James Fell had to learn the hard way now not to groom his chest hair.
I will never shave my chest again.
I did, once, and that was enough to learn my lesson. I really don’t want to write this next line, because it fills me with no end of shame, but I must… I did it as a Valentine’s Day surprise for my wife.
Yeah, I know, I suck.
If I’d had half a brain, I would have at least taken a pair of scissors to the Chewbacca-like rainforest before tackling it with a razor, but I did not. As a result, I went through about $10 worth of Mach III Turbos before the job was finally done.
Bleeding in several places and feeling like I’d just had my nipples chewed off by a half-starved badger, I looked in the mirror.
I looked in the mirror. I looked … I looked like an idiot.
I didn’t get it. All those guys in various fitness mags … none of them had chest hair. They were all baby smooth, showing off their pecs and abdominals and whatnot. Why did it look good on them but I looked like a complete tool?
Maybe it was because I was middle-aged at the time and it made me look 14. That must have been it.
When my wife got home I showed her, faking some mild enthusiasm in a look what I did for you kind of way. “Uh,” she said, “that looks … bad. I don’t like it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot.”
“Oh, it’s okay. Don’t feel bad …” She came up and put a hand on my chest. “Holy crap! Your chest feels like friggin’ sandpaper.”
I don’t want to get into the details, but I took a lot of heat for giving her whisker burn over the next couple of weeks. Atoning for my sins didn’t end there – yes vanity is one of the seven deadly ones – don’t you remember that Brad Pitt movie? Anyway, I got ingrown hairs that turned into pimples and it itched like a bugger for almost a month.
Never, ever again.
Still, I had a problem, and that was the fact that I was starting to look like Sean Connery, meaning that at least half of it had turned gray. I’d tried plucking those ones for a few years (yeah, shut up), but it hurt and the gray ones were coming in faster than I could yank them out. Eventually I just had to give up. I jokingly mentioned to my wife that I could try dyeing it, but she said that was just about the stupidest idea she’d ever heard, and that I’d end up looking like Austin Powers.
Then Jason Statham gave me an idea.
My wife is an ass-kicking karate woman, and she likes The Transporter movies because Statham is also a righteous ass-kicker. In one shirtless scene we noticed that he had neatly trimmed chest hair and that he also had about the same amount of gray as I did, but being that it was shorter it didn’t look too bad.
“You could do that,” she said.
So I did, but I did it the wrong way.
I used a pair of scissors. The result was an uneven patchwork mess that looked like a mangy street dog undergoing chemo. Oh, and once again, there was blood. Just FYI, cutting your skin with a pair of big-ass scissors from your wife’s scrap booking kit hurts a helluva lot more than cutting it with a razor. It scabs up more too.
Slowly, however, I was learning.
After it grew back some I went to a drug store and bought a “personal grooming device.” I knew nothing battery operated was going to handle the manly forest, so I made sure to go electrical. Noticing that the cord was quite long, I did something smart for a change; I stood in the bathtub (no water, of course) to facilitate easier cleanup, and went to town on my torso.
The first thing I noticed was that I probably chose too short of a trimmer attachment, but it sure looked a lot better than either the shave or the scissor job did.
There were little bits of hair everywhere, including stuck to my body, so I opted for a shower to wash it off. While running soap over my chest I noticed that the edges felt a little rough and didn’t wish to cause my wife an further discomfort, so I grabbed some of her exfoliant scrub and used that to soften things up (again, shut up).
The scrub didn’t help much, so next I tried her hair conditioner (okay, fine, don’t shut up), and that made things better.
My wife inspected the results and pronounced it satisfactory, although she agreed that it was a little too short. I now go through this ritual once every couple of months.
Thank God I don’t have (much) back hair.
Originally appeared at SixPackAbs.com
I’m just curious if you just assumed your wife would like it? Because it doesn’t seem like she enjoyed this adventure much. Funny article thought. Thanks.
About two weeks ago, my girlfriend coaxed me into letting her go to town on my back hair with her epilator device …baaaaad move.
I now have an outrageous amount of acne all over my back, which is far worse than the small amount of hair I had before.
This is what millions of women fight with regularly thanks to the media machine telling us that our body hair is gross. Just imagine that irritation in a more sensitive region.
Women come with hair, just like men. So…..why are we required to shave more than 50% of our bodies daily when men only shave their face…if they want to? Nah. I don’t mess with men who don’t put any effort in the way they look.
I put lots of effort into my appearance. I always practice proper hygiene, dress very well, and am always well groomed, and smell awesome (thanks to Chanel’s Pour Monsieur).
I am very confident that I dress and look better than 90% of American men. By look, I mean presentation. I don’t wear flip flops, cargo pants, Khakis, soft bottom/rubber shoes etc. My shirts are always very clean, laundered,…etc. I look neat.
Why do I do all this? Because this is how I carry myself and feel about myself.
AND you have body hair!!!
I’ve blathered about this in other articles, but this is just too easy: I gave up shaving my legs a few years ago. Early in our dating relationship, my husband told me that I didn’t need to shave for him (which I thought was adorable, because it isn’t a choice, it’s just something we HAVE to do, right?), and repeated this a couple times before we got married. The final time, I was throwing a hissy fit over this one spot that wouldn’t come smooth, I was down to my last blade, and why are these things so frak’n expensive???… Read more »
Hair hides my lack of abs, cuts down on the suns reflection / emphasis on the excess. Just kidding, I don’t look so bad. I would imagine that shaved body goes through the same stage when facial hair grows back … itches like heck, doesn’t it? Ding ding ding! Now I remember, I did have my chest shaved!!! When I was 41 I had open heart surgery and they shaved me …yeah, it itches!
LOL! I have only used electric groomers to manscape in the summer time. Im not super hairy but a trim gives a nice change and makes my abs look more defined for Caribbean or European beaches. As a Black man who naturally gets in-gorwn hairs from wet shaving (curved follicles from which hair rarely grows straight out after a shave) I gave up the practice soon after I began. I cant believe u tried scissors!
I’m about as hairy as a guy can get and there was never a moment in my life that I even thought of shaving ANY of my body hair. You’re crazy …the hair is part of you (literally). Back hair …. A ton of it. But my wife loves it, always has and always will. I honestly think she’d get pissed off if I tampered with it. I’ve had a full beard since I was 16 and back then, my wife was dating me. She’d never kissed me without facial hair. The one and only time I shaved it off,… Read more »
@Tom Brechlin,
I am with you 100%.
My somewhat hairy body is part of my masculine identity. I really do not think very much of men who shave their bodies. Call it arrogance, intolerance or whatever. I am just being honest on how I feel about. Maybe this craziness will blow over soon.