At 8 PM last Saturday, a young woman was waging a war on her own face. “I was doing my makeup, just minding my own business,” explains Lindsay Josephson, 24. “That’s when I saw it: a dark, black strand of chin hair. It was the shot heard around the world. I was determined to get it out, no matter how much blood I lost.”
At first, she attempted to pull it out with her fingernails, but her gel manicure was too slippery. “I had just gotten my nails done and they were so filed that I couldn’t grasp the hair,” she said. “It was all downhill from there.”
Not even her roommate’s “good tweezer” could free her from her wiry foe. “I had no idea what was going on,” she says. “I felt like I was losing my grip on reality along with my hair.”
The particular chin hair proved to be a rare and formidable opponent. According to Jospehson’s dermatologist Dr. Elizabeth Rol, chin hairs rooted deep in the epidermis are short, yet strong. “These hairs turn up in a woman’s mid-twenties, usually right around the time of an important date,” explains Dr. Rol.
“Once I got off the phone with my doctor, I grabbed pliers, wire cutters, and any other metal apparatuses I could find,” Josephson says. “But they all proved futile. The hair was just too strong, and I was just too weak.”
With both Josephson and the hair functioning at full force, the tweezing devolved into a tug of war and ultimately reached a stalemate at 8:35 PM.
“I would’ve have cancelled the blind date if he were any shorter than me,” explains Josephson, dejected. “But at the end of the night, when he tried to put his hand under my chin to kiss me, the hair cut a deep gash in his hand. I just ran for my car. I hope he’s okay.”
Josephson is resolved to invest in electrolysis when she can afford it. “Until then,” she says, “I’ll just stay in my house.”
