Bleached Hem does a Voodou

Bleached Hem decided to get some totally out of character beauty therapy done by those rad visual makeover genius' at Liverpools' Voodou salon on Bold Street. With shocking and frankly disturbingly self revealing results....

This is way out - way, way, way, WAY out - of my comfort zone.

For starters, I’m probably hairier than some of the men in this place. I like to use feminist credentials to back this up, but really it’s because I’m a lazy little rat and at the moment am trying my damnedest to repulse and repel people.

Have you ever had your nails done before? The nice lady prepping the extensive nail buffing, shaving, clipping, shining, and plastic apparel asks.

No, I reply, trying my best to think up an adequate reasoning as to why a woman of 24 has never gotten round to fixing up her paws. But I’ve got nothing but the poverty card - Too skint, I say, smiling half-heartedly.

And what about a facial? She continues, whilst buffing the shine off my natural, flava-less claws.

I stare at a patch of fag-stain yellow on my index finger. I am vile. Please - buff it off. NOW.

No, never had a facial either. To be honest I’ve never even been a hairdressers before.

She pauses with incredulity, as anyone should do - it’s a fucking achievement to have survived this long in life without paying someone to sort your mane out.

Me mums a hairdresser - I just always got her to do it.

She nods with a slight look of the impressed on her face. But it could just be gas.

I mumble something extra about how there’s no money in writing and how hard it is to survive on nada, but trail off when I realise that I sound like a grade-A prick.

So, we’ve got you signed up for a Brazilian wax for today too. I’m guessing it’s your first time for that as well is it?

Yessum, I gulp.

I’ve avoided this procedure for years. Kind of because I never wanted to wind up in a situation when I was sleeping with a man who actually preferred me resembling a pre-pubescent in my downstairs smut factory, but also because I never wanted to seem like I was trying too hard.

Being a little natural in that area bears the same kind of casual nonchalance that turning up on a date in a dirty auld t-shirt dress and some torn tights does. Couldn’t give a shit, lad. Take it or leave it.

So do you know what a Brazilian involves then? she asks, raising her eyebrows in delight.

Err...not really.

Well, it basically means you have absolutely no hair on your labia or the surrounding area - we leave a small strip, but that’s it.

The labia! Christ! It’s only 11 in the morning and already I’ve wound up in a situation when the grooming of my sodding labia comes into the conversation.

It’s all good though. Some 45 minutes worth of having someone preen and buff all the crap off your nails and replace then with synthetic loveliness is more therapeutic than I’d at first have envisioned. In fact, I’m pretty fucking zen right about now.

And then I’ve got talons. This is how Catwoman must feel! I think, victoriously undermining the glamour aspect of the moment with a momentary blurb of geek-culture that my mouth thankfully refuses to say out loud.

I feel pretty fucking ghetto, actually, with talons. Part of me wants to ask her to get some press on crystals out and spell out ‘THUG 4 LIFE’ above the cuticles. Or get some leopard print stickers over the top. But I successfully curb the idea. It starts with ‘THUG 4 LIFE’ - it ends with getting your weave torn out at a freestyle hip hop night for calling someone a ‘sistaa’, and failing to reference a Lil’Kim lyric in retaliation.

We then move on to the facial. For some reason this means me having to take my top off, which sounds like the kind of cheap rouse boys use to see yer tits - ‘come round and hang out if you want - but you’ll have to take your top off if you do. The central heatings gone haywire again’...err, sure. But it’s actually all part of a supremo rad plan to make me feel FUCKING BOSS.

It’s less a facial and more an elaborate attack on every yucky, ugly detriment life has decided to shit on you over the past few weeks. Shoulder, neck, chin, cheeks, nose, forehead, ears - all massaged. Goodbye mean bitch at the dole! Farewell bank charge for spending over my overdraft! See yer later guilt, loathing, envy and failure! Good riddance rubbish boys! Adios feel-better drink binges! It’s so unbelievably good, I almost ask her to marry me.

She gives me a skincare check-up - turns out living on a diet of extreme-caffeine dependence, carefree alcoholism, coco pops and Drum Gold rollies does diabolical things to the skin. Congestion. Extreme Dehydration. Breakouts. It is a litany of the fact that I am probably going to age haggard and sallow. Like that dude from Motley Crue with that spinal disease and bloated liver who pretty much has to play guitar out of a wheelchair these days, with a face like Grandpa from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fuck.

She lights some incense and candles and turns out the light. This is more romance than I’m certainly ever used to. Perhaps it’s all a clever plan to help me take my knickers off for the Brazilian later.

And then I’m left for a sweet, solitary 20 minutes with some kind of heavy, delicious face mask on. I can hear the Voodou Spotify playlist upstairs banging out some high-five worthy contemporary pop classics, and begin to wonder what would happen if that creature from Cloverfield suddenly attacked Liverpool.

Holy fucking crap.

And I’d be down here with a towel covering my tits and lord knows what on my face. What if I had to run?! What if those beastly little creatures who make people explode in that movie like the taste of face masks?! What then? What THEN??!

What the Christ? Where does this crap from? Relax. You. Freak.

And then I nearly doze off, awakened only by the light being switched on and the mask being scrubbed off my face.

I don’t want to be waxed now. The idea of flashing my wanny at someone whilst they strip hot wax covered hair off sensitive areas is the last thing my newly discovered sense of enlightenment needs. I’m zen, man! Don’t ruin my buzz!

But it happens. I walk into a different room and am left to de-robe my bottom half and replace my underwear with a rather fetching disposable thong type thing and lie down on the bench.

There’s a lot more teamwork involved than I’d initially thought (teamwork is dreamwork, guys!), mostly involving pulling my skin tight to avoid ‘bruising’ (don’t bruise my labia, for Chrissake!) whilst the beauty therapist administers the wax and yanks, pulls, and tears hair from my poor little body. I feel like I’ve betrayed the poor thing! I begin to worry that it might go on an orgasm strike in revenge. Please. God. No.

It’s not too painful actually. I can think of a lot worse. That doesn’t mean to say that there aren’t noises erupting from my mouth which I hope to happy fuck I never hear again. The most vile thing about said noise is it’s ashamedly twee quality - lots of ‘Oooh!’s and ‘Yeeesh’s, at one point I’m sure I even scream ‘Blimey!’, which is a word I wasn’t even aware was in my vocabulary.

If it get’s too painful at any point love, or you just want to take a breather, then just let me know. Oh, and feel free to scream and swear to your hearts content - they can’t hear you upstairs.

In Voodou no-one can hear you scream.

Usually such a statement would mean an embraced free reign of noise. Every filthy word I could think of parading out of my mouth thick and fast and at decibels requiring health warnings. But I barely even muster a ‘MOTHERFUCKAAAAA!!!’ - instead it comes out all shocked and whimpered, like ‘mumfugger’. I’m polite. POLITE.

There is much laughter, obviously. I probably cussed more during the massage than I am now. I am an epic failure of bad-ass proportions. Whatever you do Ms. Voodou - just don’t tell the kids - it’d break their hearts to think their hero wasn’t the potty mouthed, discordant nightmare she makes out to be.

And then it’s over. Relieved, and frankly embarrassed, I start to sit up.

Oh no - not yet. If you just turn over, I’ll do your bottom.

EXCUSE ME?? You’ll do my WHAT?!!

There’s bits of hair that we couldn’t reach from the front, She smiles, It won’t take long and it wont hurt.

A wave of shame passes over me. I can’t even discuss this part of the day - I made a mental note the second there was arse to hand contact to erase it from my mind forever.

And that’s that. Harmless, really. Well, I mean - I feel a little violated. But in a good way. And what’s more I do feel like a million, trillion, dirty bucks. My face looks pure - PURE! I look the most sober and healthy that I probably ever have after the age of 14.

And also - the pussy-do looks good, man. Not nearly as sleazy or low-rent pornographic as the radical feminists had me believing. In fact, I dare say it's tasteful.

And like a wise old drunk used to always say to me, right before she got dementia - Sweetheart, how can they pick you flowers, if you don't trim the lawn? She was so right, that one. SO right. This one's for you, Ethel.

So yeah. big time high fives to you, Voodou. I’m frankly shocked that my face, nails and fanny didn’t destroy the equipment you used on it...but Christ, it survived and so did I. Let’s be pals, shall we? Yeah? Rad. See you next time buddykins. xoxo