'Bro-zilian' smooth option for blokes

Claire Weathers from Off Wax brow bar which offers the 'Bro-zilian'. Photo / Natalie Slade

Bro-zilian waxes are stripping more New Zealand men bare down under.

The treatment, which rips hair out of the entire pubic region, is slowly building a loyal client base in this country after years of scorn.

Georgia Haney, manager and owner of Hair and Body Bliss in Mt Eden, said her bro-zilian clientele had doubled in the past year, with four new clients approaching the salon earlier this week.

"It's not as forbidden now and it's becoming so much more popular," she said.

Mrs Haney has daily bro-zilian bookings and at least 65 regular clients.

Some men get it all ripped out for sport, for special occasions, to surprise their partners or simply because they like the look.

"Once they have had one they often come back because they realise how nice it is."

Mrs Haney said men enjoyed the lack of perspiration and the smoothness of the skin after a wax but the main advantage was sexual.

Men enjoyed the increased sensitivity and greater pleasure, she said.

At the Off Wax brow bars, it costs $95 for a first time bro-zilian wax.

Owner Nicky Shore said only seven beauty therapy businesses in Auckland offered the treatment.

"Like the rise of the female brazilian into the mainstream, over time I believe this will change."

Off Wax coined the term "bro-zilian" to let potential clients know the treatment was "for every Kiwi guy", Ms Shore said.

"We wanted to break the stereotype surrounding male brazilians and give it a name Kiwi men could relate to."

She said bro-zilian waxes made up 20 per cent of their male treatments.

"There is no type of person that gets a bro-zilian, our clients genuinely come from all walks of life."

However, Dr Neville Robertson from the University of Waikato's psychology department said the promotion of bro-zilians was "sending messages to people that you are not okay as you are". The bro-zilian was an ideal that encouraged us to fight against our basic biology, he said.

"There are certain images held out to be desirable and most people are not totally immune to feeling under some pressure to achieve these images.

"But you wouldn't catch me doing that with a barge pole," he laughed.

Matthew Kiesanowski, 22, had six shots of tequila before he had his first bro-zilian wax but said he thought he would do it again some day.

"It was definitely a change to how I previously looked in the mirror, but it is good-quality smoothness and apparently chicks like it."

When the Herald asked Mr Kiesanowski to rate the pain on a scale from one to 10, he said: "Mostly a six or seven but at one point definitely an 11 and a half!"

When it comes to waxing, Mrs Haney says men are more wussy than women. "They seem more precious about their private parts but I just tell them to grunt up."

Bro-zilian waxers need special training and only the most senior therapists have the experience to perform the treatment. Mrs Haney said although it was an intimate procedure the men came strictly for the waxing.

Some clients had been known to get slightly carried away by the process but "once you rip the wax off" that was no longer a problem.

Beauty therapists who feel uncomfortable performing the treatment are never forced into it, she says, and the area is a lot more complicated to navigate with wax than other parts of the body.

"You have to be careful how you rip the wax off. You have to get used to which way you can pull."

The clients are asked to hold their skin taut to ensure the wax can rip off in one piece. Some men have the "full monty off", while others prefer to keep a patch of hair.

Regular customer waxes lyrical
The world would be a better place if everyone had a brazilian, says a 39-year-old regular beautician client.

The salesman, who did not want to be named, has been having regular bro-zilian waxes for the past seven years and said it was curiosity that kicked him off to bare all for the first time.

He said it was a challenge trying to find a beauty therapist willing to wax his pubic area but the treatment was much more readily available today.

The bro-zilian had ridden on the wave of metro-sexuality and was a lot more socially accepted now, he said.

"We live in a metro-sexual age, you can do what pleases you now."

He said his first wax was the most painful but even now, seven years on, it still hurts.

"The first time is definitely the worst, it's pretty embarrassing. You have to drop your trousers for a complete stranger and have her down there. Nothing prepares you for the first time."

The hair grows back finer after a wax but he said it still wasn't a "pleasant experience".

He said a lot of men were too scared of how much it would hurt but "they don't know what they are missing out on".

He said waxing was something he would always do.

"I personally do it because the girls I am with love it. It's never shocked women, only pleasantly surprised them."

The Weekend Herald asked four couples in Queen St what they thought of the male bro-zilian wax.

* George Guttenbeil, 26, and Teriina Bradley, 19.
He said: "Yeah I'd do it, I wouldn't be ashamed. Isn't it the kind of thing male gigolos do?"
She said: "Yeah. It would be funny and it would be a lot more hygienic."

* James, 49, and Vicki Stewart, 49.
He said: "No, because it would be bloody painful! It's bad enough having your chest waxed."
She said: "No, I wouldn't do it myself so I wouldn't inflict it on him."

* Swara, 43, and Awara Imin, 35.
He said: "No, never, I wouldn't want somebody to see my body like that."
She said: "No. I don't like it."

* Brett Graham, 34, and friend Mary Smallman, 23.
He said: Yeah, I just wouldn't like the regrowth because of the area.You'd feel all smoothed up with it gone. It would be pretty erotic."
She said: "Yeah, definitely, just to heighten the experience."