What’s the deal with sugaring?
Shaving, depilatories, waxing, laser hair removal — you have a lot of options when it comes to keeping yourself hair-free. And here’s one more: sugaring. An all-natural method that uses sugar, lemon, and hot water to remove hair at the root without harming your skin, sugaring has been done for centuries throughout Greece, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.
In sugaring, you mix sugar, water, and lemon juice into a paste. This paste you either smear on an adhesive strip or roll into a ball. You apply the strip or ball of paste to your skin. Once the paste dries, you pull it away with the grain of your hair growth. Unlike wax, the paste sticks only to hair, not your skin. This makes sugaring less painful.
7 reasons why sugaring beats waxing
Best for removing fine hair, sugaring paste shouldn’t be used on the eyebrows and other sensitive areas. The hair you want to remove should be at least a quarter of an inch, which is long enough to allow the paste to bind to it. For best results, you must exfoliate the area you want to sugar, and it must not be oily. After sugaring, you must avoid hot water, exfoliation, exercise, and saunas for at least two days, because your skin will be extra sensitive. It may take a few sugarings before you see all the hair in the area gone. The bottom line is that sugaring works. Here are some of its benefits.
1. It’s all-natural
Unlike wax, which may have petrochemicals or polymers in it, sugaring uses simple ingredients that you could eat if you cared to.
2. It won’t burn you
Sometimes when you wax yourself at home or have an inexperienced esthetician, you can get burned by wax, and this may lead to burns and scars. Sugar paste, on the other hand, is warmed only to body temperature, which means there’s no risk of burns.
3. It’s hassle-free
Sugar paste is easier to clean up, since it’s water soluble. Wax oftent leaves behind a residue that comes off in a day or two. However, sugar paste dissolves right away when water is applied.
4. It sticks to your hair, not your skin
Wax can irritate your skin when you remove it. Because sugaring only removes dead skin cells, it leaves your skin soft and smooth.
5. It’s easy to remove
Unlike wax, which can dry on skin and be difficult to remove, sugar paste goes on and comes off easily.
6. It’s sanitary
The paste’s high sugar content keeps bacteria from growing.
7. It’s less likely to cause ingrown hairs
Waxing breaks about 30% of hairs with removal. Some of these broken hairs may become painfully ingrown. Sugar paste penetrates and lubricates hair follicles, and then hairs are removed in the direction of their growth. Fewer hairs break this way, which means fewer ingrown hairs.
DIY sugaring
You can go to a salon to get sugared. But you can also do it at home. Here’s how to make your own sugar paste. You will need a saucepan.
- Pour 2 cups of white sugar into your saucepan
- Add 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup water
- Mix the ingredients together
- Slowly heat the mixture to a boil, taking care not to burn your paste
- Stir the mixture continuously until it boils (it should reach 250° F)
- Turn of the heat as you keep stirring
- Let the mixture cool
- Pour into a microwave-safe container
Reheat your paste before you use it. It should be warm, not hot.
And for something more permanent…
If the idea of sugaring on the regular still has you pressed, LaserAway can help you skip the stubble permanently. As the nation’s leader in laser hair removal, LaserAway has committed over a decade to helping people of all skin types go fuzz-free for life.
References
- “#Beautyschool: Should You Switch to Sugaring,” Bazaar, November 30, 2015.
- “4 Reasons To Stop Waxing And Start Sugaring,”StyleCaster,February 9, 2011.
- “Advantages of Sugaring vs. Waxing,” Beauty Temple, February 27, 2013.
- “What the Heck Is Sugaring, and Is the Hair Removal Treatment Better Than Waxing?,” HuffPost, July 1, 2015.
