Sikkar: The Secret to Sugar Waxing
I was quite young when I started noticing that as a young Arab girl growing up in America, I had more and darker body hair than the girls around me. This was a source of great anxiety for me from the time I was seven, and naturally, I was anxious to remove or hide it so that I could fit in. My mom, growing weak to my whining and complaining on the subject, finally showed me the hair removal tradition of our lineage, Sikkar, otherwise known as sugaring. This has been my tried and true method for hair removal on my body ever since, and saves me the money that I would otherwise spend at a European wax center or Sugaring NYC. Below, I’m going to teach you everything I know about how to have an effective, painless, and long lasting sugaring session.
INGREDIENTS
This method is all natural, at home hair removal that can be done inexpensively with three household ingredients: sugar, water and lemon juice. You will need a cooking pot and a burner. Sikkar will require cotton fabric strips, or quilted paper towels as well as a popsicle stick for applying on the skin.
2 cups of white sugar
¼ cup lemon juice (I use store bought, pre-squeezed to save time)
¼ cup of water.
HEATING
Place all the ingredients in a pot and place on medium heat. Ideally, you want to keep a close eye on your Sikkar, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon so that it doesn’t boil over and create a sticky mess on your stove. Keep this up until the mixture boils into a dark amber color and then remove from heat. You won’t want to heat it for much longer after it turns dark brown because the mixture will become ineffective, and the same goes for if it’s cooled prematurely while the color is still amber. You must get this part just right.
STORING YOUR SIKKAR
I generally like to store my Sikkar in a glass jar with a secure lid, but you can use any microwave safe container. You will need to use a microwave or a stovetop to heat your Sikkar for future use.
HAIR REMOVAL STRIPS
You have a few options here. When I first started this method I was using cut up strips of old t-shirts, all varying sizes to accommodate different parts of my body. Eventually, I purchased some canvas fabric and used those. Both of these options are reusable and can be thrown in the laundry when you are finished, though I recommend placing them in a laundry bag so they all stay in one place. Most recently, I’ve been using paper towels! I discovered this worked not too long ago, and although it’s not as environmentally sustainable, it’s been the best option for me. However, not all paper towels are created equal and I recommend using a quilted style like Bounty or my personal favorite, Kirkland Premium Paper Towel.
PREPPING THE SKIN & HAIR FOR REMOVAL
Sikkar preparation is something I taught myself over the years in the process of refining the method taught to me by my mother. A crucial pre-step for Brazilian waxes specifically is to trim the hair. I like to use an electric razor but this can also be done with scissors or in the shower and is done ideally 1-2 days before the sugaring or waxing session. While your wax is cooling, sanitize the area you plan to remove hair from, either washing it with soap and water or a cleansing wipe and then exfoliating. For exfoliation, you can either use a sugar scrub, a combo of sugar and olive oil, in the shower before body wash, or my personal preference, dry brushing. Dry brushing is known to have a myriad of benefits including stimulating digestion, detoxifying skin, activating the nervous system and of course, exfoliating the skin and unclogging pores. Getting rid of the dead skin cells on the surface helps the Sikkar really grip the hair on the surface of your skin and pull it out more effectively. Cleaning and exfoliating the skin also helps reduce redness, prevent ingrown hairs and infection from happening. After I dry brush, I like to clean the area again with a witch hazel, one with minimal added ingredients to keep the skin from excess surface moisture.
REMOVING THE HAIR USING SIKKAR
Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, removing unwanted hair! Pay close attention to this part because it’s the most important thing you will learn here today and if you take away nothing else, please take the following: when applying Sikkar, the paste must always be applied AGAINST the direction of hair growth and the strip must likewise be applied against the direction of hair growth. The strip must then be removed WITH the direction of hair growth. In doing so, the hair gets removed from the root and avoids pulling the hair back against itself, breaking the hair at the surface and rendering the Sikkar as impermanent as shaving. This method is also significantly less painful and is the method commonly used at the finest hair removal establishments like European Wax Center and Sugaring NYC. It’s the difference between a painful and ineffective wax and a relatively painless, longer lasting wax or sugaring experience.
Depending on how much hair you are looking to remove, this process can be tedious. On occasions when I was doing a full body wax, I’ve gotten through the entire Fifty Shades of Grey series in one session. It takes a while, and may require the use of a tabletop mirror to get certain hard to see areas like the back of the thighs, behind and Brazilian area. Given how long this may take, I recommend splitting it up into sessions, especially as a beginner. Your Sikkar can be reheated and ready to go in a microwave in 30 seconds or less.
This method isn’t for everyone, and a benefit to exporting this labor is that it’s a huge time saver. However, not all waxing and sugaring establishments are created equal, and in my opinion this has everything to do with the direction with which the wax is pulled and applied. It’s important to note that even qualified waxing aestheticians often lack the fundamental knowledge of optimal waxing direction. This can be particularly dangerous when getting a Brazilian wax, because waxing the hair in the wrong direction can lead to an excruciatingly painful and traumatizing experience.
Additional pro tip for my fellow moon goddesses, it’s been known that removing hair during the waning moon, meaning the two weeks after a full moon and before a new moon, is the best time to remove the hair and is known to keep the hair at away for longer.