@GirlontheProwl here, as we come to the close of another blissful summer of beaches and summer romances I’ve decided what better way to say goodbye than to review the best at home leg-waxing options. Now this summer, instead of attempting to go to professionals, which in hindsight may have been cheaper for me, I chose to test out a few of the easy wax options. Of course if you aren’t planning to buy more than one kind of waxing tool than this review may help you in choosing a cheaper alternative to salon waxing. The products that I used were all from the Nair collection and ranged from hard wax, roll-on, and even though it’s not technically a wax, a crème because why not? While these products come from the same company their level of what I like to call “success rates” differed largely.

I started off with the Nair Brazilian Spa Clay Roll on Wax and it wasn’t too difficult to use. You can buy this particular product from any of your local grocery/drug stores and it costs about $12. The bottle is about the size of your hand, and for me at least, it lasted for both my legs. And for the most part the product worked really well. The only downside is if your hair is short it won’t work as well as if your hair is longer than 2cm. So in other words if you went into winter hibernation and then decided to wax your legs this will work very, very well. Basically you stick this product in your microwave for 15 seconds and then roll on, smooth the strip over, and yank that sucker off—painful? Yes. But totally effective. Product wise there was more than enough wax, but definitely not enough of the cloth strips, so I would recommend buying extra. Another thing that is annoying is that you have to constantly re-heat the bottle, but that is just a minor thing that is more of a personal pet peeve as opposed to a product fail. The wax however lasts about two weeks give or take before hair begins to reappear although it isn’t as dark and can be easily removed to last longer.

The Nair Cire Divine No Strip Wax was a whole other ball game. This supposedly easy to use wax was not so easy to use. While not having to deal with no strips seemed like the ideal no mess dream, this hard wax wasn’t exactly mess-less. First of all trying to microwave the tub of hard wax to the right consistency wasn’t exactly a science. The amount of time given on the instructions didn’t heat the tub up enough to make it pliable. Not to mention that while it claims to smell like berries or citrus…it really doesn’t smell all that great. And don’t even get me started on trying to apply the wax. Trying to get the right amount of wax so that it’s thin enough to pick up the hair, but thick enough to rip off was annoyingly difficult. Now whether it was because I didn’t know how to use it, or if the product just sucked I couldn’t tell you, but it wasn’t easy to use, it wasn’t mess free, and it definitely hurt a lot more than regular wax. Long hair or short hair, you are probably better off going to a salon then spending $15 on this—unless of course you’re trained in this sort of stuff, then perhaps you’ll be able to do it better than me, but as an amateur definitely not something I would waste my money on again.

Now the Nair Hair Removal Crèmes come in a variety of styles for different skin types, but they all work relatively the same way. They cost about $10 at the most and work very well on most hair lengths. While the smell may be insufferable the outcome is quick, easy, and painless. You just apply the crème for the instructed amount of time and then just remove the hair with a damp cloth—gross, but effective. Warning: don’t leave the crème on longer than the suggested time because it will begin to burn the skin! This method is by far the easiest, but the results only last a little longer than a shave. I would not recommend this as a weekly solution, but simply something you use every month just because you don’t want to irritate the skin too often—it’s kind of like with shaving, you don’t want razor burn!

Overall my favourite of the three would be the Roll on Wax, while my least favourite would be the hard wax. I’m a little indifferent towards the crèmes as they don’t last very long, but they are much faster than shaving so that’s something to consider. Other than that the choice is really yours. Of course I should probably mention that salon waxing is estimated to last 4-6 weeks, but if you are the shy type and prefer to wax at home, or even too busy to get to a salon, I hope this helps put some perspective on things.

Cheers,