The Nether–lands

Five or six years ago, when an ex asked me to book a Brazilian as a Valentine’s Day treat, I was indignant. I told him that I didn’t want to look like a porn star or, worse, a child—both common refrains from the antiwaxing establishment—but for whatever reason, I submitted anyway. And while the encounter with the technician was shockingly intimate (you want my feet where?) and teeth-grindingly painful, I kept going back.

If anything it was a revelation: Under all that hair, it’s soft down there. And while I will always maintain a tuft up front, a naked undercarriage is cleaner, sleeker and, arguably, sexier. Carrie, a writer, agrees: “I love the feeling of being just waxed; besides looking well-groomed, I swear it makes me friskier until the fuzz grows back.”

That’s the plus side. The downside is that it’s annoying to maintain, a point made manifest by a friend whose first stop after a 20-hour flight was her waxer, as she had a date the following night.

And for many, that sort of mania comes mixed with boatloads of insecurity: “My body hair dominates my life,” Maria, an attorney, explains. “If I’m making out with a guy and know I’m a little unkempt—I have a lot of hair and it grows fast—I will excuse myself to go shower and shave.”

While that may sound obsessive to some, the reality of being intimate in NYC is that guys here aren’t just glad to be there—many expect a beautifully turned-out vagina, complete with a small red carpet. As Henry, a producer, brutally explains, “A well-coiffed, nice-smelling pussy is a thing of beauty, something we brag about to our friends. After the implicit moment of awe and respect you receive from your buddies, we talk about the girls with nasty boxes—how we fucked them anyway, how it was ugly, how it was tragic, how it will never happen again. On the other hand, a girl with a great-tasting, -smelling, -looking box…that girl is a princess. We wank it to her.”

And Tom, a TV writer, agrees, albeit in a slightly more delicate way: “Nothing is more disappointing than meeting a beautiful, well put-together girl, wining and dining her, then finally getting her pants off only to discover that she is horrendously unkempt and smelly. It’s like waiting in line outside what you think is going to be the greatest new bar in town only to get inside and realize it’s just a loud, crowded, sweaty, smelly dive. You just want to leave.”

And while Henry argues that it doesn’t have to be denuded (“Some girls look good au naturel so long as the hair is limited, soft and perfectly placed”), most guys intimate that less is more.

This leaves women with active dating lives in a bind, since, even if you don’t want to date someone like Henry, the idea that a group of guys might be discussing your nether regions is generally terrifying. And, at about $70 a Brazilian wax (generally a monthly endeavor)—it isn’t anything that any of us look forward to. Ouch.

Which is part of the reason I found myself laid out on a table at Completely Bare (103 Fifth Ave, 212-366-6060; plus other locations), the immensely popular medi-spa chainlet, watching West Side Story on a TV implanted in the ceiling, while a technician slathered my bikini line with ultrasound gel and zapped my follicles with an IPL (intense pulsed light) gun.

Essentially, after about eight sessions (you book in packages of six—$1,650 for a Brazilian—though most people require two additional touch-ups), one will be hairless—forever.

While they liken the sensation to being snapped with a rubber band, during the first visit, when all of the follicles are intact, it’s much more painful and needling than that implies (though it is quick). Eventually, as more and more follicles stop generating hair, it’s not painful at all (the IPL seeks out the melanin, which is why the procedure works best on women with dark hair and fair skin, though CB has technology to tackle all iterations).

After the visit, nothing happens—for about ten days—and then, your hair just falls out. Ingrowns disappear, and the hair that returns is finer.Cindy Barshop, owner of Completely Bare, started her career in technology sales at IBM. “I had terrible ingrown hairs,” she explains. “It was unsightly and embarrassing and painful—and impossible for me to even go to the beach.” She researched solutions, and ultimately decided to make permanent hair removal her business, as the technology then was not available in spalike spots. “I knew other women who needed this, too.”

While Barshop claims she’s never encountered a client who regrets the procedure, doing something permanent does feel uncomfortable—almost as illicit, and remorse-inducing, as submitting to a tattoo. Am I going to want that hair back? Or will I be ever grateful that I’ll never have to schedule a last-minute wax again? Here’s hoping I don’t fall in love with a born bushwhacker.

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