All Your Tweezing Vs. Waxing Questions Answered

Body hair sprouts up pretty much everywhere — sometimes you love it, but most times you just want it gone. So begins the great debate of tweezing versus waxing. Every lady who has subjected herself to the cruel spread-eagle of the waxing salon knows the quandary of which I speak. Do you wax your lady parts and tweeze your brows? Do you shave your bikini, tweeze the strays, then wax the brows? If you wax, do you entrust the same person to all parts of your body? Clearly one could never (well, not never, but it would suck) tweeze their underarm — so they're an obvious shave or wax, right? So many questions that need answering.

There are plenty of great reasons to leave your body hair au naturel. Maybe you love your brows as they are, maybe you believe your partner when they say they wouldn't change one hair on your body, or maybe you hate both hot wax and pointy metal objects near your face and private parts. It's your personal choice about your body to keep or remove the hair that is so clearly yours, so if you like your hair, good job.

That said, for all you ladies who love to either rip it out or wax it smooth — I'm talking to you. You now shall have every answer needed to decide the most burning, the most important, and the most paramount question in your mind each day. Should I tweeze that hair, or should I wax it?

Real Talk: Wax

Pros Of Waxing:

• The glory of one and done — once the strip is up, you're smooth for up to 8 weeks. Depending on how hairy you are and how fast your hair grows, it could be less, but you should be good for at least 2 weeks, according to Flossie
• Great for covering acreage and areas where ingrown hairs could be an issue — like body, bush, underarms, and super exuberant brows
• On brows, gets all those baby fine hairs that dust the upper lid
• Helpful for brow shaping — waxing is the natural fit with brow stencils

Cons Of Waxing:

• It hurst like a mother—It just does
• Hot wax shouldn't be used when you're using products containing tretinoin (like Retin-A). Tretinoin is an exfoliant, as is the waxing—in it's own, brutal way. When done in tandem, About Style says you "could be left with a red, glossy looking wound that will probably turn into a pigmented area. It can also result in bleeding and scabbing." I know that doesn't sound fun, so you need a 6 week buffer of no topical treatments on either side of your waxing date.
• Not really an "at-home" procedure, so waxing costs can add up over time

Real Talk: Tweezers

Pros Of Tweezing:

• Awesome for fine tuning brows if you have a shape you love
• Needlepoint tweezers work well for problem hairs
• Best alternative to damaging your skin if you're using retinoids for glowing skin

Cons Of Tweezing:

• If you're doing a whole eyebrow, the pain lasts longer. Equip these helpful tips from Good Housekeeping to make the plucking more tolerable
• Higher risk of going down the hair removal rabbit hole and losing your brows in a feverish rush of plucking
• It's a gamble if you don't have super steady hands, obviously
• Hard to do if you wear glasses or have bad eyesight in general
• Not good for larger areas (or even super bushy brows)
• It takes a while

The at-home game is to add up the points in each category, and then like a fashion mag quiz, determine which is right for you. For all of us hair removers, it's usually some weird mix of waxing, tweezing, shaving, and magic. Just as your favorite lip look is actually a special combination of lipstick layers you created through makeup alchemy — bare skin is generally a process that we fine tune over time. Get creative, don't mess with ingrown hairs, avoid over plucking, and life should be just peachy.

Images: Fotolia