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Despite being a blond (and having all the feelings about it), I wasn't blessed with barely there peach fuzz when it came to my facial and body hair. Fine, maybe that's because I'm not really a natural blond—my colorist will tell you that I'm naturally a dirty one—but regardless, the rest of the hair on me is coarse, dark, and thick, making it ripe for all kinds of hair-removal treatments. But of all the expensive lasers and wax appointments I've tried, none have held up to the NoMostache Portable Lip Waxing Kit.
I've had an underlying insecurity with my facial hair since high school. A classmate of mine who will go unnamed for the sake of not giving a f-ck came over to me and tried to brush "a hair" off my neck. I think he was being nice, but when he went to brush it off with his hand we almost simultaneously realized that "the hair," as it will now forever be known in infamy, was attached to my neck.
Although I doubt he remembers this even happened half a lifetime later, that name and his teasing stuck with me. I was forever terrified of "the hair" and any facial hair for that matter. That feeling was only compounded when at the tender age of 23 my first magazine boss, in an extremely Devil Wears Prada moment, handed me a $20 bill and told me to "go downstairs and get my moustache waxed." It seemed that pulling an infinite amount of late nights and obsessing over every detail of her travel itineraries was not enough to be the perfect-assistant package.
I was traumatized, which led to spending the next decade or so trying literally every single kind of hair removal. Now, of course, being all the older and wiser, I realize it doesn't really matter whether I have facial or body hair because it's my body. But if I'm being entirely honest, that still doesn't stop me from wanting the hair on my face gone.
I've tried lasers, as mentioned, along with razors, depilatory creams, bleach my peach fuzz never needed, and more recently, at-home innovations like dermaplaning. Everything was fine, and I had enough stopgap fixes to take care of it somewhat. But it was never an issue I could take a hold of myself, at-home, anytime, without any worries of nicking myself like you could with a dermaplane blade or burning my skin with a too-strong depilatory cream. And that's when I stumbled on the NoMostache Portable Lip Waxing Kit.
When I say my life forever changed, I really mean it. The adorable tin features 12 doubled-sided waxing strips plus a little packet of cortisone cream, which I often employ the assistance of after hair removal for its anti-inflammatory properties. (Things get angry sometimes, even with the best wax kits.) Plus, the strips, which are entirely hypoallergenic, are so easy to use. Simply rub one strip between your palms for about 10 seconds to warm it up, remove the adhesive backing, and lay the strip down in the direction of the hair growth. Then play waxer and "rip" it off in the opposite direction of the hair. Repeat on other side of upper lip, apply hydrocortisone, and done. No pain, no salon trips, no burns, no cuts. And all for less than 20 bucks.
Arguably, though, it's the portability of the kit that makes it so covetable, especially when your schedule is packed and a trip to the salon—or six, for laser hair removal—is out of the question, which it generally is for me. And then I don't have to worry about running into my high school classmate and him seeing, God forbid, "the hair."
The NoMostache Portable Lip Waxing Kit, $18 for 12 double-sided strips, nomostache.com
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