The Beasts Of Beauty School
By Tara Rubano
My friend Kim accidentally got a full Brazilian during her very first bikini wax. Being the virgin that she was, wax-wise, she didn’t know what “Do you want a Brazilian?” meant when the lady asked her what type of wax she wanted. In her ignorance she nodded yes, and proceeded to experience a level of pain that was comparable to childbirth. She then vowed, afterwards, to never get a Brazilian again after not being able to sit on the toilet to pee.
Currently I am going to school to become an Esthetician, and under my license jurisdiction I am legally allowed to pick at people’s skin (facials – the non sexual kind), apply make-up, and wax. I originally got into this field because I was so annoyed at why my face was always breaking out and I wanted to learn how to pick my zits correctly, leaving minimal scars. However, after doing facials for some time at school, it’s the waxing that I enjoy more. There is something incredibly satisfying about ripping someone’s hair out. Maybe it’s the visual cleanliness of hairless skin, or the gasp the once-hairy person makes when I yank out a 3x3 inch patch of hair off their flesh, but whatever it is, I love it.
At our in-house salon at school, we work on the public. When we’re bored and there is no public, we work on each other. Working on each other is fun because it’s like a huge sleepover party with your gal pals. (Any men in this program are gay, so they also fall under the gal pal category.) We read trashy magazines like US Weekly and In Touch, talk about what celebrity has a drug problem, how much weight we need to lose and how much we hate our school, all while plucking each other’s eyebrows, waxing our legs, doing our make-up and giving or receiving facials. It’s a nice way to pass the school time, get credit and not have to touch the public, for touching the public is ghastly.
The public or namely the kind of public that goes to a beauty school salon can be scary, to say
the least. It’s mostly old ladies, with little-to-no hair, who want the cosmetologists to dye it back to their original hair color. I always wonder, what’s the point? You’re still half bald and look the same, you might as well embrace the fact that you don’t look 30, 40 or, hell, even 60 anymore. Just give up, save your money, use it to play the lotto, die and pass your winnings onto someone younger. Maybe I’m mean, but I think once you pass a certain age, there isn’t a point in trying to improve your looks because they’re all shot to shit.
Sometimes the public are also retards. Literally. One day I was trying to take a nap in the corner of one of our work areas and was awoken by dramatic sobbing. All I heard was, “Ohhh, I have to get my haaair cutttt. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I haaaaave to get it cutttttttt. Ahhhh!! Ohhhh!!” The guy at the desk was trying to appease this person, but she kept balling. He finally told her she would have to leave if she couldn’t control herself. Apparently she couldn’t and left. I quickly followed her to see what she looked like, but was only able to see her back as she walked away from our department and out of our building, bewildering all that she passed. I later learned she was from a mental facility. Don’t they have their own salon?
Aside from the old ladies and retards, the rest of the public is comprised of normal to cheap-complaining folk. I don’t really mind them because they aren’t paying me, and the $5 they are paying the school for a facial doesn’t mean I have to care, even if they tip me. I just do my thing, try to do a decent job, and remember that I’m doing this for the school credit. Most don’t repulse me, but some do. It’s a grin-and-bear-it situation that often calls for rubber gloves.
But waxing, my friend, waxing is where it’s at. It’s the only procedure that we do that not only causes pain, but is expected to. Sometimes, if that client is particularly annoying, you can elevate that pain and feign beginner’s jitters; it’s not like you’re going to get fired.
We do all sorts of waxing: eyebrows, lips, face, arms, legs, underarms, etc. The only areas we don’t do are the bikini and the back. The bikini for obvious reasons, as it’s a hard area to wax without fear of removing an organ. Also we don’t have a private area, so no Sharon Stone-like moments. The back is mainly avoided because it uses a lot of wax and our school is cheap. But sometimes, just sometimes, when a stupid teacher doesn’t know the rules, she okays it and we are stuck with The Beast.
This particular beast seemed, at first, gross. He was a large stocky man, with long wiry hair. He was wearing too-short bike shorts, had a big flabby gut, and had long hair ALL over his back. At the time we were given this assignment, I was waxing my friend Daniele’s legs, and forced her to help me with The Beast. She didn’t want to, but since she needed credit and didn’t have time to come up with a good avoidance excuse, she complied.
All the other girls in the salon were snickering and ogling at The Beast. Some were like, “You’re not going to wax him, are you?” I just shrugged and said, “Sure.” We were going to get credit, there wasn’t anything else to do, and the thought of having a whole back of hair to rip out oddly excited me.
Before we started, we had him show us his back to see if we could even do it; the sight of seeing a fat hairy guy in too-short bike shorts taking off half his clothes for our viewing pleasure was not erotically stimulating. But being “professionals” and being in the business of making people, however hideous, feel and look better, we threw him on the table.
The first step in preparation for depilation was to trim his back hair. We decided to tandemly wax him, me taking the right side and Daniele taking the left. Since we only had one scissor, I started. It probably took me over ten minutes just to trim half of his back. Daniele looked on in disgust, while mouthing, “I’m gonna kill you,” at me.
Once he was all trimmed, we began. I asked him if he’s ever been waxed before, to which he said no. I gently informed him that he was about to enter a world of pain, that he might bleed, and that he will be very red for the rest of the day. He seemed ok with it, so I proceeded. I spread a big patch of pink wax on his back, applied the muslin paper, and in one fell swoop, yanked it off. He didn’t flinch. I continued and Daniele began her attack on the left.
His fat jiggled with each rip. After a bit, he began to bleed. But still, he didn’t
make a peep. I asked him how he was doing. He said it hurt, but it wasn’t too bad. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, but I began to feel grateful that I wasn’t a prostitute. I had to get pretty close to him during the procedure and got a whiff of his body. It wasn’t foul, just distinguishable in that way that everyone has a scent. His was of sweet sweat, or just fatness. I don’t know, but it wasn’t turning me on. I began to think about how prostitutes fall into the “beggars can’t be choosers” category; a trick is a trick, however repulsive. I thanked God I didn’t have to do this guy, because if I did, I would need a hit of crack. Maybe two. Perhaps that’s why all hookers are junkies.
I started to feel bad in my ho’ analysis, because this guy was actually nice. He didn’t complain once and tipped us, rather nicely, when it was over. He was appreciative of our work and was genuinely a good person, or seemed as such.
The next day, Daniele told me that when she went home after waxing The Beast, she had similar thoughts. At first she was repulsed by him all during the wax, especially when he bled, and she thought only negative things about him because of the way he looked. She then realized that she is in the beauty industry, an industry whose sole responsibility is to make people feel better about themselves, by improving their physical looks. We are in the business of beautifying, and if the person we beautify isn’t the hottest person in the world, well it’s our business to make them feel that way. She then began to cry because of the way she treated, if only in her mind, The Beast. Or maybe it was because she just stopped taking The Pill. Who knows?
Over the next week I saw The Beast twice more in the salon. The first time was to get a hair cut and the second was to get a facial. He was on a mission, a mission to feel beautiful, and gosh darnnit, I felt proud to contribute.
My friend Kim accidentally got a full Brazilian during her very first bikini wax. Being the virgin that she was, wax-wise, she didn’t know what “Do you want a Brazilian?” meant when the lady asked her what type of wax she wanted. In her ignorance she nodded yes, and proceeded to experience a level of pain that was comparable to childbirth. She then vowed, afterwards, to never get a Brazilian again after not being able to sit on the toilet to pee.
Currently I am going to school to become an Esthetician, and under my license jurisdiction I am legally allowed to pick at people’s skin (facials – the non sexual kind), apply make-up, and wax. I originally got into this field because I was so annoyed at why my face was always breaking out and I wanted to learn how to pick my zits correctly, leaving minimal scars. However, after doing facials for some time at school, it’s the waxing that I enjoy more. There is something incredibly satisfying about ripping someone’s hair out. Maybe it’s the visual cleanliness of hairless skin, or the gasp the once-hairy person makes when I yank out a 3x3 inch patch of hair off their flesh, but whatever it is, I love it.
At our in-house salon at school, we work on the public. When we’re bored and there is no public, we work on each other. Working on each other is fun because it’s like a huge sleepover party with your gal pals. (Any men in this program are gay, so they also fall under the gal pal category.) We read trashy magazines like US Weekly and In Touch, talk about what celebrity has a drug problem, how much weight we need to lose and how much we hate our school, all while plucking each other’s eyebrows, waxing our legs, doing our make-up and giving or receiving facials. It’s a nice way to pass the school time, get credit and not have to touch the public, for touching the public is ghastly.
The public or namely the kind of public that goes to a beauty school salon can be scary, to say
the least. It’s mostly old ladies, with little-to-no hair, who want the cosmetologists to dye it back to their original hair color. I always wonder, what’s the point? You’re still half bald and look the same, you might as well embrace the fact that you don’t look 30, 40 or, hell, even 60 anymore. Just give up, save your money, use it to play the lotto, die and pass your winnings onto someone younger. Maybe I’m mean, but I think once you pass a certain age, there isn’t a point in trying to improve your looks because they’re all shot to shit.Sometimes the public are also retards. Literally. One day I was trying to take a nap in the corner of one of our work areas and was awoken by dramatic sobbing. All I heard was, “Ohhh, I have to get my haaair cutttt. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I haaaaave to get it cutttttttt. Ahhhh!! Ohhhh!!” The guy at the desk was trying to appease this person, but she kept balling. He finally told her she would have to leave if she couldn’t control herself. Apparently she couldn’t and left. I quickly followed her to see what she looked like, but was only able to see her back as she walked away from our department and out of our building, bewildering all that she passed. I later learned she was from a mental facility. Don’t they have their own salon?
Aside from the old ladies and retards, the rest of the public is comprised of normal to cheap-complaining folk. I don’t really mind them because they aren’t paying me, and the $5 they are paying the school for a facial doesn’t mean I have to care, even if they tip me. I just do my thing, try to do a decent job, and remember that I’m doing this for the school credit. Most don’t repulse me, but some do. It’s a grin-and-bear-it situation that often calls for rubber gloves.
But waxing, my friend, waxing is where it’s at. It’s the only procedure that we do that not only causes pain, but is expected to. Sometimes, if that client is particularly annoying, you can elevate that pain and feign beginner’s jitters; it’s not like you’re going to get fired.
We do all sorts of waxing: eyebrows, lips, face, arms, legs, underarms, etc. The only areas we don’t do are the bikini and the back. The bikini for obvious reasons, as it’s a hard area to wax without fear of removing an organ. Also we don’t have a private area, so no Sharon Stone-like moments. The back is mainly avoided because it uses a lot of wax and our school is cheap. But sometimes, just sometimes, when a stupid teacher doesn’t know the rules, she okays it and we are stuck with The Beast.
This particular beast seemed, at first, gross. He was a large stocky man, with long wiry hair. He was wearing too-short bike shorts, had a big flabby gut, and had long hair ALL over his back. At the time we were given this assignment, I was waxing my friend Daniele’s legs, and forced her to help me with The Beast. She didn’t want to, but since she needed credit and didn’t have time to come up with a good avoidance excuse, she complied.
All the other girls in the salon were snickering and ogling at The Beast. Some were like, “You’re not going to wax him, are you?” I just shrugged and said, “Sure.” We were going to get credit, there wasn’t anything else to do, and the thought of having a whole back of hair to rip out oddly excited me.
Before we started, we had him show us his back to see if we could even do it; the sight of seeing a fat hairy guy in too-short bike shorts taking off half his clothes for our viewing pleasure was not erotically stimulating. But being “professionals” and being in the business of making people, however hideous, feel and look better, we threw him on the table.
The first step in preparation for depilation was to trim his back hair. We decided to tandemly wax him, me taking the right side and Daniele taking the left. Since we only had one scissor, I started. It probably took me over ten minutes just to trim half of his back. Daniele looked on in disgust, while mouthing, “I’m gonna kill you,” at me.
Once he was all trimmed, we began. I asked him if he’s ever been waxed before, to which he said no. I gently informed him that he was about to enter a world of pain, that he might bleed, and that he will be very red for the rest of the day. He seemed ok with it, so I proceeded. I spread a big patch of pink wax on his back, applied the muslin paper, and in one fell swoop, yanked it off. He didn’t flinch. I continued and Daniele began her attack on the left.
His fat jiggled with each rip. After a bit, he began to bleed. But still, he didn’t
make a peep. I asked him how he was doing. He said it hurt, but it wasn’t too bad. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, but I began to feel grateful that I wasn’t a prostitute. I had to get pretty close to him during the procedure and got a whiff of his body. It wasn’t foul, just distinguishable in that way that everyone has a scent. His was of sweet sweat, or just fatness. I don’t know, but it wasn’t turning me on. I began to think about how prostitutes fall into the “beggars can’t be choosers” category; a trick is a trick, however repulsive. I thanked God I didn’t have to do this guy, because if I did, I would need a hit of crack. Maybe two. Perhaps that’s why all hookers are junkies.I started to feel bad in my ho’ analysis, because this guy was actually nice. He didn’t complain once and tipped us, rather nicely, when it was over. He was appreciative of our work and was genuinely a good person, or seemed as such.
The next day, Daniele told me that when she went home after waxing The Beast, she had similar thoughts. At first she was repulsed by him all during the wax, especially when he bled, and she thought only negative things about him because of the way he looked. She then realized that she is in the beauty industry, an industry whose sole responsibility is to make people feel better about themselves, by improving their physical looks. We are in the business of beautifying, and if the person we beautify isn’t the hottest person in the world, well it’s our business to make them feel that way. She then began to cry because of the way she treated, if only in her mind, The Beast. Or maybe it was because she just stopped taking The Pill. Who knows?
Over the next week I saw The Beast twice more in the salon. The first time was to get a hair cut and the second was to get a facial. He was on a mission, a mission to feel beautiful, and gosh darnnit, I felt proud to contribute.
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