My New Addiction: Dipping Body Parts In Hot Wax

SPOILER MATERIAL: If you are a greasy sleezeball looking for a scandalous glimpse of something kinky - Immediately hit the 'back' button on your AOL window and go turn on Cinemax After Dark.

Yes folks, I'm talking about wax. Paraffin wax, and it's my new obsession.

We all love to be pampered now and then. I've personally never set foot into a spa. My budget just doesn't permit. Now, I bet you're saying to yourself, "My gosh, all of the beauty, and it's all natural?!" No, not exactly 'natural.' Just, not performed on me professionally.

I've learned how to give myself home facials and how to properly exfoliate. I shape my own eyebrows, whiten my own teeth. Up until recently, I cut my own hair. The one service I do wish I could receive from a professional is regular massages. But I've never had a problem being able to talk my friends into helping me out. (By the way, any takers?)

And although I have received pro manicures and pedicures, for the most part, I perform the tasks myself. One reason is that I get funny looks when I tell them the nails on my right hand need to be long and I need no nails on my left hand.

Bring In The Wax
I'm absolutely obsessive about my hands. I wear gloves religiously, even well into the summer if its cool. And I'm always slathering on pure shea butter. Nevertheless, they get beat up, cut up, banged up and worn out from the keyboards, but more so from the guitars.

My mother acquired this nifty device called a Paraffin Wax Bath She loved it, but decided she needed the space for her ever-spawning Mickey Mouse collectibles, and passed it on to me.

The device is a plastic tub. You place a brick of wax in it, plug it in, and Voila! You have a re-invented Medieval Torture Bath.

Now, the problem here is that I don't like hot things.
I don't like hot weather. I don't like hot temperature foods. And I don't particularly enjoy dunking fragile body into a 120f vat of foaming jacuzzi water. I can't explain it precisely, it's def one of my mental quirks. If I am to dig into a steaming bowl of soup for example (well, first of all, I let it cool to "just above harboring bacteria" temperature)I imagine it scalding my esophageal tract, disintergrating the gentle vili and burning away my intestinal tissue like a nuclear mushroom cloud over the New Mexico Desert. okay, not so much....

But the lure of smoother, silkier, more lustrious hands made me persevere

As my mother instructed - you dunk your hand, let the extra wax drip off and harden and itty bit, then repeat a few more times before bagging up your hand like a piece of leftover turkey.

I look at the vat of wax, which has taken on a clear ocean blue hue. Ah, the ocean, calm and serene. It looks so beautiful and oddly hypnotic. Surely, the water is safe! I gingerly and tentatively approach the innocent looking liquid....and YEHAW IT's HOT! Hot as if I plunged my hand into a boiling pot of spaghetti! BUT WAIT, it's really not THAT bad, I'm just being a baby. On subsequent dunks, it feels less terrorsome due to the thickening layers of wax.

By the time my hand had enough layers to look like it could illuminate a small room, I followed the instructions to place it in a plastic baggy thing (all of this came with the kit) and then in an insulated mitten that I think they stole from a Pluto costume at Disney World.

And Then Euphoria!
After repeating the procedure w/ the other hand, and help from Dave, I began to relax and enjoy the sensuous warmth. It was so therapeutic! I was in heaven!

When the wax had cooled and hardened, it was time to awake my hands from their blissful sleeping bags. I imagined that I would need a chisel to break apart the hardened wax, but my hands slipped right out - leaving a really neat complete cast of my hand in its entirety, nails and skin impressions and all. For a moment, I thought 'Hey, I could go work for Industrial Light and Magic' Then I remembered that I was neither intelligent, nor creative enough.

Back to my hands = they feel luxuriously sensuous! So soft and smooth. Little cracks seemed to have been erased. Cuticle revitalised. Nails shiny. And my callouses may actually need to be reformed so I don't bleed on the guitar strings. Overall, the results from just one use totally exceeded my expectations. And, the soothing, warming feeling is so relaxing too.

Now I'm a paraffin wax junky.
My habit is steadily increasing and soon I will need to buy more wax. Then I got the idea to do some research. On the web, I found sources that claim people use wax dipping as a form of physical therapy - to treat muscle and joint pain. We all know that everything on the internet is true... but I could see how regular dips *could* offer at least a little temporary comfort. And apparently, people dip everything - feet, elbows, (obvious choices) and even facials and whole body treatments. How do they dip a whole body? I think that may get a little uncomfortable.

Like A Human Fondue
As we speak, I have my feet nestled snuggly in the oven roaster bags. The sumptuous wax working over tired joints and doing, er, whatever it does to make the dry skin soft and smooth. I can't wait to reveal my new softer tootsies.

And I've come to this conclusion:

Heaven must be regular full body dips in paraffin wax