So why go to the trouble of sugaring? For one thing, it's a lot cheaper than waxing. Sugaring kits retail for less than $30 and include enough microwavable syrup to rip great swathes of hair off most of your body at least twice. If you're feeling really industrious, you could even cook your own sugaring medium for the cost of a few pennies (and, most likely, a new cooking pot). Sugaring also bills itself as being less painful than waxing because the syrup sticks to the hair only and not the skin. Another unadvertised benefit is that the syrup is water-soluble. You only have to jump in the shower after a sugar sesh and you can wash the residue away.

To test the efficacy of sugaring, I used it to remove the hair of my underarms and lower legs. I discovered early on that it takes a lot of patience and a delicate touch to make things work. You may not realize this, but sugar has remarkable thermal efficiency. Once I'd heated the syrup to a suitably pliant texture, I had to wait a good 20 minutes for it to cool down enough to use without burning myself.
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