Wanted to tell you my tweezing story so anyone out there thinking of doing this will have a better understanding.
Well, I read about tweezing from a couple of guys on this forum that got me interested. My interest was to get rid of the MPB shadow. So I bought myself an epilator to give it a go. I had 3 and a half days worth of growth by Fri evening and all weekend to finish the job. By 9pm I got the courage to put the thing against my head - still hesitant and unsure to go along with it (by the way my wife thought I had lost it by this stage). As soon as the 'teeth' touched my hair, I shrieked in pain and quickly pulled the epilator away. Looking at my head completely red, I mistakingly thought I was bleeding! Took a rest for about 30 mins & then gathered up courage to go for it again - this time using the 'tape method' from scalptweezing.com website. I found this quite difficult as the tape didn't stick to my head and had to focus my energy on holding it down in place instead of manoeuvring the epilator. Anyway, I tried to work my way up along the narrow exposed strip of hair. The pain was bad. I stopped to check & it looked more like a wound - bright red and all the hair still seemed to be there!! After a couple of minutes I could feel the skin becoming swollen. At this point I gave up, I thought this was not for me, maybe my skin's too sensitive or something.
Disappointed but still thinking about the experience (while watching tv), I looked at the epilator and saw it had actually grabbed quite a lot of hair by their roots. I could see a thick white bulb at the bottom of the follicles. But how come there was no effect, I mean there seemed to be no difference as the layer on my head was still full of hair? Maybe because there is so many hair there! If some hair were uprooted then given enough time, this has to work! This was the Eureka moment.
At 10.30 on Fri night I went for it full on. I chose to go without the tape, starting at left side of my head. I just worked at it, grabbing the hair here and there. I didn’t want to focus completely on one spot till it was clean. I wanted to work evenly over the whole side to manage the pain a bit better and not to over-focus on one spot. I spent 2 and a half hours that night plugging away on the left side.
On Saturday, I started working on the right side even though the left side wasn’t completely done but again didn’t want to overwork one particular side. I spent six hours on Sat doing pretty much the whole head. I found the back of the head the hardest (I have thickest hair there just below bone protrusion). After slugging away like this, I had most of my head covered by Sat night. The only areas left were the back which I found really difficult to work and few spots here and there. I decided to get these on Sun. By the way, six hours straight pain was quite taxing and I was absolutely exhausted by Sat night…
On Sun (today) morning I started to focus properly on the back of my head. In about 3 hours I got it down to a narrow strip just below the protruding bone but found this virtually impossible to break. The pain was torture and I noticed the epilator was hardly pulling any hair. The hair that were pulled showed very deep roots. At this point I had to take a break to re-think my goal. My goal was to get rid of the MPB shadow which was gone as I had successfully removed all hair above the ears. So, I decided to concede the narrow strip at the back and just shave it off. My plan now is to keep the dome above the ears clean and shave the lower back. I’ve done this and it’s not noticeable at all. In the last hour today I went over all of the head again as there were some patches to be cleaned off…looked in the mirror..was proud of what I saw. There were tiny hair all around the head that I couldn’t get but these were not noticeable unless you looked at it really close up. Gave my head a rest for about an hour (as it felt sensitive and had an uncomfortable tingly feeling especially when I sneezed!) before shaving the back and those tiny hair all around the head.
By the way as regards to the pain, it is PAINFUL. But I felt the first few times you put epilator against your head is the worst. The body then kind of de-sensitises and the pain does seem manageable although some areas will really make you wonder why you are doing this – ‘have I gone crazy?’ stage. What did work for me in managing the pain was stretching the skin with your free hand and really focussing on the pain as you feel each hair being pulled out. For me distractions like TV and talking to others was not good as was caught out by the surprising jolt of pain. Be aware of the pain, focus on it and just remember it is only from your hair being pulled out (and not from a knife vibrating against your skin which it sometimes seemed to feel like!). But to be honest you do get used of it so pain should not be a hindrance if you REALLY want to do this – I don’t think it is so bad that you will pass out or anything.
Also, surprisingly when I finished today my head is not red at all. I went outside to the mall and no one gave me an odd look. Maybe because my skin is darker so the redness isn’t that noticeable, I don’t know.
So, where am I going from here? I think I will see how it unravels and whether I can maintain it properly. Right now my aim is to let my head heal and see what kind of growth I get in the next week. But I will try to pull out any hair as early as possible as feel the longer I leave the more difficult it will be and I don’t want to go through this experience again. I understand from others that the regrowth will be sparse so don’t expect anything like this again plus I’ve heard the pain reduces considerably the second time.
As for any tips, I have to say think carefully before doing this because once you start you have got to finish it. Motivation is very important – you have to have it strong enough to get through 12 hours. You don’t want to think what you’ve got yourself into 4 hours in. So make sure you really, really want to do it. Secondly the pain is bad but is manageable – harder in some areas than others. The main problem is with the amount of time that’s involved. If it was only one or two hours, I would say there is no problem but because we are talking about a whole weekend of pain (with a lot of short breaks of course) then it’s a different story. The length of time makes it much more painful. If you can’t take it you can always use a few shots of whiskey/vodka (so yes, keep that close to ya)!!
And lastly, if you decide to go down this road – GOOD LUCK & stay bald!
