The summer I got a brazilian and became hot again

“Slithering into the pool at the Chateau Marmont, with my collagen-laden Erewhon smoothie in hand and without a flyaway in sight, I felt flawless.”

Tish Weinstock is a London-based writer and consultant. Graduating from Oxford University in 2012 with a degree in History of Art, she has worked at style bibles i-D, Dazed & Confused, and British Vogue, where she remains a contributing editor. She is the author of I'm Sick *Coughs* substack and wrote her first book, How To Be a Goth: Notes on Undead Style, in 2024, which has been featured in New York Times, Vogue, WWD, and more.

I was getting undressed one morning when my husband looked up from his laptop and deadpanned the following: “If you shaved your pubes, you’d go down a jean size.” He’s not wrong. When it comes to pubic landscaping, I’ve always been pretty “less is more.” Less work, more hair. I like to think of my lady garden in terms of Burkean ideals of sublime nature; the kind of wild, wanton forest an 18th-century romantic poet might get lost in. Not the polite manicured lawns and landing strips of all my friends.

Despite various pleas throughout our relationship and eventual marriage, I refused to acquiesce to Tom’s demands for a tidy bush, citing my feminist sisters and harmful societal norms as my reasoning. But, in all honesty, IDGAF about feminism where vaginal maintenance is concerned. It isn’t about aesthetic preference, either. The real reason I refuse to get a wax is that I don't like experiencing discomfort for even a minute, let alone half an hour. And you expect me to do this, what, every month? On top of everything else? I could get laser, but why should I spend thousands of pounds on a course of treatments when I’m not the one who has to look at it?

To be clear: It’s not the money I’m adverse to; I just feel like I’m not getting enough return on my investment. I’d rather spend money on treatments for my face (like having salmon sperm injected into my dermis or having my outermost layer of skin basically blasted off by plasma) because, unlike my vagina, my face is permanently on display. It’s not like we have a term for vagina card, do we? Sure, I could shave, but the regrowth is messy and itchy, and I don't want my vagina to look like it has dermatitis. Basically, when it comes to intimate grooming, it's either painful, expensive, or time-consuming, and I don’t feel like I’m personally getting anything out of it. It’s one more thing to think about in the long and arduous task of being a woman. I did all of that when I was young and childless (how do you think I ensnared Tom in the first place?), but now I just don’t have it in me. So, I am hairy, hear me roar.

“I like to think of my lady garden in terms of Burkean ideals of sublime nature; the kind of wild, wanton forest an 18th-century romantic poet might get lost in.”

And yet, on this particular occasion, Tom’s statement seemed to strike a chord. We were about to go on our summer vacation, which means having to squeeze myself into a swimsuit. Touching cloth with my mid-30s, I’m already starting to lose the battle with gravity, where certain areas of my body are concerned. I may be skinny, but I'm also soft, saggy, and cellulite-y. Did I want to be a hairy monster on top of that? No, I did not. Plus, I wanted to do something nice for my husband for a change. Because maybe then he’d do something nice for me in return, like buy me a present or look after the kids while I swan around fashion week. A win-win. So I booked an appointment for a Brazilian via the beauty app @ruuby, jumped into the shower, and attempted a half-baked douche. Cue: The summer I turned pretty. Fast-forward a few hours and I was being spatchcocked like a chicken on a chopping board as a nice lady called Meera poured burning hot wax all over my muff.

"You’re growing them,” she said, gazing at the foliage below, before holding me down with a strength that felt incongruous to her diminutive size.

Despite having two rugrats, during this half an hour of unabashed torture, I feared for my vagina in a way I never knew was possible. And then she started on my asshole. See, this is why I don’t get waxes. The whole thing was agony.

“It’s because you’re not used to it,” said Meera.

“I’m not sure I want to get used to it,” I replied.

By the time it was all over, I was red and raw. Ow! She put some cooling gel on the afflicted area, and I lay in the fetal position as I waited for the stinging to subside. After five minutes, I looked again. A part of me felt disgusted; something about hot pink naked flesh. While the other part felt…excited. For the first time in ages, I was supple, smooth, and snatched. I sent a picture to my husband, who was thrilled, if not aroused. Now, who else could I show?

For the next week or so, I was thriving. It’s like that extra ounce of confidence you get when you have a great blowout. What had I been doing all this time? I thought back to all the summers I’d felt the hot pangs of shame whenever I slipped into a swimsuit, with my sideburns peeking out. But now, slithering into the pool at the Chateau Marmont, with my collagen-laden Erewhon smoothie in hand and without a flyaway in sight, I felt flawless. I took some celebratory selfies in some freebie Philo bikinis I'd been sent and marvelled at my transition into the ultimate LA girl, a Gimaguas-clad siren who’d finally shed her outer layer of scales. Who cares that my kids were practically drowning in the deep end? I couldn’t stop staring at my crotch, and I could have sworn that other lounge lizards at the pool were staring at it, too. I was also having a lot more sex, which, for the sake of my children, I'll leave at that. But all good things come to an end. By the time we got back to England, the first lot of alfalfa sprouts were starting to poke through. Fuck.

The thing about childbirth is that, despite swearing it off as soon as you’ve given birth, by the time you’re ready for another one, you’ve forgotten the immense pain you went through the first time, which is more than I can say for waxing. The pain is just too fresh. That’s not to say I won’t try it again. Far from it. I used to think that intimate grooming was only about catering to the male desire, without getting anything in return. But the whole experience has appealed to my vanity in a way it never has before. I felt hot and sexy, which is enough to entice me into doing it again. Where there was something unexpected and punk about being a hairy monster in my youth, it feels even more unexpected to keep things bang tidy as I hurtle into middle age. I could do with the extra help. However, it might just have to be a seasonal thing. Or who knows, maybe I’ll try laser next.