So there are quite a few reasons that your skin on different parts of your body can lift or get chafed. For women during your menstrual cycle you are more prone to this or while you are pregnant. The skin is a lot more sensitive and this can happen in the bikini region. Diabetics or people taking antibiotics that are oral or topical can experience a severe redness and skin lifting. Antibiotics cause your skin to be very sensitive this is why sun exposure while on them is a bad idea as well. Topical medications which are usually taken for acne or fine lines, wrinkles and rosacea exfoliate the skin. Waxing also lightly exfoliates the skin so between the two of these it’s a 50/50 chance that if you haven’t stopped taking these medications that your skin will lift.

What does it look like? I say it feels like sunburn and then gets a scab on it sort of similar to getting a cat scratch. Usually if you put a first aid ointment on your skin it will heal nicely. Best advice is to be off of any of these medications for 10-14 days. The longer you have been taking them the closer to 2 weeks you need to wait to receive facial waxing services like lip, brow, chin or jawline. Myth; I’ve heard people say “I don’t put the antibiotic cream or ointment on my brows”. Truth: the medicine travels under the skin therefore affecting the whole face. This holds true for the above mentioned services, as for the body and face Acutane, which is an oral medication derived from vitamin A and prescribed by a Doctor is the one drug that will negatively affect any part of the body you wax. Please allow 4-6 months for this drug to leave your system before resuming any waxing.

A few other reasons as to why your skin can lift during a face waxing is the wax is not warm enough and gets gooey and sticks to the skin and does not lift off nice and clean. Most “strip” waxes which are warmed up in a pot and applied to the skin and removed with a strip of pellon fabric should go on thin so that this does not happen. Also wax can be too hot, but usually a client will say something about the temperature so that the esthetician knows it needs to cool down. Lastly if someone is new to waxing and their technique is not good then skin may lift as well. If the esthetician is pulling up towards the ceiling that is a bad technique and can cause bruising or lifting, their pull should be a clean swipe parallel to the skin.

On a side note for men, the skin around the testicles is quite a bit thinner than the rest of the groin area so that can occasionally lift as well. The esthetician should put some oil and then baby powder on that area so that the wax sticks to the hair and not the skin.