Body Sugaring - A Natural Alternative For Hair Removal

Image courtesy of: Corposano-fiefenwaerme.ch

For many years, too many years, sugar has gotten a bad rap. Whenever, I need added sweetness I add either honey or sugar. I refuse to add chemicals and altered substances to my personal environment - my body. I prefer the deep brown "demara" sugar because it is the least processed sugar; and, besides having a wonderful flavour, it still retains some vitamins and minerals. In my mind, sugar is like any other food - it's fine as long as you don't overdo it. Sugar also has other uses besides sweetening. In many countries, women use sugar to epilate their legs and under arms.

Removal of unwanted hair is a problem women have struggled with for centuries resorting to shaving, waxing, tweezing (for small areas), and use of chemicals to dissolve hair at its roots. Yuck!!

Body sugaring is a natural method for removing body hair. It is cheap and easy to make. The theory behind body sugaring is that because the hair is removed by its root it takes longer to grow back and will grow back softer and less dense.

Body sugaring is done by making a paste of sugar, water, and lemon juice that has been heated to the softball candy stage. Use a candy thermometer here.

Let the paste cool so it does not burn your skin when applied. Spread it on your skin with a popsicle stick or some other similar device and (optional) cover with cotton strips. After a few moments, either rip the cloth off like ripping off a bandage or grasp corners of the paste and rip away without cloths.

You will need 2 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup water and one candy thermometer.

Combine the ingredients in a heavy saucepan, and heat on low. Watch the mixture carefully so that it doesn’t boil over. Heat the mixture to 250F on the candy thermometer; this is the hardball candy stage.

Remove from the heat and let cool enough to pour into a jar without breaking or melting the jar. This sugar paste can be reheated and reused if desired. Rip clean cotton fabric in 1-inch strips. Make sure the cotton isn’t too coarsely woven.

Apply cooled mixture to skin, wait a few minutes and rip off. Most women who use this method say that is less painful than waxing.

Note that reheating will thicken the paste.

The following video is very informative and was made by the Alexandria Body Sugaring folk. Ignore the commercial bits - this is easily done at home.

They say this about body sugaring:

Alexandria Professional Body Sugaring is a safe, gentle and effective solution to hair removal for women, men and children. Professional Body Sugaring offers numerous unique and diverse benefits. The most important advantage is very fundamental: the sugar paste extracts hair in its natural direction of growth and does so when the hair is still in the early growth stage, eliminating breakage, unnecessary discomfort, irritation and ingrown hairs while exfoliating dry skin cells. The result: smooth, beautiful skin, without the discomforts of other hair removal techniques.