Christina Buglione does body waxing at Rosanna's Salon & Day Spa in Palm Springs.
Do you think that waxing scene in The 40 Year-Old Virgin helped your business, or hurt it?
Oh, God, she really hurt that guy. Watching that scene hurt me! She wasn't doing it correctly at all. With somebody that hairy, you'd trim first. And you'd never just put down the wax and then tear off the hair all in one direction; you have to work in the direction of the hair growth. And she was doing it in little patterns here and there. They were just trying to make it look as bad as possible, for comedic effect. Pure Hollywood. I don't know if that scene helped business. But it's certainly become a common topic of conversation when people come in here, I'll say that.
Do you do karate yells, like she was doing?
Oh, no! I don't know what the heck that was about. They just wanted to make it funny.
In that scene he was really yelling at her, calling her awful names and stuff. Has that ever happened to you?
A guy did hit me once, in the face. That was back in cosmetology school. It was an accident; he wasn't expecting it to hurt that much, and when I started he jumped and his hand caught me right in the face. He felt awful about it. People do yell, sometimes. I had a girl in here a while ago, and she was swearing a lot during a bikini wax. Not at me in particular, though.
Do men and women respond to this differently? Are men more stoic?
Well, it all depends on where it's being done. The bikini area is pretty painful, for everybody. (Laughs.) Men try to be more stoic.
It seems really odd that hairy guys were so popular back in the '70s, and now it's exactly the opposite. It's weird that something like body hair could go in and out of fashion. What do you think is behind that?
It is a strange thing. I'm not sure, honestly. Maybe it has something to do with athletes - like swimmers, they're usually very clean. And bicycle riders, if they don't shave they can get a lot of infected follicles. Mostly I just think people want to look clean, now.
I had no idea there were fashions for different kinds of body hair, that there were all these Brazilian things, and something called a Sphinx. Can you tell me about some of these different styles?
A Brazilian is the whole thing, all the hair comes off, all the way to the rectum. I dunno what a Sphinx is, though. We mostly do Brazilians, here. Maybe they do the more exotic stuff in LA, or New York.
Do people ever get their hair down there made into shapes? Like, a heart, or letters?
I did an arrow once, on a woman. It was pointing up.
But, no Batman logos or anything?
(Laughs.) No. Maybe in LA.
Have you ever encountered a masochist? Was anybody like, "Yes, wax me, wax me!"?
No. The closest I ever had was one guy who fell asleep in the middle. He said the waxing was really relaxing. That was a weird one.
Do you ever get hit on, doing this?
Once, back in school, after I waxed a guy's back. But this just isn't the most pleasurable experience in the world. People aren't feeling romantic.
There's that cliché, that people tell all their secrets to their barbers and their hairdressers. Do they do with that their waxers?
Sometimes. But I think that's mostly something that happens here when they're getting facials and things like that. Mostly we're the ones talking to them, trying to keep them comfortable. People don't wanna spill their secrets to the person waxing them. They feel exposed enough already!
Originally published in Inland Empire Weekly, 2006.
