Product: Styptic Pencil

I was browsing the hair removal section of a drugstore last month to see what new devices of torture were available, when I discovered something that has apparently been around for years.  The styptic pencil has apparently been a part of men’s grooming sets since the days of the straight razor, and it’s designed to stop nicks from bleeding. 

If you have a pet that needs its nails clipped, you might be familiar with the concept, as a powder form is often used to stop any bleeding if the animal’s nails get clipped too close to the quick.  This pencil usually comes in a clear plastic tube for storage, and feels a bit like chalk in your hand.  You wet the tip and apply it to your nicks, and the astringent in the pencil causes the bloodvessels to constrict.  (See how it works.)




Styptic Pencil (drugstore brand)


Ingredients:

• Medical Ingredient: Aluminum Sulfate Anhydrous 56%

• Non-Medical Ingredients:  Titanium Dioxide and Water

Things I liked:

• It stops the bleeding from minor nicks instantly.  No more bits of toilet paper and waiting for nicks to clot on their own so I can apply make-up and get on with my day. 

• I’ve even used it on moderate nicks from shaving my legs, and while it doesn’t stop them right away, it does slow the bleeding so I’m not tracking blood all over the place like a horror film.

Things I didn't like:

• It stings.  A lot.  Think paper cut in lemon juice.  (Guess that's why they call it an astringent...)

• It leaves a white residue on your skin, which you need to rinse off before make-up will apply with ease.

Did it do what it promised?

“Stops bleeding resulting from minor shaving cuts”--absolutely.  I might not have believed it if I hadn’t tried it for myself.  Even slightly larger nicks are helped with the pencil, which makes shaving just a little less messy and frustrating.  Because getting nicks to clot is often one of my biggest peeves with shaving, I think it’s an invaluable part of a shaving arsenal.

There are so many companies that make them, I’m not going to bother linking others’ reviews.  You can search on your own, or just try it for yourself.  They’re not expensive, and well worth a look if you’re an aggressive and sometimes clumsy shaver like me.

Being "Allerleirah"

There’s some drawbacks to having an online identity that is just for talking about hirsutism online.  Things I didn’t even imagine when I started up this blog. 

I intended to create a way for me to talk with absolute honesty about what it’s like to personally live with an androgenic disorder, without worrying about how that honesty (which might at times be ugly as I'd never, ever properly expressed myself regarding hirsutism before) would reflect on other areas of my online life.  The blog's been great for that.  It’s also been great for giving me courage to connect with other ladies in similar circumstances and find useful resources for support.

But in a way, it’s kept hirsutism compartmentlaized; separate from the rest of my life.  It's had the benefit of allowing me to flush out the frustration in a place where people who see it will understand utterly and completely.  It has also cultivated an awareness in me that hirsutism is really a small part of my life.  Small enough that I sometimes run out of things to say about it.  And in some respects, it’s nice to have it over here so I can only think or talk about it when I want to.  But it also means that when I come over here, it’s all I think or talk about.  And that’s overwhelming sometimes.  So overwhelming that when I feel fragile or very stressed, I avoid this place completely.  I apologize for that.

Having hirsutism as the primary aspect of this online identity also means that those who are drawn to Allerleirah in respects to friending me or following me or subscribing to me are drawn to me because of the hair.  That’s kind of a weird experience, when you think about it.  A person you met face-to-face on the street would likely not be drawn to you if you were sporting a few days of stubble on your chin.  That’s kind of the crux of the anxiety we feel as hirsute women.  In a way, that’s lifted off you when you’re open about it online.  Being Allerleirah has been great for meeting women with whom I have these struggles in common, and in fact being inspired and taught by them.  And it’s been great for being introduced to people who are genuinely curious and trying to understand this bizarre situation of being a woman with a beard.  But on the other hand, as a woman talking openly about body hair, being interested in it and being able to grow a good deal more of it than most women, I’ve at times become an object of fetishism. 

Perhaps sometimes being the subject of an erotic fixation is what I’ve been finding particularly discouraging.  And maybe I shouldn’t--after all, would I be miffed if someone was attracted to me because they first noticed above all else that I had blond hair?  How silly is it to say, “Hey, don’t notice me because of something I’ve done on purpose!”  (Not to say I’m hirsute on purpose, but I’ve made it public deliberately, just as I dye my hair deliberately.)

I think it troubles me because I feel like I’m merely part of a collection of things that someone finds pleasing.  I guess that’s nice on some level, because girls like us easily doubt our desirableness.  However, being hirsute is just a physical trait.  It’s not who I am.  The effects of hirsutism are, such as lack of self-confidence or being less judgmental about what others look like.  But I doubt that’s why I’m in the collection.

And if that's a bad thing, it’s my fault for presenting myself as “Allerleirah the bearded lady” and having this whole corner of the internet just for that.  But like everybody else in this world, I want to be appreciated as an individual.  And I know most of you here are here because the blog gives you encouragement and solidarity.  It gives it back to me, too, for which I will ever be grateful.  I shouldn’t let a little trichophilia get under my skin.  It’s nice that they have a taste for the unique, and I shouldn’t take that personally either positively or negatively.  I need to remember the feeling of being your hirsute sister, one of many, and at the end of the day, I know who I am and why I ought to be appreciated.  :)

A Dabble in Modeling

Back in the summertime I agreed to help out a budding photographer by sitting for a few portraits.  She decided that she wanted it to be a bridal photo-shoot, and her friends who were hair stylists and make-up artists looking to build their own portfolios were going to come and doll me up.  I’m sure most of you can imagine my trepidation about having people working so close to my skin.  It’s the same reason I don’t do facials, make-overs, or even get advice from the young women who work at the beauty counters in drug stores.  You get to close to my face, you see the effects of hirsutism.

I had already decided I would not shave for one or two days prior to the shoot to help my chin skin to be in fine form for the day.  But even so, I know my skin, and I know what shaving will do to it.  Aside from the accidental nicks if you’re not careful, you’ve got the tiny little bumps like chicken skin, the dry flakes, the ingrown hairs, and in my case also a couple of deep cystic acne nodules that decided to develop at the beginning of the week.  I knew there would be a lot to battle, but I’m used to disguising them.  Over the years I’ve developed a few tactics.  A burgeoning make-up artist?  I imagine it might be the first time they'd have come across something like that.  I was not looking forward to her sponging foundation over my jaw and getting baffled and frustrated by its misbehavior.

Then, a surprising relief: the make-up artist cancelled.  And then, another relief: the hair stylist cancelled.  Although I had to go through the morning with only a bit of concealer on my chin and no other make-up, that afternoon I got to do my own make-up, the way I’m used to, and my skin stood up pretty well.  It ended up being just me, the photographer, and a family member getting me ready for the shoot, so it was more comfortable than I could have imagined when I first agreed to do it.

I knew it would be fun no matter what, but without the stress of other people trying to work with my skin, it was even better.  I always loved to play dress-up as a kid, but now I was finally old enough to actually fit a wedding dress and wear red lipstick without looking like I’d raided my mother’s stash.  It was awkward in front of the camera at first, but I soon relaxed and the pretty little princess within came out.  It was a great day.

Of course, not knowing what style the wedding dress was, I had shaved... everything.  After I started following “****-shaving” on tumblr (NSFW), I challenged myself to growing out my armpit hair just to see how far I could go and how comfortable I could get with it.  It turned out to be extremely comfortable, and I was awfully bummed to get rid of it, as well as other hairs elsewhere.  Now I have to suffer through the uncomfortable regrowth, and the older I get, the more that outweighs the momentary pleasure of seeing myself hairless in a mirror.  ;P

Hi, you're hairy too!

I found out who on my team at work was interested in the No!No! in April (see post).  I figured the topic would come up again eventually, or that maybe I’d notice some body hair on one of them.  But to tell you the truth, on the average day, I’d forget about it.  I never really looked.  So if one of my colleagues hadn’t asked me to untangle her necklace for her while she was wearing it, I never would have known for sure. 

I thought I’d seen a few hairs on her chin once before, but it was a passing glance as she sat next to me and I didn’t want to look again in case she noticed and felt self conscious.  But yesterday, because I had to keep my eyes on what I was doing (that chain was really tangled!) I could clearly see the combination of both coarse dark and coarse light hairs on her chin.  They were several days long, but blunt like they were usually cut. 

Finding someone else who might know what you’re going through is very exciting.  But then I wondered, does she?  She might have a more serious condition than I do.  She might have an even harder time with the situation than I do.  She’s much older than I, and is of an ethnicity to which such things are a little more common.  Her chin might be the only place she has it.  She might not be bothered by it nearly as much.  Would it be callous of me to just hop on the subject with a thrilled exclamation of, “Hey!  You have hair on your chin!  Me too!”?

I know I’d be unnerved, if it were me.  But then I’d be relieved and happy to have someone to talk to.  I might not even mind if it happened in front of the rest of the team.   But I cannot make that call for someone else.  There may be an opportunity to jump into a conversation about hair removal sometime in the future, since there’ve already been a couple.

"Tweezed" The Sequel

I kept up the plucking for almost two weeks.  First of all, I have to say that wearing my peach fuzz for the first time in a long time was a constant challenge.  I actually felt the need to wear my hair down all the time to hide it a bit.  But that alone wouldn’t have induced me to go back to shaving.

What did make me say to myself, “Self, it’s time to take out that razor again,” was when the ingrown hairs and soreness eventually got as bad as when I shave nonstop for weeks on end.  That surprised me, but all that yanking on the hairs, accidentally catching skin, hairs breaking off instead of coming out at the root and getting stuck under the skin... it got ugly.  I am still trying to heal from all the ugly.

So I’m back to shaving.  My hair removal regimen is down to ten minutes again.  All is right with the world.  Well, it will be once this big blemish on my chin heals over.