Isn’t this such a lovely comment by E.? So caring and informative. E. was reading through the archives and decided to chime in on depilatories. This is a great product review, E. Thanks, and “OPA” to the Greek ladies who are so gifted at de-fuzzing upper lips in the Greater Boston area.
For the record, I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad or ugly about a woman with upper lip fuzz but unfortunately, a slight shading of dark hair against lighter skin can make one’s face look a little bit dirty.
This is an old post, but I was searchin’ the archives and want to add to your list of great suggestions. I absolutely ADORED laser hair removal, (sensitive skin and dark Armenian facial hair genes make me a perfect candidate) but couldn’t afford to continue after a while. Facial hair is closely linked to hormonal fluctuations and lasers kill individual follicles which means that you have to keep doing it through a few cycles of hair growth (up to 6 months, as I understand it), so thyroid (which is very hard to get diagnosed, in my experience) imbalance can make it not work as well.
I have tried everything for hair removal over the years. I started using jo-leeen when I was 14 like PB, and all through seminary I got waxed by the lovely Greek ladies in Newton Centre who used to love rip off the ‘stache in one fell swoop and show it to me… “see, look, all the HAIR!” That is a trick I learned way back — for those of us who have thick, dark hair, make sure your waxing tech is not someone with 3 fine blonde eyebrow hairs. No offense to the fine-hairs, it’s just that thick, dark hair is different! I’m not kidding about the Greek ladies — they KNOW what they’re working with, and they won’t wax my Strong Armenian Eyebrows to a thin comma, they keep the bold brown but remove the Bert unibrow and give my brows some shape.
Finally, about a year ago, Olay came out with a new depilatory creme combo (Olay Smooth Finish Hair Removal Cream Duo) that is really good. I had to stop using Jolene AND waxing because my skin is Just Too Sensitive, and breaks out at the drop of a hat, and the only thing worse than a hairy ‘stache is a ‘stache made of tiny white irritation bump zits. Olay’s thing has a special treatment stick which is basically a lip balm like substance that protects the skin under the cream so you don’t get irritated. It’s expensive, comparatively, but I’ve bought one box and it’s still going a year later.
http://www.olay.com/skin-care-products/facial-hair-removal/Smooth?pid=75609043222
See more here if you’re looking for hair removal services.
Even fine haired fair people can have a ‘stache look. I have blonde, fine facial hair but the bluish veins under my skin above my lip plus a few freckles = the Vietnamese ladies always offer me a lip wax.
the link at the bottom of the post does not work
I discovered that the one or two of my stache hairs that come in black actually make it look like I have wrinkles at the edge of my upper lip!
And I echo the advice about getting someone who knows what they are doing when waxing. My tip – never let somone wax your brows who wears her own brows in that pencil thin look! My brows were so damaged that it took at least 8 months until I could get them shaped again, and even then I have a patch that never grew back!
The text of the link at the bottom is correct; somehow the link itself got garbled. Try this:
http://www.olay.com/skin-care-products/facial-hair-removal/Smooth?pid=75609043222