Hey GQ. My name is Matt Leyes.
I am an esthetician and the owner
of The Men's Grooming Parlor here in Chicago.
Today, we're gonna be talking about various ways
to remove hair on the torso area just in time for summer.
[upbeat music]
The human body grows a ton of hair,
and it's pretty much up to you how much
that you wanna keep and how much you wanna get rid of.
It doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation.
You can pretty much just trim down
to whatever your comfort level is
and whatever you're doing for this summer.
So why would we remove our body hair?
First and foremost is actually just comfort.
It's hot to have a full chest full of hair.
Another reason, the more hair you have,
the more sweat and your body oils will cling
to that hair, which then turns into BO.
Another reason people might wanna remove their body hairs
is if you've got a ton of chest hair,
your shirt isn't gonna really lay very flat,
you're not gonna get that smooth uniform look
that a t-shirt would give.
We're gonna be covering everything from the pecs,
the chest, abdomen, always just a little bit
below the belly button to make sure
if you're reaching for something on the high shelf,
a little hairline doesn't come out of your pants there,
underarms, the cup of the shoulder
and then the full back as well.
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There's a ton of different ways you're gonna remove
the hair from your body.
We've got waxing, trimming, shaving.
You can go through and you can decide
what you think would work best for you and your skin type.
With waxing, you're gonna be the smoothest the longest.
One of the greatest benefits of waxing
is that we're removing the hair completely by the root.
So it's gonna take about two full weeks
for that root to even form underneath the skin.
And then once the hair starts to grow out,
it's just like this baby soft little fine fuzz.
So first thing you we're gonna do you
is a thin little layer of sesame oil.
Sesame oil is like your skin's own natural oil.
This makes sure that the wax floats on top of the skin.
What we're gonna be using is a hard wax.
This goes on almost like Silly Putty
and then it firms up like plastic on the skin.
This also grabs hairs that grow
in more than one direction at a time, AKA, like the chest,
gonna get a little edge going here.
There we go.
And that's starting that, and last little bit, there we go.
Oh, and Kenneth just so you know, that was the worst strip.
Oh! That one hurts the most.
So not everyone is a perfect candidate for waxing.
If you're taking some certain medications like Accutane,
Differin, Retin-A your skin's gonna be
really, really sensitive and dry so much so that if we wax,
your skin could rip off with the wax.
And we don't want that.
I would say, to know if you're a good candidate for waxing,
you pretty much wanna go see a professional,
always best to leave waxing to the professionals,
especially if you want it done quickly, easily,
and without a lot of screaming.
What we're gonna do next
is just another thin little layer of that sesame oil
and then a nice hot towel that'll remove
any last little bit of stickiness or residue.
This hot towel may feel a little extra toasty.
After care for the chest wax.
The chest is one of the trickiest spots to wax
so it takes a little bit of extra aftercare.
So number one, just use dye-free, aroma-free detergent,
and do a double-rinse.
Also one of those shower gloves,
like a rough textured shower glove to really get in there,
scrub up using almost like an acne face wash
as your body wash.
The last ingredient there would be to follow up
with Tend Skin.
Tend Skin's basically liquid aspirin,
or pure salicylic acid.
You're gonna need all of these steps to ensure
a really good result after waxing.
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A second option for body hair removal is trimming.
A lot of my clients come to me with a big, full,
hairy chest, they're hot, they're sweaty,
it's getting a lot of bacteria, it's stinky,
but they don't really wanna be smooth.
They don't wanna look like they're
in a boy band or something.
You can just trim the hair down.
You can just thin it out
so it's not quite so bulky so that your shirt will lay flat.
Trimming is probably the fastest, quickest, easiest,
and lowest cost as well.
Tools you need for trimming.
Number one is your trimmers
or what are, in the industry, called edgers.
I love the Wahl Peanut.
I have used this consistently.
I've tried all the new fun gadgets and things
and I always come back to this one.
You need a little brush,
'cause you need to clean out those trimmers
about every two passes.
If they keep getting dunked up with your hair
and you keep going, you're not really cutting anything.
So you gotta clear out the trimmers
about every other strip.
And then number three, most importantly,
you need some newspaper.
You're gonna wanna lay newspaper down
so that all your trimming falls onto that
then you just crumple it up and throw it away.
When starting to trim the chest,
we're gonna take those Wahl Clippers.
We're gonna use the smallest guard that comes with that.
You're gonna wanna trim in the direction the hair grows.
So the chest grows in like this,
then up like this, and then down over the pecs.
And now the stomach grows in like this.
A lot of my clients, like they say,
Oh, no, no, I trimmed my chest once.
I hated it. It was so itchy and prickly.
So the reason it itches is because when we have
that hair shaft, you cut it off here,
it's still pretty sharp.
And so these sharp little hairs,
they poke through your t-shirt.
And so when you're walking around and your shirt's moving,
it's wiggling each little hair like that.
Quick, easy fix, all you do is after you trim,
go ahead, take the hottest shower
that you can stand, getting a little exfoliating glove
and then scrub scrub, scrub,
really, really exfoliate all the hairs
that you just trimmed.
That heat will soften the hair.
The exfoliation will take that blunted edge and dome it.
It almost rounds it off
so it can't poke through the fabric of your clothing.
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For the back, there's a ton of different types of hair.
And that's gonna depend on how you're gonna remove that.
Like say you've got really fine curly hair,
that's gonna be perfect for waxing.
And then I got some other clients
where they're gonna have about five or six hairs
growing out of each follicle or active breakouts
or bacne, as people call it.
You're definitely gonna choose something
other than waxing in that instance.
I'll be demonstrating how to wax for the full back
and then how to shave your back at home as well.
This is a typical hair pattern for back hair.
It's, basically, coming from the outside, in
and then going down.
And it has this long downy softness to it,
super, super easy to wax.
Okay, just gonna do a little bit of Sesame oil
and then, basically, we're gonna do one good strip
down the center then just knock out each side after that.
This is gonna be called a soft wax.
This is like what you see in TV and movies.
This is the one that uses that paper strip
because all this hair is growing in the same direction.
And just like the chest, that one was the worst.
So it just gets easier from here on out.
I always think the good thing about waxing pain
is it's really quick.
By the time you say your favorite curse word,
it's pretty much done.
[wax strip screeches]
What I'm gonna be doing next is putting on the Tend Skin.
It's gonna almost be like an alcohol-based aftershave,
but it dissipates in about five seconds or so.
As we're looking at TJ's skin,
he's the perfect candidate for waxing,
unlike Blake, he's not the best candidate for waxing
because of that mild breakout.
If you wax on top of that,
that's gonna exacerbate that and make it a big problem.
Bacne is super common.
A lot of people get it.
I would recommend that we shave with a blade.
[upbeat music]
Okay guys, so for shaving the back,
the easiest is to have a buddy do it for you,
but we're not all so lucky to have a buddy
that wants to shave our back.
So there's this invention, real quick and easy,
called the back blade.
Honestly, it's like a giant razorblade.
This can just go straight on your back.
And then you pull up this way.
And then another way to use it is to grab it from the side
and to pull out this way.
You're gonna wanna do this if you want
a completely smooth look,
probably about once every 10 to 12 days or so.
You want there to be enough hair, about a quarter of an inch
so that the razor has something to grab onto to remove.
They do sell replacement blades
but, in my experience, I have found this blade
will last you, I don't know about a good 10 shaves or so.
Once you're done shaving for the back,
you're gonna wanna exfoliate and the best way to do that
after shaving your back,
whenever you're drying off with a towel,
just do a really good floss.
It's mostly gonna be the shoulders
that could get irritable after shaving.
So a good floss across the shoulders,
drop it down, good floss across the lower back
and you're gonna be in a great spot there.
I've got tons of clients,
they've like shaved once and they're like,
Oh man, it broke out like crazy.
I'll never do it again.
And it's a really quick, easy fix.
A couple things you wanna keep in mind,
use a brand new razor every single time you shave.
Also, it's the prep work.
First, you just wanna make sure you take a nice hot shower
so that all that hair is nice and softened up.
When you're using a razor, either on face or on your body,
if you hear that [screeches] noise,
like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other,
that just means that the blade is going halfway in
and then snapping the hair the rest of the way off.
Now you have this jagged irregular edge
and that can grow in any weird, different direction,
usually back into the skin.
So if the hair is nice and hot and has some shaving medium,
it just glides right through, you don't hear anything.
[upbeat music]
We'll be going over how to trim for the arms.
A lot of people will get excessive forearm hair
and around the elbows and you get a ton of long hairs,
you guys know this, right at the back of your arm.
I always recommend just trimming for the arms
versus shaving or waxing.
There's something that kind of happens
when the arms are completely hairless.
There's many a clients where, after I've waxed their arms,
they're like, Oh yeah, dude, you were right.
Like, I feel like a dolphin now.
So for trimming for the arms, like always,
you just wanna make sure you follow the direction
of the hair growth.
So instead of going up against your arm,
think about going over, take the clippers
and nice and gentle over.
Things can get a little tricky right here,
so just going straight down here works best
and then just make sure you're getting real good
up around the bicep there.
You're just gonna be using the Wahl Peanut trimmers
with that shortest guard, the one eighth inch.
What trimming down the hair for the arms can do,
just makes putting on sunscreen, lotion
and things like that a lot easier.
A lot of guys get a lot of really thick puffy hair
right on the forearm.
So doing this technique
where you just follow the direction of the hair growth,
it just knocks down a lot of that bulk there.
I'm gonna be showing you how to trim the underarms as well.
It's just a little tricky 'cause the hair grows
in a couple of different directions.
I think trimming's the best only because shaving and waxing
the underarms, like whenever you're at rest,
the underarm folds in on itself
so that skins all pressed together,
it's like ripe for in-growns and irritations
just 'cause as the hair grows in,
it's all crunched together.
And then when you add to that perspiration,
add to that deodorant and antiperspirant,
I always just think a nice clean trim
is the way to go for underarms.
You just wanna follow the direction of the hair growth.
Half is gonna grow up and half is gonna grow down.
So to get a good stretch for the underarm,
you're gonna take your hand,
put it in between your back or your shoulder blades,
go half up and then half down.
This skin's very, very thin and tender,
so just be really gentle.
You don't wanna press too hard.
A couple passes and that's all you're gonna need.
All right, guys.
So you just trimmed the underarms,
underarms can be a little bit tricky
because your arms are constantly moving.
And so what you're gonna wanna do
is take the hottest shower you can stand,
really soften up that hair under there
and then use one of these shower gloves
to scrub it down, really, really, really exfoliate
so that it's not prickly, spiky or stabbing
your underarms there.
And it's gonna be nice and easy and clean to go.
[calm music]
All right, GQ, thanks so much for coming on in today.
As you've seen with all these tips and techniques,
trimming and/or shaving yourself at home
is really pretty simple and easy.
All these techniques that I'm talking about,
they are prevention and cure.
So if you happen to break out,
just keep up and stay diligent
with your exfoliation and with that Tend Skin.
Thanks so much.
My name is Matt Leyes, here at my shop,
The Men's Grooming Parlor located
in Andersonville in Chicago.
If you all do wanna try out that waxing,
come on and see me, okay?
It's mensgroomingparlor.com and I'll see you soon.
