Smooth As A Baby's Bum
What an odd lot we trannies are. On the one hand we spend time choosing a wig to increase the amount of hair we have on our heads, and on the other we spend time trying to get rid of hair on other parts of our bodies. In the discussion of tights and stockings the whole 'to shave or not to shave' bit wasn't really discussed and it's not just legs that many transvestites shave, some go for all over, full body smoothness, after all, you rarely see a lady with a hairy chest unless she works in a circus or is on a comedy programme.There are ways and means to get away without any kind of hair removal but this limits your clothing options to things like long gloves (just like Perfula here on the right), long sleeve tops and high denier tights. This page looks at the different ways of hair removal for cross-dressers including shaving (buzz), waxing (ouch), epilation (buzz, ouch) and laser treatment (flash, buzz, ouch).
To Shave or not to Shave?
In order to wear make-up it's obviously necessary to get rid of the hair on your face and most trannies (men!) know how to have a good close shave, but the bigger question is how much of the rest of your body should you remove hair on. If you want to go for the truly feminine effect then the simple answer is: all of it! But removing hair all over your body so that you have silky smooth skin (tranny skin is just as smooth as most other types of woman) has other consequences. In particular, your friends and family might notice the fact that you once had hairy legs - but now at football practise, you don't any more. Going from a hairy chest (or back) to being smooth is also quite noticeable to those who know you. There's no way to disguise hair removal, so the trick is to have the confidence to deal with any questions that arise with well prepared (and rehearsed) excuses such as:- "I am training for a swimming marathon and need to be as streamlined as possible." Most professional or serious swimmers shave the majority of their body, this is quite normal for them. The same applies to cyclists too.
- "I was having skin problems and my doctor told me I needed to try it." This one relies on your friends not knowing much about skin diseases but is quite feasible. Many skin problems are exacerbated by many things and, for example, soap clinging to body hair could be one of them.
- "My new girlfriend doesn't like hairy men." In reality, it's your girlfriend who will notice the lack of any hair first so this only works if (a) you don't really have one, or (b) you really do have a new girlfriend who doesn't like hairy men!
- "I got Fodgkinsons Cutaneous Lymphoma and it all fell off." If you are going to make up some kind of disease that caused all your hair to fall out, make sure that if someone does a google search for it, it doesn't show up (or mention Fodgkinsons Cutaneous Lymphoma and let them find our specially pre-prepared page - click the link to see what we mean!)
- "David Beckham does it, so why shouldn't I?" Most men in the media tend to shave their chest and back as it makes them look sexier. In fact using a celebrity as an excuse is good in many instances (having your ears pierced and wearing ear-rings for example).
- "It is required for my advanced Yoga training - body, mind and soul must be clean of all incumberances." ...
Body Hair Removal
There are three typical ways that us transvestites remove bodily hair: shaving, epilation or waxing. Shaving your whole body (including your legs) will use a whole razor and probably two. Don't let a razor you are using get blunt as becomes more likely you will cut yourself. There's no point describing how to do this as it's pretty straightforward, but if you are shaving for the first time and you're very hairy, take it one small piece at a time and don't let the razor clog up with hair otherwise it stops working. A backwards and forwards action is very good as the reverse stroke tends to clear the razor of any blockages (thanks to Vicky Lee of the Way Out Club for that tip!) Shaved legs will stay smooth for several days before they become a bit too grizzly for comfort.Waxing is a whole different game and is best done by a professional. Most hairdressing salons and all beauty salons will have a waxing room, where the various equipments of torture are kept. Waxing legs is quite common and no decent salon would turn down a request from a man to have his legs waxed. Most will even be happy to do your chest and back too and still further may already offer a 'back, sack, and crack' wax which, well, gets most parts done! The principle of waxing is pretty straightforward. Warm, sticky, wax is applied copiously to the various bits of your body where hair lives. A strip of strong paper is then placed over the wax. The paper, your hair and the top layer of your skin all stick to the wax and when the paper is then pulled (yanked!) away, all of these come off leaving you hairless. It hurts a bit when the yanking takes place but no more than pulling a plaster off and the pain subdues very quickly. When it's all done, the application of some nice skin lotion to soothe your poor pores and you're off partying. It is best to get this done a day before you are actually going out as a rash can form which needs some time to go away - this is all normal. Because waxing gets rid of hair from the root, it will keep your body hairless for about 2 weeks and the first regrowth is usually quite fine. Your hair needs to be about half a centimetre long before you can have it re-waxed otherwise there's nothing for the wax to stick to.
Some girls swear by epliation, many quite literally so! You can buy epilators which are gizmos with a set of rotating torture tubes (as we like to call them) which pull out your hairs as you rub them up and down your body. So you can sit and watch the football whilst running an epilator up and down your legs and end up with soft silky legs by half time. The results are much like waxing but as the pain is spread out over a much longer period it is much less pleasant. Epilation is cheaper than waxing, but then again you don't get the pleasure of pottering around a beauty salon and having some nice young lady rubbing lotion into your leg (or wherever else you have had waxed!)Hair removal cream hasn't been mentioned so far. Some trannies have had some success with this stuff which is a corrosive cream that literally melts your hair away. Many though have had poor results, largely because male hair tends to be a lot more substantial than female hair and the creams concerned are not strong enough to do the job properly. Probably one to avoid on the grounds of uselessness.
One more point to note here is that, other than shaving, neither waxing nor epilation nor creams are any good for use on your face. All of them will lead to disaster!
Light Fantastic
A final note on laser treatment. The idea here is that powerful lasers are used to try and kill the folicles where hair grows. A set of treatments, usually over an extended period, are required in order to try and kill off any remaining folicles so that hair does not grow any more. Laser treatment is not cheap and the trannies we have spoken to who have tried it have had varying degrees of success. Some have ended up not having to shave at all any more whereas others have found hair started to come back a year or so after their treatment finished. You need to be pretty serious to undergo laser treatment and beware - it takes a good 3 or 4 days after each round of treatment for your skin to return to normal, before that you look like you've been slapped copiously around the face with a haddock.Having said all that, the idea that you will never need to shave again (and this can be done to your face as well as the rest of your body) is pretty cool and we're surprised that regular men don't have a go to stop all that daily nonsense with razors and that. If it ever gets easy, cheap and fully effective, there will surely be a queue of men (including the odd transvestite of course) lining up to have it done, not least it will save money if you never have to buy any shaving stuff again, ever!
