. Strap in, ladies.
The scene of The worst thing to ever happen to my face Incident was my local beautician. Can you feel what’s coming? I rocked up for my regular appointment, full of excitement about the fact that I’d soon have perfectly sculpted brows and a baby’s-bum-smooth upper lip.
Brows done . . . so far, so good.
My waxer was about to start making me mo-less until she was distracted by the “fluff” (a word you never want associated with your face) taking residence next to my hairline. I’ve long felt a teeny bit embarrassed about the slight fuzz of blonde hair that covers my skin — I know that it’s completely normal, but it’s one of my soft spots (geddit?).
Pawing my sideburns, the wielder of hot wax observed, “You have quite a bit of soft hair on your face, you’d look so much better if we waxed it off.”
Me: “Um, no.”
Her: “Oh, but your makeup would slide on so smoothly.”
Me: “No, seriously, it’s a no.”
Her: “Go on, you’ll be so happy with the results, it’s not nice to have that much hair on your face.”
And that’s when she got me. I do have a bit of hair on my face, don’t I? Maybe it is really gross? Maybe I should do something about it . . . ?
“You won’t regret it,” she promised me. “I’ll just take a tiny bit from the side of your jawline.”
I’ve never seen someone grab their tools so quickly, with one fell swoop she’d whisked off the baby hairs next to my ears. And by GOD did it hurt. Remember the first time you ever got your brows waxed? Well it was like that, times a thousand. Looking pleased with herself, my torturer handed me a hand mirror to admire my silky smooth skin. It took me approximately 0.31 seconds to notice the huge difference between the waxed skin and the normal cheek skin that still had a fluffy down. It was a further 0.24 seconds until I burst into uncontrollable, sobbing tears.
What had she done to me? I couldn’t be seen in public with red, hairless sideburns that looked freakish next to normal skin that has a little bit of hair on it, like NORMAL skin does. More tears. All of the tears.
“I’ll fix it. I FIX IT,” she shrieked. “It’s fine, I’ll just wax the rest of your face . . . even it up.”
Over. My. Dead. Body.
Her: “No really, it’ll look good this time. I promise.”
You promised last time, you lying, face-ruining, sadist.
Her: “You don’t have much choice.”
Got me again. And that’s when the real torment started. Strip after strip of hot wax was slathered and ripped from my poor face. So much hot wax. I had never used anything more extreme than an exfoliant on my skin before, yet, there I was, having every inch of it ripped at, over and over again.
The whole thing took seven minutes. With the hair went the top three layers of my face, and when I looked in the hand mirror I saw an angry, red lobster peering back.
“It’ll look beautiful once it cools down.”
That was her third lie: it didn’t look beautiful, it took a good 24 hours to stop resembling a boiled tomato and then I experienced the breakout to end all breakouts – I’m talking big angry welts. Sooooo nice under makeup. Not.
Oh, how it hurt. A small gust of wind was enough to make me run for cover. Everything felt weird against my freakishly smooth cheeks.
I called my mum crying straight after The Incident and she did her best to console me through her muffled chuckling. My bestie wasn’t as subtle — she laughed as much as I cried.
To anyone else who so much as looked in my direction, I blurted, “I used a new face moisturiser and had an allergic reaction . . . NOTHING TO SEE HERE!” I didn’t even tell my boyfriend what happened. I fart in front of him, but I couldn’t quite find the words to explain that I’d accidentally had my whole face waxed.
Needless to say, I will never, ever be visiting that beautician again and a year on the memories are still painful. But my skin did recover and talking about it is quite cathartic. It must be the oversharer in me.
Have you ever had a beauty treatment go wrong?
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"I did my own version of the Biggest Loser. I ended up crying on the couch."
