Girlfriends' Guide To Very Personal Grooming: Business Above The Belt, Party Down Below

I am a fastidious woman. Not an obsessive woman. Not a helplessly narcissistic woman. Just fastidious. My every day routine includes flossing, leg and pit shaving, hair washing and conditioning, pumicing my feet, applying sunblock and clean clothes. You will never find me picking the jeans I wore yesterday off the floor and slipping them back on today. Nor will you see me with my roots grown an inch from my scalp. Not that there's anything wrong with doing it differently, in fact the hair thing is rather stylish for blondes sometimes, but it's just not me. Nails done every two weeks, hair colored every three weeks and haircut every four. So when I noticed last winter that a person (this person) does not only get gray hair on her curtains, but that sooner or later it's bound to show up on her carpet (like nearly a decade later!), I did what any fastidious woman would do--I consulted my Girlfriends.

Long ago I learned that nothing that happens to me, no matter how humiliating, terrifying or off-putting, is unique to me. All I have to do is speak up in an honest and humble way, and I'll have Girlfriends gathering around to tell me about how the same things, or even worse, have happened to them, but they've been too afraid to talk about them, too. That was the birth of my series of books called the Girlfriend Guides. We reveal our perceived inadequacies and imperfections to each other and within five minutes we're collapsed in tearful relief and laughing hard enough to pee ourselves. Within ten minutes, we have shared our coping mechanisms or accidental solutions to our problems, and thus, ladies and gentlemen, is women's tribal wisdom collected.

So, at a friend's annual Christmas Party for her 150 closest girlfriends, I asked my tablemates if they knew what to do with the gray hair down below. "I just pluck them right out!" shared one lovely. "I don't think I've got any down there," replied another, to which her best friend responded, "You can't even read a menu anymore without glasses, so how would you know?" Our hostess threw in from across the room that her own advice for solving the problem of mismatched carpets and curtains was to throw the carpet out." Wax it all off!" was her edict.

I stayed silent for a few seconds at that, having tried that once and finding it too drafty and too inauthentic to be a mother of four pretending not to have entered puberty yet, but I didn't want to reveal that much just then. We women have been waxing and shaving the bikini area for over two decades, but if I'd been asleep at the wheel during a 24-year marriage and had not noticed that every other sexual woman agreed with our hostess, I certainly didn't want to be subjected to the scorn and pity of all the "hot girls." But then our Girlfriend, Kelly, who just happened to be walking by our table at that moment shared without breaking stride, "The Paint Box. That's who you have to call. I'll email the number to you. They even do hot pink!" HOT PINK? Well that was good news, kind of, because if people were going Pink, at least they had some hair down there to dye, right?

I called--the next day! Sure enough, I was told that Hot Pink is a particular favorite among their clients. Ok, I live in Los Angeles, the birthplace of all outlandish ideas, so I decided to see if this was a phenomenon particular to my hometown by conducting a national search online to further investigate "gentle" (read: pubic) hair dyes for the nether regions. Two oft-searched sites offered all the traditional top-of-the-head hair colors that humans are born with and...that's right, Hot Pink! Not lime green, not turquoise, not neon blue, but plenty of Hot Pink.

From what I've been told by the people who provide these grooming services, their clients aren't strippers and nude models, either (at least not yet, but a girl can dream!) Suddenly I imagined hundreds of women in my hometown: teachers, surgeons, city council women, mothers, all dressed for work on the outside and partying down below with their hot pink landing strips or V shapes. Isn't that fabulous? Is that what Tina Turner meant in Private Dancer?

Imagine that the woman writing you a parking ticket has Hot Pink underneath her regulation stretchy gray pants. It makes you like her more already. If teenaged boys knew about this, there would be chaos in the classrooms taught by females. And, if I'm to believe another website called Sweetspot.com that was suggested by a leading women's magazine, many of these same women are applying "balancing" scents (alcohol-free, natch) there, too. I guess one has to work to keep a party going all day long.

I feel like such an old hag right now confessing that, although it's already June, I have yet to make an appointment to do anything about my carpets or curtains. At this point in my life, I don't know if I will ever be throwing a party down there again--like most parties, it all sounds like a lot of cleaning up to do in the morning. And, if single people are accustomed to such extraordinarily well-groomed "gardens," I'm not only not as fastidious as I think, but I would appear rather simian to the metropolitan. Staying attractive is all so much work and bother, but I don't want to get lazy during these early days of freedom. Should I give it a shot, or will I just look like someone who got drunk and lost at Truth or Dare. I just hope that if this race continues till I'm sixty, someone will have the good taste and charity to shoot me.

I don't want to ruin all the fun by asking all this is done for the reveler's own enjoyment, or if it's really just to score an invitation to someone else's party. For today, I'm just going to end this blog by saying one thing; the proprietor of one of these grooming salons mentioned that women are bringing their men in more and more for what's called "rabbit tale" grooming for guys. You figure it out. I did and it sounds fair to me.

Comments

[Nancy Dargan]

there's so little action in that area Greenpeace could zoom by in a zodiac boat, save a whale, dye it pink and i'd never know the difference. Vicki, if you read these it's nice to see you up there. be well

[Kricket66]

Glad to hear the forest is womanly. With very sensitive skin, I wouldn't shave or get waxed, however, I'd love to try the new sensation!

[wynsplc]

Well, I'm 68 and been around the track a few times and my personal preference is a cleared playing field. But, I have been known to walk through the brush on my way to a Picnic.

[Redhead52]

Vicki

These blogs are hilarious and original.

[WonderWomanGoddess]

This was a hilarious blog…I never heard of the hair dye thing before. I wouldn’t try it, just because my skin is way too sensitive. In my experience, men have difference preferences, but also, they never turn it down on account of style issues. I am sure they WOULD turn it down on account of hygiene…I know I would. Some of you guys and girls seem to be confusing style with hygiene.

I don’t have preferences for hair issues with guys (be it chest, or below the waist) other than I tend to like what is natural ON THAT GUY. If he’s a hairy guy, I’ll like his chest hairy; if he’s naturally smooth, that’s yummy. Everyone has ‘preferences’…I hate beards but love facial stubble and I love that little ‘happy trail’ from a guys stomach to his goods…I’d be a little sad if a guy waxed that off. Just a glimpse of that below-navel hair makes me want to follow that map downtown a.s.a.p.!

I think I will save this blog to read to any man who calls me ‘high maintenance’ in the future...lol!

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

*

Spring buds are a-bloom,
Summer lovin’… spoonin’ in June.
Autumn rustlin’ by long-time lovers,
Winter wood ‘neath nursing home covers.

*

[johnnygoodwud]

in my younger yrs. i dated a true redhead, and at night i swear her carpet glowed in the dark. at least i never got lost.

[3rdchimp]

It is nice that you don't aim to pass judgment, but I've got to say: Washing your jeans after every single use is really irresponsible. Water is not in endless supply. People don't have enough to drink and for those of us who do to use water recklessly and spend time painting our coochies rather than helping others is a tragic waste.

[Brillig]

The only thing I have to say is this:
If ANY man comes to my bed bald below, he is OUT before he hits the sheets.

Sure, no one wants Neanderthal man, hair sprouting from every orifice, but NO shaving for me.

I like to see and feel the differences between us thank you, think shaving for a man is really weird.....

[neumann]

I don't have a strong preference, but "uncontrolled arboreal forest" is not at the top of my list. If members of Greenpeace have chained themselves to your pubes to prevent clearcut logging you have let it go a little too far.

I do find it strange that women who shave their legs, wax their eyebrows, depilate their armpits, electrolyze their chins etc balk at doing a little maintenance on their pubic hair. It would take a couple of weeks' growth on the legs before I would even notice a woman hadn't shaved her legs - and even then I would not care.

But ladies, if the hair is so long it sticks out of the waistband of your jeans, or pokes out the side of your bathing suit you might want to think.

And you can argue hygiene back and forth but if you have 5 inch curls covering your urethra...

[Seaglass]

WTF?!!

[gfk]

Pubic stubble sounds painful for everyone.

[dididangerlove]

Glad I read this. If I had run across a guy without any hair down there, I would have assumed chemotherapy was involved.

[AZ4thatone]

As a person who makes a living in waxing services for both men and women, I can tell you all that what floats one man's boat can make another man's ship sink. It is truly a matter of preference for everyone. While some like to go completely bare, others will prefer a landing strip or a small "stache". (and I'm talking both male & female, here). The coloring, well, that's a new angle. Maybe worth offering tinting services... hey, the Fourth of July is right around the corner. Now, all together, USA-USA!

[LiberalBuzz]

I personally love the smooth look and have since I first saw it in 1976 on a model I was dating. A runway fashion model who said they all had to do it because of all the different fashions they wore especially modeling lingerie.

My current girlfriend is in her 50's and has been smooth long before I met her. AND most women love the fact that men will stay down there longer. IT is a wonderful sensation on the tongue to have smooth skin and able to.....well you get the idea.

And I keep myself well trimmed as well. No big deal and it does make a difference to your personal feeling besides the old fashioned and lazy attitude of the so called three "S"s that men are supposed to do. Nothing wrong with personal grooming all over.

Works for me.

[fudgebuster]

I'm compelled to comment. As an organic grape grower with a degree in soils science I can vouch for the clean shaved approach but only during the frust season. Pubic hair provides nucleation sites for frost... that's why in the vineyard we mow. So mow it and blow it.

[AZ4thatone]

You have a great sense of humor!