Immac Cold Wax Strips > Reviews (18)

Summer came and it was time for the annual weeklong trip to the beach. We holiday in style. Ha! Yeah right. We rough it, we suffer, we go camping damn it! Of course this means we share a bathroom with roughly 800 other people a week. Niiiice.

So I popped into Boots for some last minute things and came across Immac Cold Wax Strips. I had a thought. No more dropping my razor in the shower stall and having to ask my neighbour to pass it back. I’d have super-smooth legs, just what I wanted for tanning.

I’d tried Boots' own brand before and they were, to put it bluntly, crap. So I persuaded myself that £5 was a good investment. Oh dear.

You get 12 single sided strips and 4 moisturising wipes for ‘A perfect finish’.

So I prepare myself for the pain and follow the directions carefully. I warmed the strips by rubbing them between my fingers for 20 to 45 seconds. I slowly peeled the strips apart, smoothed one of them onto my leg in the direction of the hair growth, and then smoothed it down. I’m ready to pull. But it's stuck!

I panic, these things are like super glue! I try again, pulling a bit harder and it thankfully comes off this time. Unfortunately it has left me with half the wax stuck to my leg and removed only about 2 hairs along the way.

‘Repeat as necessary,’ it tells me. So I repeat the torture once again…and again, and again. What do I get? A whole sticky mess and a still hairy leg.

I then have to do something about the rapidly drying wax on my leg, which won’t budge with water or soap. The only thing that worked was a lot of scrubbing with the moisturising wipe. I ended up using all 4 of them just on my shin area.

The box tells me the strips are very easy and quick to use, and that I will have effective and long lasting hair removal. Sadly, none of the claims were true.

Conclusion: Expensive, painful, with bad results.

It’s back to the trusty razor for me. If I ever have this done again, which is highly unlikely, I think I’ll go to a salon and get a professional to do it. I don’t think there is a brand out there which is suitable for home use.