Choose from Three Options

• $25 for one Brazilian sugar wax treatment ($45 value)
• $49 for two Brazilian sugar wax treatments ($90 value)
• $12 for one eyebrow-shaping service ($20 value)

Sugar-Based Hair Removal: Sweet and Smooth

Tweezing, plucking, shaving, and waxing are just some of the ways one can eliminate unwanted hair. Read on for a breakdown of two sugar-based hair removal methods.

Eight parts sugar, one part lemon juice, one part water. It’s a recipe not for the world’s thickest lemonade, but for smooth skin. During body sugaring, a sugar paste is molded into a ball with a consistency similar to that of Silly Putty or candy picked up out of a puddle, then pressed against the skin in the direction of hair growth and removed, along with the hair, in the opposite direction. Sometimes talc is applied to the treatment area to prevent the paste from sticking to skin.

Fans of sugar-based hair-removal methods find them to be less painful, less messy, and, given the simple and all-natural formula, less likely to result in allergic reactions. Another variant, sugar waxing or sugar gel, is more similar to traditional resin-based waxing. (Some companies that market their product as “sugar wax” are actually selling regular wax with some sugar added in, so check or ask about ingredients if you aren’t sure.) A sugar gel is applied to the skin using a stick, then topped with a fabric strip that is pulled away against the direction of hair growth. Although sugar waxing shares some of the drawbacks of traditional waxing (such as ingrown hairs, irritation, and hair breakage), cleanup is still much easier. The gel is water-soluble, so it can be washed away more easily than resin-based wax, especially if the wax used to be a box of crayons.