Bikini wax around the world

France, evening

I think I am getting sick. I spent yesterday afternoon with a friend of mine and her two kids....sick kids.....I think they passed me whatever they had. Crap.

I went for a bikini wax this evening and I realized one thing. Wherever you go, getting a bikini is a mystical experience. You may know what to ask, but you have no idea what you are going to get and how. I am listening to Innuendo of the Queen and I don't know why but I think it goes well together with the story telling of these mystical experiences.

Let's start from today:
France: total time needed for a bikini wax=10'. Cost=12 euros. Pain=high. Hygiene= 8.
I entered this nice clean room and while I was looking for the disposable underwear that I normally would get in Italy the person in charge of the waxing told me to get undress. Surprised face (mine) "are you going to do the bikini wax with my underwear?" "Of course" (of course, everything happened in French) and she left the room. Ok, trousers removed. I am lying on the bed when she comes back to the room saying "plie'". Now plie' for me is something that they were teaching me at ballet, so it took me a while to realize that in French this is a "real" word meaning to bend the leg. Since she was not happy with the way my legs were bended (next time I will take a few stretching/yoga courses before the bikini wax), she pushed them in a better position. Better to her. In about 1 minute I had a cramp in one of my leg. "No problem, the bikini wax is going to be fast, so you can wait and don't move otherwise you ruin my work". Then she took a couple of kleenexs and made two bows around my underwear. Basically if I would have been without underwear it wouldn't have made too much difference.
All right. I asked a normal bikini wax. I am not sure of what is considered normal here, how a brasilian bikini wax is and how it would be a total bikini wax. I am not sure if she is just a sadist who loves to see people in pain for the waxing. The only thing I know is that I have really little left there now. After all that pain, she didn't put any cream, oil, nothing. She just said "done" and she left.

USA: I just want to tell here about my first experience (after then I found a much better place). Total time: about 15'. Cost=40$+tip. Pain=incredibly high. Hygiene=6. This east European extremely nice woman entered into the room telling me that they didn't have any more disposable underwear and so I can chose if keeping mine or being naked. "Mine is ok". And from then on, she started to tell me the story of her life, how she got to the USA, how unhappy she is with her work, where she has been before and so on for the entire 15'. While she was telling me about her life, she was moving my legs up, down, on the side in a way that it was looking more like she was helping me to do some gym exercise than anything else. I even found myself with my leg at 90 degree from the rest of my body.Once the wax was done, beside the pain, it didn't look like I got a bikini wax at all "You asked for a normal one". She gave me some cream on the supposed waxed areas and she left. For the amount of money I paid, they probably used gold instead of a normal wax.

Holland: this place is Amsterdam is one of the best places I never been. Clean, not too expensive, extremely professional, precise, in one word PERFECT! I just love it. Once I flu from the USA back to Holland just for a couple of days and the first place I went to was this great spa, exactly downtown. Absolutely perfect. (The second place was the best place to go for a Dutch apple pie, but that is another story).

Itlay: also in this case after the first terrifying experience, I found a better place to go. Of course, I am going to write here about this first experience. Time and cost I don't remember. Pain=high. Hygiene=0. Basically, this person was doing everything at her place, in a small room, full of cats. I love cats, nothing to say, but from a first look at the place, it was looking incredibly dirty. I avoided to give a second look. The wax she was using was disposable, but since it was to expensive to throw it away, she was melting it (with the hair of the previous person etc) and using it again. And she was extremely relaxed about it. So relaxed that even with the new customer in the room, she was going to melt the wax of the previous person. I feel my stomach upside down just thinking about it. Bleah.