Hard Wax: Sparing Your Skin

Hard wax eschews the need for fabric strips and caters to sensitive skin. Read on to find out more about this popular wax option.

If it’s hard to envision a block of hard wax effectively uprooting body hair, don’t be alarmed: the name is a bit of a misnomer. In fact, in a sense you could even say that hard wax is actually softer. Like soft wax, hard wax is indeed melted before being slathered onto skin, but it’s applied at a cooler temperature—about 98 to 113ºF—and remains somewhat malleable when cool. Made primarily from beeswax, pine resin, or a petroleum derivative, it’s layered onto the skin without the use of fabric strips. The wax then hardens around hairs before an aesthetician removes it by hand, pulling up only hair and not skin. (Many salons first coat the skin with a light layer of oil to make the wax even less likely to stick.) Hard wax tends to be more expensive, and requires a little more practice, but aestheticians who have mastered the technique recommend it especially for sensitive areas such as the bikini area, the armpits, or the feelings.