Follow these Prep Steps and a back wax shouldn’t be that bad.
If you’ve had someone shave your back for you, please let it grow at least two to three weeks prior to your back wax appointment.
Avoid caffeine before your wax visit.
If you are taking an oral acne medication prescribed by the dermatologist, you cannot be waxed at all.
It is strongly recommended that you refrain from shaving your back going forward. Shaving toughens the hair making the wax more painful. The goal is to only wax the back so it will soften the hair and allow the hair growth to become sparser.
Please let us know if you’ve had a back wax before and whether or not you had any issues, i.e. break-outs on the back. This will allow us to determine which after products we will use to treat your back once the service is completed.
If you are perspired when you arrive for the appointment, we can provide towels so you can pat dry. It’s important to remove any moisture prior to starting the service. The moisture can interfere with how much hair could have adhered with each pull. We also run a fan to keep the room comfortable.
Sometimes the hair growth on a man’s back is the same thickness leading right into the back of hair line. Please let us know where along the neck and shoulders you would like us to tailor the wax, especially if you have a barber appointment scheduled in the near future. If you would like some of that hair left so the barber can shape the hair line, please let us know this ahead of time.
Bring an undershirt. If any cream or lotions are applied to your back to treat the area after the service is completed, allow your skin to breathe by placing a cotton undershirt on underneath your work shirt. The shirt will also protect your work shirt from absorbing any product residue.
After wax, take lukewarm showers for the next two days. If you are getting bumpiness or small pimples all over, it’s best to start exfoliating the back. Wait two whole days after your back wax to begin exfoliating. In the shower, use a loofah or a shower puff attached to a long handle and begin to scrub away the bumpiness. You could also have someone apply a body scrub to your back and work it in to exfoliate any of the bumpiness.
If you plan to go on vacation and spend time in the sun right after the back wax, you will need someone to apply and re-apply sunblock on your back. Your skin is vulnerable after having just been waxed and it will burn if not protected. Sunblock is a must.
Back Wax Services
We offer a Virgin Back Wax and a Maintenance Back Wax.
A Virgin Back Wax is designed for someone whose back is covered with thick hair growth that spans a large surface area requiring the use of the Blue Wax in order to make the service as comfortable as possible. The wax tech will determine if your back will require more time, materials and the use of the Blue Wax to remove all of the hair. The Blue Wax is a ‘hard wax’ that dries on the skin and is peeled by hand. We do not need to put a cloth strip over it to remove it like we do with ‘soft wax’. If this is your first back wax, you may want to schedule a Virgin Back Wax to ensure there is adequate time to complete the service.
A Maintenance Back Wax is designed for a man with an average amount of hair growth on the back. This service is completed in 30 minutes or less. The hair is soft or fine and doesn’t require as many re-applications of wax. The Ease Wax is the creamy soft wax that is applied to larger areas and is removed with a non-woven strip. When used on a man’s back, Ease Wax is standard procedure. The Blue Wax, however, is reserved for patchy areas of hair around the shoulder blades and near the neck in a Maintenance Back Wax.
In The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, Steve Carell had full hair growth on his chest. If he had that type of growth on his back, he would have been considered a Virgin Back Wax. Also, the wax tech applied a hard wax in the middle of his chest hair to make the scene more comical. Steve was a trooper. They apparently did that scene in one take. In a chest wax, you wouldn’t begin in the middle of the fuzzy growth. You would start from the sides or near the shoulders.
To make the service more tolerable, we wouldn’t start in the middle of the hair growth. We try to work from the outsides and pull from a place where there isn’t any hair.
Should you have a lot of hair growth on your back, we suggest a few “dry runs” before the vacation you are planning. In other words, plan three back waxes prior to the event. The last back wax should be about five days before the event. This way, it is an easy maintenance follow up appointment.
Back waxes are recommended every four to six weeks. Or, if you are someone who only gets waxed prior to an event, plan a few appointments before it so the area is smooth and has evolved into a clean non-irritated surface. -Cara
