Let's face it: Any job that requires you to work with the public is emotionally taxing. To put it even simpler: It sucks.
Redditor dreamingofwealth––don't we all?––is responsible for today's burning question, which delves into another side of customer service jobs: "People who wax others for a living, what's the worst horror story you have of a client?"
"My nail teacher..."
My nail teacher told me this one:
A very large lady would ask for a Brazilian wax, which includes the butt crack. She already had strong body odour and when my teacher waxed the crack, the wax strip was caked in feces. She just about threw up on the client.
"She and her girlfriend..."
Not me, but this happened to a friend of mine. She and her girlfriend decided to get Brazilian waxes together. It was her first Brazilian wax, so she had no frame of reference for how much it was supposed to hurt. First strip, okay, few more, fine, then one more pull and MEGA PAIN. The waxer looked terrified, but then just smiled and just quickly made gestures for her to get dressed and come out front to pay (this happened in South Korea).
When she got home, she inspected the area, and the waxer had actually ripped her labia. She had to immediately go to hospital to get stitches to have it repaired. All my friend did was go back to the salon with her hospital bill and demand that they pay it and call the matter settled, which they did.
"I was a hairstylist..."
I was a hairstylist and we really only ever did facial waxing and offered to clients as an up-sell. A regular client of mine was traumatised by a prior waxing experience (with a stylist that was not my self years prior) and declined. Well, the stylist went to wax her brows and dropped a giant clump or of wax on her lashes! Then proceeded to take a long time to remove the wax (I think like an hour) with only water and no oil residue remover that would have made the wax side off instantly.
"Client story..."
Client story - went to a waxing studio I had never been to before and got a Brazilian done. The lady did this with bee wax (I think) which you just put on the skin, it dries quickly and you pull it off without a cloth/paper. You have to apply it at a certain thickness for it to work.
The lady begins and at first, everything is going well, she works her way to the "more private areas" but I can tell she works pretty hard (I have strong hair and this was after 2-3 months of growing). When she gets to the labia, the problems begin: she can't seem to rip the hair off.
Her solution is to apply more wax on top, but still no budging. More wax is applied and she starts slightly spreading it out too, so I am now covered in warm, thick wax almost everywhere, which feels a little like wearing a small harness.
I get a little scared and just hope that she knows what she's doing. She however chooses this moment to inform me that it's possible to rip off skin as well and to kind of scold me for having thick hair. Incredible people skills, so comforting. Luckily, she somehow managed to get it off. Never going back there though!
"I asked this question..."
I asked this very question to someone who was waxing me. Their worst is normally hygiene related, like a woman who'd clearly had sex at some point just before the appointment and hadn't cleaned out properly.
"Most stories..."
Most stories have to do with bad hygiene, some with clients attitudes or actions, and some will just be plain old problems getting the hair off. I haven't had a REALLY bad one in awhile, or maybe I just am not phased by it anymore.
A favorite of mine was the girl who came in for a brazilian and was shaking from nervousness before we even started. I'll spare you the details but it took over an hour to finish the service (usually takes 15-30 minutes, 45 is the MOST it should EVER take) and at some point she had a full on anxiety attack. I was being as gentle as I could considering I was ripping hair out of her body and after every pull she sat up, cried loudly, and then dropped back onto the bed. She got off the bed still half naked and started pacing back and forth loudly sobbing and hyperventilating.
I was trying my best to keep her calm but honestly, it was all in her head. Getting your hair ripped out always hurts but her hair SHOULD HAVE been an easy service, she let herself panic and the fear got to her. After she left I sat in the break room, took a deeeep breath in....and starting sobbing lol. I was so glad to be done with it. She was sweet otherwise, no smell, easy hair to work with, but God that was the most stressful service of my life. She actually came back a few more times after that and we finished in 20 minutes, no more incidents :).
"2 or 3..."
Giphy
2 or 3 layers of skin came off with the hair, it was on a guys genitals and there was a lot of blood and yelling.
"A new client..."
A new client came in right after having sex, and leaked all. And she wanted me to finish the job, so cleaned herself right in front of me, completely nonchalantly! I couldn't look her in the eyes.
And another one, but service wasn't rendered. I was 18, working at my first salon, alone. It was this huge place in a really good area, but new so business was slow. This guy steps in, wearing a super nice suit, and asks for a back wax. I have him step into the wax room, ask him to remove his coat and shirt and lay down facing down. I go to grab some towels as extra precaution to lay over his butt so his pants aren't ruined. Come back to see him naked, and he's asking for a Brazilian wax.
Caught off guard, I just kind of stand there before realizing what a situation I'm in. I have no experience in that, and it's not a service we provide for men. I try to explain that to him and ask him to dress, and he tells me it's not a hard thing to learn, to practice on him. At this point I'm freaking out. I still have an advantage point of running out the front door as he's butt naked and we had two security guards for the plaza, but the situation kind of locks my legs together. I don't even remember how but he eventually listens and dresses and leaves. It kind of taught me about the risk of working alone in a building where I'd need to take clients into a room in the back. I made friends with the security guard that day and got his number in case I ever did need him to step in.
"In high school..."
In high school I had a friend who was smart but lazy. To get him motivated to get better grades, my friends & I made a bet: if he didn't meet a certain average then I'd get to wax his armpits. If I didn't make that same average, I'd have to do 50 push-ups on the cafeteria table.
He didn't make the average so I had a pool party at my house with my friends & him & we all gathered around to watch me wax his armpits. He was lying on his back on the family room ottoman & I was sitting beside him, leaning forward to do it all. We also recorded it on video. He spent the entire week hiding from his bigoted dad cause he was scared he'd get in trouble for having incredibly smooth armpits.
Fast forward to a few months after, when I had a school project that involved making a video. So I took the camera to my teacher to show it to her. This camera shows the history of most recent videos, so since the waxing video was the only video before my project, she saw the thumbnail of me leaning over my friend, lying on the ottoman, but you can't see what I'm doing with my hands....after freezing & seeing the confusion on her face I tried to quickly explain "myfriendlostabetsoihadtowaxhisarmpits." I stuttered & struggled a lot with that.
I don't think she believed me. That little thumbnail honestly looked like the intro to very bad amateur porn. I still got an A on my project though. I also never had to do push-ups in the cafeteria.
"A waxer..."
A waxer once told me that she had 'accidentally' waxed a girls tampon straight out. The string must have got caught in the wax. Neither of them said anything for the next 30 mins.
"Frequently..."
Not a waxer, but an eyelash technician. One time I had a client come in with crabs in her eyelashes which was obviously the worst thing I've ever seen. Frequently people come in for fills and haven't bothered to clean their eyes for 3 weeks thinking it will make the extensions stay on longer resulting in a nice layer of yellow crusties all along the lash line.
"My sister..."
My sister was an esthetician and refused to do 'LAs' (lips and @ssholes) because of issues with people's hygiene and how gross it could be. Her co-workers gladly did them though (better tippers, in general, when you're waxing their @sshole and don't hurt them too bad lol).
Sometimes people come in and their super sweaty, and it's hard for the wax to stick to sweaty skin, so, usually, they just pat some baby powder on them and problem solved.
One day a younger woman came in; she was super sweaty, so the esthetician decides to haul out the baby powder, dabs some on and turned to get the pot of wax to do the job...I should mention the woman getting the wax was on all fours on the table, as they usually are. So, esthetician turns to get the wax, woman on the table lets out a fart. Just a little slip, but still, baby powder went everywhere, all over the table, all over the esthetician, and was hanging in the air.
I asked if the girl was embarrassed, and my sister said that apparently she just played it off like she didn't drop a bomb, but the baby powder evidence told the truth. Plus, it reeked. But the esthetician was a total pro and didn't even phase her...that would have been the end of my waxing career lol
"A regular client of mine..."
Not so much a funny one, but a bit of a story nonetheless.
A regular client of mine that I had been seeing for about half a year came in for her Brazilian wax. Everything is going fine as normal and then I get to the labia and as I'm spreading the wax I notice a golf-ball sized lump deep under her skin. I remove the wax and investigate a bit.. not an igrown hair, nothing surface related. I let her know and she tells me she'll see her doctor ASAP. I never saw her again. Still wonder if it something serious :(
On a funnier note, had a woman come in for a Brazilian who clearly hadn't done any maintenance in a LONG time. I remove the towel that's covering her ladybits for privacy while we enter and leave the room and I actually out loud said "whoah". Hair had to have been almost 4 inches long. Not my most professional moment. Client laughed though.
"I went to beauty school..."
I went to beauty school for massage therapy and was talking to an esthetic student during lunch one day. She said a guy had come in for a back wax looking like a shag carpet. Being that there was so much hair and surface area, it took quite a while. He one-upped every conversation with his Dungeons and Dragons game and even after the service was over, kept talking her to death about it, and didn't tip. He also moved and got a quarter-sized drop of wax on his arm and just left it there the whole time.
"We laugh about it..."
Client story - not as dreadful or gross as the others here but...I tried a new place that promised to do full Hollywoods in 15 mins.
I walked about 10 minutes to the salon on a freezing cold evening.
The girl slathers on the hot wax all over my front garden and starts to pick off the wax. Only she can't. She laughs nervously and says it's probably because my skin is ice cold still. After 10 minutes of humming to herself nervously, she calls in the manager, who calls in another beautician. I now have 3 women all working together on my lower region while my legs are akimbo and I'm panicking thinking I'll be the laughing stock of the A&E. Eventually the manager just fucking goes for it without warning and rips it off in one piece. I scream "OOH FUCK OFF" and everyone is suddenly feeling a mix of relief and upset. They are devastated how terribly it went, I'm devastated because the original girl is still upset. I assure them they didn't rip off my labia and henceforth would not be leaving a bad review on Google. We laugh about it afterwards though. They gave me a complimentary treatment which went well and I've been a regular since.
"I'm a cosmetologist..."
I'm a cosmetologist so I am trained in waxing, but this happened to my instructor during school, not to me - although I was watching her demonstrate.
A woman came in for a Brazilian wax but was a little "unprepared". She said she'd just had sex with her husband right before her appointment and hadn't cleaned up afterward, so there was some...residue and some pretty gross smells going on. My teacher cleaned her up and began the wax, and suddenly the woman started moaning. She asked if she was okay or needed to stop the wax, but the gal said to keep going. Obviously she was getting off on it and with every tug of the wax strip, her moaning got louder and louder until she finally climaxed. My poor teacher was obviously horrified and just did what she could to get that woman of there as fast as possible. It was a ridiculously uncomfortable situation and to be honest, I would have told the client to leave if I had the courage to speak up. Totally weird and not appropriate.
"It was made even worse..."
Not an esthetician, but a client. I got a manzilian wax once and accidentally "leaked" a tiny bit of semen during the wax. I was horrified and it wasn't even my first time. I wasn't aroused or anything and it just happened. I apologized profusely and she said it was fine and that she'd give me a towel and step out the room to clean up. It was made even worse because I had just minutes before asked her about her horror stories. Now I'm hoping I'm not one of hers.
"It is not uncommon..."
It is not uncommon for clients to have dingleberries when coming in for Brazilians.
My personal story is a client who had WHITE blonde eyebrows. These things were impossible to see, and there was a LOT of eyebrow hair. She said she loved my brows and wanted hers like mine. I laid her down on the table (also note: she had foils in her hair as she was getting her hair done) and I get to work. I am a new esthetician and so I'm slower with my waxes. I am trying to be meticulous with my shaping and at one point I could feel my armpits get spicy and I think to myself "I can't fucking do this." I finished one brow before she had to have her hair rinsed out and another stylist finished her other brow. I am still ashamed.
For many childhood memories are overrun by living nightmares.
Yes, children are resilient, but that doesn't mean that the things we see as babes don't follow us forever.
The horrors of the world are no stranger to the young.
Redditor -2sweetcaramel- wanted to see who was willing to share about the worst things we've seen as kids, so they asked:
"What’s the creepiest thing you saw as a kid?"
Serious Danger
"Me and my best friend would explore the drainage tunnels under the Vegas area where we grew up. These were miles long and it was always really cool down there so it was a good way to escape the heat of our scorching hot summers. We went into this one that goes under the Fiesta casino and found a camp with a bunch of homeless people."
"Mind you we are like 11 years old lol. And we just kept going like it was nothing. It wasn’t scary then but when I look back at it we could have been in some serious danger. Our parents had no idea we did this or where we were and we had no cellphones. We could have been kidnapped and never have been found."
oofboof2020
Waiting for Food
"I was at a portillos once when I was 12 and I was waiting with my little brother at a booth while my parents got our food. This guy was standing with his tray kind of watching me then after a couple of minutes he started to walk over really fast not breaking eye contact with me."
"He was 2 feet from the table and my dad came out of nowhere and scared the s**t out of him. He looked so surprised and just said he wanted to see if I’d get scared or not. He left his tray full of food near the door and left. My folks reported him but we never went to that location again since we found a better one closer to home."
nowhereboy1964
Captain Hobo to the Rescue
"When I was a pretty young teen, my friends and I were horsing around in San Francisco and started hanging out to smoke with some homeless guys. Another homeless dude came up and began aggressively trying to shake us down for anything (money, smokes, a ride, drugs- all of it) and wouldn’t take no for an answer."
"We got in over our heads and could tell this guy was now riling the other 2 guys up and they were acting like they wanted to jump us. Some grandfather-looking old homeless man appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us to get the f**k out of here- nice kids like us don’t belong down here at this hour!!"
"Captain Hobo saved our lives that night. My parents sincerely thought we were at a mall all day lol."
FartAttack911
Survival
tsunami GIF
Giphy
"I was 7 and survived the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Witnessed the wave rise way above the already massive palm trees (approx. 40ft?) and my family and I watched/heard the wave crash into the ground from a rooftop."
faithfulpoo
These Tsunami stories are just tragic.
On the Sand
Scared The Launch GIF by CTV
Giphy
"We were a group of kids who went to swim in a local lake. And there was a dead body on the beach with their hands raised and their legs bent unnaturally that local police just took out of the same lake. I've never put my foot in these waters again."
oyloff
Be Clever
"I was walking to school and I was about 5 or 6 years old and some guy pulled up beside me in his car and asked if I would get in. He also offered me sweets to do so. I said no. The creepy bit was when he calmly said ‘clever boy’ to me, then drove off. I’ve never even told my parents or anyone else about this as it would most likely freak them out."
OstneyPiz
Bad Jokes
"Dad's side of the family pranked me by burying a fake body on our back property and had me dig it up to find valuables. Was only allowed to use a lantern for light. They stuffed old clothes with chicken bones. Sheetrock mud where the head was... Random fake jewelry as the treasures... I was like maybe 10 or 11.. I remember digging up the boot first and started gagging because it became real at that point."
Alegan239
YOU
Who Are You Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
Giphy
"Woke up to find my little brother staring at me in the dark, asking, Are you really you?"
PrettyLola2004
Siblings can really be a bunch of creepers.
No one should talk to others in the dark though.
Not all pet owners have the same relationship with their pets.
While anyone who decides to become a pet owner, or pet parent as some say, love their pets equally, some never ever let them leave their side.
Taking their pet with them to work, running errands, even on vacations.
Many pet parents even allow their pets to share their bed with them when going to sleep.
For others though, this is where a line is finally drawn.
Redditor Piggythelavasurfer was curious to hear whether pet owners allowed their pets to share their bed with them, as well as the reasons why they do/don't, leading them to ask:
"Do you let your pet sleep in your bed? Why/why not?"
The Tiny Issue Of Water...
"Absolutely not."
"I have fish."- Senior-Meal3649
Everyone Gets Lonely Eventually...
"I adopted an eleven year old cat the day before Halloween."
"She has mostly lived in my closet since I got her, and she hasn’t been too interested in coming out."
"Last night, she came out of my closet and jumped up on my bed, and crawled under my covers and curled up by my feet to sleep."
"I was so happy!"- YellowBeastJeep
The Comforting Reminder That You're Not Alone...
"I recently lost my Greyhound but I used to let him sleep on my bed with me."
"The company was nice and he was no trouble to have on my bed."- HoodedMenace3
Hungry Cookie GIF by De Graafschap Dierenartsen
Giphy
What Do You Mean Allow?
"I have no choice."
"She is a cat, cats do whatever they want."- Small_cat1412
"He lets me sleep in my bed."- Poorly-Drawn-Beagle
Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
"I carry my old boy upstairs to bed every night."- worst_in_show
Hug GIF by The BarkPost
Giphy
Who Needs An Alarm Clock?
"I let my two cats sleep with me."
"They're so full of love and just want cuddles all the time."
"And so do I."
"We've all developed a lil routine."
"Get to bed, oldest sleeps on my feet to keep them warm, youngest lies in my arm while I lie on my side (she the little spoon), then when I snooze my alarm for work in the morning the youngest paws at my face and meeps loudly to wake me up."- GhostofaFlea_
Whose Bed Is It Anyway?
"Yes."
"They're also kind enough to let me squeeze into whatever space they've left for me."
"Although I do get a few dirty looks off them."- Therealkaylor
"I found this tiny kitten screaming her head off under a car."
"Would not come out."
"Got some food and some water in dishes."
"I stood by the tire so she couldn't see my feet."
"She got curious about the food and water and started gobbling it down."
"I thought she would bolt when I squatted down."
"She was too busy eating."
"I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and all four legs went straight out and she tried to scratch me to death."
"I got her in the door and tossed her toward the couch."
"She ricocheted off the couch as if she was a ping pong off a table and I lost sight of her."
"I put out food and water and a sandbox and did not see that kitten for three days."
"On the third day, I came home and she was on my bed pillow."
"I thought she would bolt when I came near, but she didn't."
"I wanted to sleep so I tried to scoot her little butt off my pillow."
"She would not go."
"I put my head down to sleep and that is the way it was from then on."
"She ran the roost."- Logical_Cherry_7588
sleepy kitten GIF
Giphy
Sleeping Is A Prerequisite...
"No, he's a cat and he cannot keep still during the night."
"He walks across the headboard, opens the closet doors, jumps into the windows and rustles the blinds, etc."
"If he would sleep he could stay, but alas, he's a ramblin' man."- Spong_Durnflungle
Saying No Just Isn't An Option...
"'Let'."
"Lol."
"It's a cat's world and I'm happy to be on her good side."- milaren
Felines Only!
"The cat does, the dog doesn't and the horse certainly does not either."- Xcrowzz
Angry Tom And Jerry GIF by Boomerang Official
Giphy
Is That My Hair On That Pillow?
"My dog is perfect."
"She comes up, cuddles til we start to fall asleep, then gets down to sleep on her bed so she doesn't get too hot."
"Jumps back up in the early morning for wake up cuddles."
"The hair everywhere is the only downside but she is so cozy, what can you do."- HoodieWinchester
It is easy to understand how some people are able to fall asleep more easily knowing their friend and protector is there, in bed, with them.
Though we can't blame others who don't want to run the risk of being scratched or bitten in the middle of the night either...