When I teach classes, I hear lots of horrendous brazilian waxing stories. An estheticians worst nightmare is having a new client come in for their first wax ever, and you can tell that they have never trimmed or shaved or groomed their pubic hair in many long months! Once I added a pair of buzzers to my waxing station, I have nothing to be afraid of anymore. In fact, I rather enjoy the process of trimming off all that long, curly hair with the buzzers.
Before having buzzers, I attempted using scissors–which I will never do again. It is much too tedious and I cut a client before on the labia. Yikes!
What I have found to be the best buzzer is the cordless beard and mustache trimmers with multiple attachments. I purchased mine at Walmart. They are a little smaller than the hair buzzers which allows you to get into the private areas easily. You definitely want the cordless. I originally used hair buzzers with a cord and the cord restricted be from being able to reach some important areas.
When buzzing pubic hair before a wax, ask the client if they want to leave any shape or take it all off. If they want to leave a shape, I will trim that hair a little longer than the area I am going to wax off. I’ve had a few women and men that like to leave their long, curly hair on the top, and then wax the lower areas. In these cases, I still offer to trim it up a little, but I usually just use scissors. You always want to check with them first because if you trim the hair without asking them and then they tell you they wanted to leave it long, there is nothing you can do for them. When that has happened to me, I make a note on their chart so I know for next time, and I give them a discount on their next service, so they are more likely to come back rather than go somewhere else.
I use the 1/4 inch length guard to buzz the hair that is going to be waxed. After buzzing all the hair, I will pick up the clumps of buzzed hair and throw them away. Then I use a lint roller to pick up shavings that remain on the skin. So you had a client who came in hairy scary and now they look easy enough to wax.
I have never cut anyone with the buzzers when I had the guard on. There were some times when I buzzed the hair before laser treatments that I didn’t have a guard on, and I nicked the client. In those cases, it may have been that I didn’t stretch out the skin enough, or the blade was dull or lacking oil.
To be safe, I use a buzzer cleaning spray every other day. It keeps the buzzer oiled. I also apply the buzzer oil once a month. The oil is included with your buzzer when you first purchase it. The cleaning spray is sold separately. Never use alcohol to clean your buzzers because that will dry out the oils. What I do to keep my buzzers clean, is use a disposable eyelash applicator (or you could use pipe cleaners) to get all the excess hair off. Then, I use a medical grade sanitizer, the Lavender Oil Cleanser from Eva’s Esthetics to cleanse the whole thing. I soak my guards in Barbicide after each use.
By trimming the hair, you are not only making your job easier and quicker, you are also causing less pain to the client. It is less likely that the client will have bruising or skin removed. When the hair is longer, your wax is pulling more on the end of the hair then the base of the hair, and causes the skin to be pulled more than necessary, which may result in bruising, but for sure, unnecessary discomfort for the client. If you wax a client while the hair is still long, you can also have problems when waxing the labia. Hair from the other side will get trapped in the wax. I recommend that you use scissors to trim the hair that is stuck from the other side, if that happens. But hopefully you can prevent that by trimming first.
