Don't answer the door, the Epilady's knocking

Further to I Know It's Spring Because... and Small Things... comes the surest sign of spring of all: Depilation Duty. Oh dear, ladies. Up goes the thermostat and out go the delightfully camouflaging opaque tights, knee-length boots, jeans and work pants. And then - oh deary deary me - the real terror begins. Here's a typical scene, tell me if it sounds familiar: You're in the change room of a store, and you're thrilled to little bits that you have found time to shop for summer clothes without.the.children. Step inside, hang up those beautifully patterned cotton possibilities, and pause a moment to admire the rampant femininity that awaits your body... You step out of your jeans... You pull on the skirt... It feels great and you turn to the mirror and OHMIGOD WHATARE THOSE? The moment is ruined and you don't even have a child handy to blame. Jutting out beneath your lovely skirt are the most hideously pale, pudgy and hairy legs in the known universe. Beyond here, there must truly be dragons. Sparing a moment only to envy those few

• earthmothers and/or
• aged and bald gentlewomen and/or
• genuinely blonde chicks

who for one reason or another just don't get moments of envy like this, you sadly put the skirt back on the hanger, knowing you cannot make another clothing decision until you have D.E.P.I.L.A.T.E.D.

Now, for some time, my weapon of choice in the war against body hair terror has been the Epilady. The Braun Epilady, to be precise, which operates by spinning a small barrel of pinching tweezer heads around and around at high speed, thus ripping each individual hair out of your legs (I'm keeping this below the knees because the possibility of someone googling us with "Brazilian" "Epilady" "glamorous" makes my eyes water) and leaving you with a smoother and longer lasting finish than any other depilatory option.

Phew.

The thing is, of course, that it hurts like all fuck and don't ever let anyone try to tell you otherwise. Ebay is full of "almost unused", "unwanted gift" and "should I sell it or give it to the United Nations as a deterrent?" Epilady sales listings. I'm tempted to get distracted by the sort of person who buys a second-hand machine operated leg threshing machine, but we'll leave that to the Brazilian S&M fetishists, shall we?

I'm into my fourth year of the Epilady now, and the best thing I can say about it is that the hair on my legs has definitely got sparser and finer. However, all this means is that I get extra-slack over winter when I can easily cover it up and at this time of year (Southern Hemisphere) I have to face the awful truth that:

six months of sparser, finer hair is still six fucking months of hair growth that.must.come.out before you can go back and snaffle that skirt.

This means the Epilady's knockin' baby, and she's not handing over a gift-with-purchase.

My personal tip to make it bearable is to pour a large glass of wine and invite the Epilady to join you while you sit next to the kids having their bath.

This approach gives you an anaesthetic (like a good epidural, top-ups are advisable), a distraction (what with talking to the kids and dodging splashes so you don't die of electrocution while still hairy), and a reminder that, after all, labour pains are worse... just.

The warm weather trepidation with which I approach the Epilady's knock proves Nietzsche was wrong. That which does not kill us does not, in this case, make us stronger. But it certainly makes us smoother.

(Glamorouse would love to know: do you depilate and what do you do?)

mtc

bec