Chin Hairs

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When my mother was growing up, her father, who was a tyrant bastard, told her that she wasn’t pretty and wasn’t “good enough.” I think she passed those feelings on to me because she always told me that my ears were too big, I should wear lipstick because I was too pale, and I had a mustache. I never thought I had big ears, but I never wore my hair pulled back behind my ears, just in case. I didn’t like wearing makeup because I thought it called attention to my face, which did sport lip fuzz!

When I was a teenager, my mother brought me to an electrologist to remove the mustache, and while she was at it, any other dark hairs I had on my face where hair isn’t supposed to grow. Now, if you’ve never suffered through electrolysis, let me tell you — you do suffer. Especially around the upper lip. It hurts only a little less on the chin and neck area. A tiny pin housed in a pencil-shaped handle is inserted into the pore through which the hair grows, and a small electrical current is released to kill the hair follicle. This is to prevent the hair from ever growing back, as opposed to tweezing (I was NEVER to tweeze), which allows (and even encourages) the hair to grow back thicker. Sessions were never more than fifteen minutes because anything more than that was unbearable.

The summer after my freshman year at college, I worked as a nurses’ aide at Central Island Nursing Home. I loved the old people and their families, and there was one couple, in particular, that I had taken to. Mrs. Greenberg was a resident there, and her husband visited her every day. When the weather was nice, they would sit on the terrace outside the sunroom and hold hands. The most loving thing he did for her was pluck her chin hairs. I once walked onto the balcony and I was embarrassed to have interrupted such a private moment. But he told me, “I think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. But how can I say no if she wants to remove her little hairs?” That is true love — and I wonder if I asked Larry to pluck my “little hairs,” if he would do it!

I continued with electrolysis when we moved to Ann Arbor fifty-ish years ago. I didn’t have a mustache then, but I had plenty of dark chin hairs. First, I went to Jacobsen’s salon, and Rocky worked on me. After a hiatus of several years and some years of plucking, I started with Elizabeth in an “electrology clinic” in Ypsilanti. I saw her for many years, spending lots of money along the way. I remember vividly how I sobbed when I got back in the car after the first appointment and looked in the mirror at my clean chin! That didn’t mean that other hairs wouldn’t grow, but those that were zapped weren’t supposed to. Finally, after quite a long time getting treated, I had a relatively clear face!

But now, as I age, my chin is erupting in little white hairs. Electrolysis, or the newer laser treatment, don’t work on white hair, so I’m relegated to tweezing or giving a hard yank between my fingers. (If the hair is long enough, I can actually pull it out with my thumb and forefinger!) I recently read an article about chin hairs, and it said that as women age, the level of estrogen goes down and the level of testosterone rises, which results in an increase in chin hair. Damn the testosterone, but at least now that they’re white, it’s harder to see!

It really is not very feminine To have this hair on my chin-y chin It so isn’t fair To have so much hair I have been short changed on the estrogen.