Treacle Treatment

If you haven't guessed, this post is about "waxing"... so men who are uncomfortable should discontinue reading.

Some of you regular readers will know that I occasionally spend time with Izzy and some of his newspaper crew. Well, recently it has been rumored that Juan, an Arab advertising manager from Baghdad, is an expert at all sorts of salon treatments... Yesterday I met up with her (despite the fact that we share no common language) so that I could verify the truth of her skills. The session started out with me screaming as she tweezed and threaded half of my eyebrows right off my face. They are thinner than I would normally like to see them, but she did a neat and clean job.
Then came the treacle (sugaring). She heated up a mixture of lemon juice and sugar and then as it cooled, she added some water and kneaded it into a ball. She took the toffee ball, squished it onto my wrist and used her thumbs to spread the sticky stuff up my arm. Then she unstuck the end and deftly folded it back bit by bit towards my wrist. Spreading the sugar against the hair growth and pulling it off in the direction of hair growth is opposite of waxing, but I think it hurt ever so slightly less (no screaming). It was neater and easier than regular waxing, needing no fabric strips and no heating. And finally, at the cost of a cup of sugar...