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NO BEAUTY WITHOUT PAIN Diet, hot wax, bleach… the obsession with looking good starts earlier

But then, it’s not as if a woman torturing herself in the name of beauty is a new fad, something that took-off shortly after parlours mushroomed conveniently at every street-corner. For if history is to be believed, women have long since tried a great many things, several of them extremely painful, to conform to the then prevailing concept of beauty – be it binding the feet to keep it tiny, piercing every possible body-part, tattooing elaborate patterns on the skin, squeezing themselves into those awfully constricting whale-bone stays…

Today of course, the possibilities are limitless – from six-inch stilettos to starvation diets – women go to great, painful lengths to ‘beautify’ themselves, and de-fuzzing is perhaps the most common of them all. Plucked, threaded, waxed, pumiced, shaved, electrolysed, zapped — the general thumb-rule being that the more painful or expensive the procedure, the better the results.

But fuzz-free, even in these modern times, is hardly pain-free.

“Tell me about it,” says Subha, “I die every time I get my arms waxed, but I do it anyway”. Brutal and barbaric it may be, but waxing still remains the preferred depilation method for millions, the chief reason being it’s quick, the effects last long and most importantly, as Subha adds, “the next morning, the skin really feels like silk!” And silky-smooth skin, we’ve been programmed to believe, is feminine; anything else is the sole preserve of cave-trolls!

But cave-trolls notwithstanding, women have different reasons for this whole depilation thing. Deepa, mother of nine-year-old girls, believes that it’s hygienic to get rid of unwanted fuzz. “Except now the trend starts too early – kids as young as 12 are walking into parlours for waxing!” she says. “Its true,” agrees Subha. “Young girls are going in for facials too. I think the skin should mature before it’s subjected to all sorts of treatment.”

Who can blame the children, when they get to watch prime-time commercials where celebrities/models flaunting their smooth-as-marble calves?

It’s only distressing when, hard-pressed to conform to a warped sense of beauty, they resort to unnecessary, traumatic procedures that can potentially, permanently damage their delicate skin.

“In fact, many teenagers who have dark skin even bleach their whole body ever so often!” says Deepa, a procedure that commonly irritates even adult skin. Really, it seems like too much trouble, isn’t it, this whole alabaster-smooth-skin business? Wouldn’t it be simpler if we all looked a little unkempt and hairy? “Some people,” says Subha, “spend a lifetime without a trip to the parlour and they’re quite comfortable in their skin”. It might not be a great sight, I agree, but it will certainly be more liberating! And of course, a lot less painful.

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