It seems to me that stripping hair by using wax would result in lots of little tears in the skin. With the emergence of drug-resistant staph, could this result in a dangerous infection? Should waxing be done in unclean conditions, could it be deadly?
My GF is contemplating doing this-I think its dangerous. 
IANADoctor. However, staph is everywhere. I can’t see how waxing is inherently more dangerous than shaving (which often results in nicks) or getting an everyday papercut in that regard.
Use a recommended, licensed aesthetician who observes hygenic practices as a matter of routine. Follow up with proper self-care (cleaning and applying antibiotic ointment for 2 days). Maybe I’m a crazy risk taker but I’ve been waxed on many occasions and have never experienced a negative side effect other than the odd ingrown hair.
BTW, I recently had a drug-resistant strain of staph* that got into some eczema on my hands. I’m not saying its not a concern but it also doesn’t mean an automatic lingering death.
*specifically it was -myacin resistant, as I understand it, and I’m allergic to -cillin.
If done properly, it’s more like a mass tweezing. It’s rather rare to even see a blood spot, although it does happen occasionally. Raised “bumps” and redness of skin, yes; acutal tearing of skin, not so much.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin appears to have fallen short of the standards of scientific research we expect from a sex comedy.
I realize that my very asking pretty much reduces any humor of the above to nil, but I’ve not seen that movie (I find Steve Carrell borders on the antithesis of funny, much like Tracy Morgan, although in a different way). I apologize in advance, but what’s the gag?
Steve Carrell is convinced to get his chest waxed; the waxist does a few swipes, apparently at random with him literally screaming in pain; he quits after about 5 passes with the end result disturbingly resembling a chest-hair jack-o-lantern (“man-o-latern.”)
My conclusion: either (a) Steve Carrell is a giant pussy, or (b) getting your chest waxed hurts WAY more than a full brazilian bikini, or (c) the whole thing is just a very silly put-on that has lead people to believe that waxing is the most painful. thing. ever. To paraphrase the magic 8 ball, “all signs point to (c)”.
I got nicks and cuts from shaving. I don’t get them from being waxed. It feels like having a band-aid torn off repeatedly but it’s not as bad as some have made it out to be.
The bikini wax only hurt when they went across the top of the triangle. Along the sides it didn’t hurt much at all. Really.
RE: infections: the woman who waxes me at the spa uses a cleanser first, then powder, before the waxing, then another cleanser to get off any bits of wax that might have stuck to the skin. I can always put some witch hazel on it later if I feel it’s necessary.
Waste of time and money, too, based on the majority of responses I got to this thread. (A bit of strategic trimming, OTOH, might have been advisable. But not to the chest.)
I’ve never had my Brazil waxed, so I don’t know what that feels like, but a few months back, I had my gall bladder removed, and taking the bandages off my (very hairy) stomach hurt more than the surgery and the gall bladder attack that prompted it combined. So, if I had the choice between having my whole chest waxed and major abdominal surgery, I’d probably have to go with the surgery. Unless I could get a general anesthetic for the chest waxing.