Now that summer is finally here it’s time to start beautifying your body to make sure you look sultry and smooth in the sunshine. But as the temperature rises and you peel off the layers it’s time to get serious about skincare.

Exfoliation, cleansing, moisturising and hair removal are all essential steps to getting your legs, arms, underarms and bikini lines looking their very best.

So if you want to look buff in the sun this summer look no further than our exclusive webchat showing you how to prepare your skin, painlessly remove unwanted hair and soothe and moisturise your skin.

Our special guest Sue Ismiel holds the world record for waxing the highest number of legs in an hour and knows all there is to know about getting rid of hair from problem areas, sorting out in-growing hairs and making sure you can stay smooth on the move.

So, want to know how to avoid waxing nightmares or just want to know how to get immaculately shaped eyebrows?

H: Vicky Letch, host
Sue Ismiel, entrepreneur

H: Hello and welcome to the Lifestyle Show, I’m Vicky Letch.  Now then, with the summer here, it’s time to freshen up and start thinking about beautifying your body.  What better excuse do you need for some pampering, than the summertime?  Joining me is Sue Ismiel who owns a cosmetic firm NAD’s, Sue a very warm welcome, thank you so much for coming to see us

Thank you Vicky

H: Now we’re going to get stuck in to your products.  I want you to know that I’m fully prepared and very hairy

Yes

H: I’ve been instructed to grow my leg hair, I’m ready for this!

I’m glad to hear that!

H: Now before we go any further into your products, a little birdie tells me that you’re a Guinness Record holder?

That I am

H: Tell all

I was challenged to break the Guinness World Record for waxing and the record was held by a beautician from London and I thought yes of course I can smash the record.  It was held at 20 people, in an hour.  She waxed 20 people in an hour

H: Wow

And you know they asked me you know, what was I going to aim for and I said 30, but do you know what?  I smashed it. I waxed 32 pairs of legs in just one hour, now what that means is a little under a minute per leg

H: That’s incredible.  The queen of waxing!  Let’s take a look

Video footage

Victim number one are you getting ready to go?

I am

Alright so we’re going to count you in, you’ve got an hour to wax as many legs as you possibly can

Thank you

Are you ready?

I sure am

Let’s get the clock started.  Here we go – 3-2-1 go Sue

Thank you

So she’s just lathering up.  There’s some seriously good looking legs you’ve got there Adrian!  Look at that, are you a little bit nervous up there?  The virgin leg

Lift that leg for me

Alright

Here we go – 1-2-3 and pull!

Oh dear, it looks good though

1-2-3 and pull.

He’d doing well, now one of the other rules that Sue has to follow tonight is the wax has to be above the knee, and we do have a couple of independent beauty therapists standing by, they have to verify Sue’s waxing.  Now if – ooh – now if there are any patches or they don’t qualify as an official wax, that’s ok Sue can keep going, it just means that that particular leg or pair of legs won’t count, so you’ll be crossing back and forth to all this action throughout the show.  3-2-1 – time.  Come on down number 34.  And rest.  You are you’ve done a magnificent job, we’ll just check this last pair of sexy legs and see how we’ve gone.  Above the knee, no patches – it’s ok? It gets a tick.  Alright you’re clear 34 – so Theresa what have we got here?

We’ve got out of 34 we’ve got 32 that we’ve given the tick of approval to

32 well done!  So the original record that you were trying to beat was 22 pairs of legs.

I just didn’t want to make it any easier for anyone else to break my record

Well I don’t think it’s going to happen for a while, here you are you are officially in the Guinness World Record book, congratulations

H: That must have been exhausting

It was exhausting, you know by the end of the day I couldn’t even move my arms.  Yes

H: A good workout?

Absolutely

H: But you must be so proud of yourself, that’s really quite an achievement?

I sure am, I am known as the Queen of Hair removal around the world

H: That’s quite a title.  Now you’re known as the Queen of Hair Removal not just because of your achievements for the Guinness Book of World Records of course, but because you have this wonderful array of products that remove hair

We certainly have.  I started with the original gel, I actually developed this gel in my kitchen some 15 years ago

H: Wow

And it is an amazing product, it doesn’t require heating or melting or preparation at all. I just became this mad scientist with no scientific qualifications and I came up with this green goo that I am going to show you how it works on your legs when you’re ready

H: Well I’m ready when you’re ready

Ok. 

H: How did this all come about though, you were in your kitchen, you suddenly thought what’s -

Well my daughter had thick dark hair on her arms and that was standing in the way of her confidence

H: Yes

And I wasn’t going to let that happen.  You know she used to go to school with long, long sleeves in hot summer days and that just broke my heart

H: Yes of course

So I tried all the products that were available on shelf back then – the hot waxes, the creams, the bleaches, the mechanical pulling machines and I tortured her skin.  And the more I tortured the more obsessed I became about solving her problem.  She really didn’t want the hair there.  And so I thought well the product that I’m looking for just does not exist.  I have to create it.  So I turned my kitchen into a laboratory and I used my patient husband as a lab rat!

H: My patient, now hairless husband!

Hairless husband as a lab rat.  Twelve months that took until I actually came up with the perfect green goo as you can see, that worked like magic.

H: Incredible

And you know that was the start.  But when I told the whole world – my friends, my family about it, they all wanted it.  So the idea of turning it into a business entered my head and here I am today

H: And here you are today.  And perfect timing of course because we’re all now moving I – we hope – to those summer days.  Now in the summer of course we have to be very cautious of our hair.  For us ladies it’s very difficult – underarm hair, bikini lines, legs.  What sort of preparation do you think we need to do before we start actually removing the hair?

Well as hair removal specialists we know that removing hair doesn’t just begin and end with just removal of the hair.  What you need to do is you have to prepare your skin first.  So you need to cleanse the area thoroughly and dry it completely.  That’s a must, particularly around the face, the eyebrows, you have to remove the make-up, the oil, the moisturiser, the whole lot. Then once you’ve done that, use Nad’s apply gel, and you apply it you know there’s a process to it and we will go over the process.  Then you put the strip on and then what you do is you hold the skin taut and pull it off.  Os then that’s the removal stage, so there’s the preparation stage, there’s the removal stage, then comes the soothing stage.  We have creams and moisturisers to make sure that your skin feels smooth.  And what we’ve also done, we realise there’s a problem as a result of waxing which is ingrown hair, so we’ve developed products for ingrown hair.  And that is a complete hair removal cycle that we have developed with our range

H: Brilliant. Do you know what Sue, I think it’s time!  It’s time to demonstrate.  It’s the best way for you to see at home of course, this is how far I go for you people

Ok

H: This is love

Let’s do it then

H: Out comes the hairy leg

Let me see how hairy

H: Is it bad?  Is it bad?

Oh no no

H: Oh she’s touching the hair

Not at all, I’ve seen hairier legs

H: She’s seen worse

Vicky let me tell you

H: Ok so what’s first of all?

So first of all what we have to do is, as I said, cleanse the area thoroughly

H: Ok.  Off comes the fake tan

Off comes the fake tan yes.  You need to remove the body oil or whatever oils you have

H: Ok

On your skin and I must say, that your hair length is quite short

H: Right

So I would advise people at home to let their hair grow a bit longer

H: Ok

And I know you wouldn’t put up with -

H: This is a week

This is a week – you have to leave it for two weeks

H: Two weeks

The longer the better

H: Ok

The hair – but let’s see what -

H: That’s my research team!

Let’s see what comes out

H: Let’s see what happens.  Now I’ve got to say, I’ve had a little sneaky smell of this and it just smells amazing.  It’s like liquefied candy floss!

It sure is.  It’s all natural, it’s even edible.  It’s made of – go ahead

H: I’m going to try some

Go ahead, go ahead

H: You know I like my food

It tastes very, very yummy

H: That’s actually so nice! 

As you can see -

H: Don’t leave that pot -

As you can see, your body heat melts the product, so you put it on nice and thin

H: Ok

And you put it downwards

H: Now why do you go downwards, is that because of the way the hair -

Follow the hair growth

H: Right

Then you put your strip on and you apply firm pressure to it three times with the base of your hand

H: Ok

You hold your skin taut and pull it off.  Now my goodness, look at that

H: Oh my goodness me!

Even at that length it’s all there

H: That is absolutely incredible

Was that painful?
 
H: Not at all

Now led me show you what Nad’s does – what you can do is you can reuse it again, so apply it to another part of your leg

H: Ok

Go over it and pull again, and that’s the second time

H: Now is this something we can do on our own

Go ahead, Vicky I want you to hold -

H: I’ll go this way

I want you to hold the skin taut and pull it off in the - fast

H: Yeah me

There you go

H: That’s absolutely – that is so smooth

It sure is and -

H: I’m very impressed

And now you can do this any time.  You don’t have to make these expensive, you know phone call appointments

H: Of course

For beauticians

H: You can do it in the comfort of your own home

And the residue washes off in water

H: Fantastic

So if you’re shaping your eyebrows for instance and you put Nad’s on the wrong spot, don’t worry, wash it off, start all over again

H: And start all over again.  Because of course in terms of packaging we’re saying you can do it at home but you’ve actually come up with some very nifty ideas so you can do it on your travels – there’s something that I got very excited about – the strips, brilliant

We have the strips, you can carry them with you wherever you go.  Obviously you know summer is in the air and people in London love to travel, take this with you.  You can do it while you’re on the train.  All you have to do is just warm it up between your hands

H: Yes

The wax is in between – you’ll end up with two strips

H: Also a handy snack

And it’s so easy, you don’t have to apply or anything, just put it on and pull it off and again continue

H: Yes

Moving around your leg and -

H: Now is it just for the legs, could I use that for underarm, bikini line -

Yes definitely.  You can use it for your bikini line, you can use it for underarm, you can use it for arms – anywhere that you want hair removed you can do that. 

H: Now I was particularly excited about the eyebrow solution because I think this is a stroke of genius.  Never have I seen anything like this, and I’m very up on eyebrow products because I have very dark eyebrows so

Right

H: Talk us through this

Well Vicky when I created this gel we were receiving phone calls from women saying I don’t really need to buy such a large jar just to do my facial area – my chin, my upper lip or eyebrows, so my daughter who is the head of R&D section of our business thought well we don’t just want to give them a smaller jar, let’s be creative, let’s come up with something that they can use on their own, so she developed the Nad’s facial wand – Nad’s facial wand is just an amazing tool.  What it is, you twist the bottom

H: Yes

And the gel comes up at the top and it’s designed with a precision tip, so what you do once the gel oozes out, you can apply it to the area that you want removed, and with this precision tip you can actually shape your eyebrows

H: Superb

Put the strip on and then just pull it off towards your nose and you will end up with a sculpted eyebrow

H: Superb

And this is why they – this is why they call me the Da Vinci of eyebrows

H: Lovely – the Da Vinci of eyebrows, that’s brilliant.  And do you know what, it’s very expensive to keep going to your beautician, wherever you get your eyebrows waxed, it’s a pretty silly thing to keep doing because once you do it once you then have to continue.  This is something that you are in control of, you do it when you need it

Absolutely and can you imagine how many eyebrow shapes you can get out of this.  I mean all you need is a drop for each eyebrow, and this will last a long time

H: Brilliant.  Now I just want to go back briefly to when you mentioned the dreaded ingrown hairs

Yes

H: Because I know a particular, very, very good girlfriend of mine who has her legs waxed all the time, really suffers quite a lot from ingrown hairs.  So what is your solution to combating that?

Well the reason that people get ingrown hair is because when we’re removing hair by the roots, we’re actually literally damaging the follicles, the roots.  So the hair becomes finer and it doesn’t have that strong energy to poke through the skin.  So what you need to do is really scrub the area, the dead skin, so you can help it poke through, and what we also have developed is the ingrown hair solution which is an amazing product.  You spray it on the affected area, and the infection goes away, disappears and the hair comes through and you have silky smooth skin.  In fact men use it for razor blade rash

H: Yes because that’s very common isn’t it?

It sure is, it sure is, and so you know, you don’t just want to remove hair and end up with a rash, you want to have that nice, smooth, silky skin

H: So that’s not preventative, you only use that if you have ingrown hairs?

If you have ingrown hairs, this will really solve the problem

H: Ok now I’m just going to pick on a little buzz word there – men.  Mmm.  They’re getting a little bit, you know, feminine in terms of their beauty regimes.  The metrosexual of course, a very big movement in 2007 / 2008

Absolutely

H: So in terms of their sort of haircare, what would you advise, and of course do they do things like waxing?

Well research indicates that 30% of men use some form of hair removal or another, and the reason is that yes it is today’s trend.  Men don’t want to be hairy any more, they want to look like Brad Pitt, David Beckham

H: Yes, and we want them to look like Brad Pitt and David Beckham!

And we want them, don’t we?  So you know body builders, cyclists, soccer players – they all look smooth, and yes we do have a range of products for men.  They can use the gel, they can use the creams.  We’ve actually developed a cream that dissolves the hair on the surface because we know men, they, you know they’re not tolerant when it comes to pain, so -

H: They have a very low pain threshold don’t they?

Very low pain threshold, absolutely, and so we recognise that and so you know, we give them an option, you can use a product that is going to last a lot longer for re-growth, or you can use a cream that dissolves the hair on the surface, and you continue doing that.  Yes and obviously we’ve mentioned the ingrown hair solution

H: Which is great for the gents

Which is – absolutely correct

H: Now in terms of shaving, because of course we were saying it’s summer, it’s hot, you can get that phone call, do you want to come to the park and have a picnic and you think oh I’ve got to put a skirt on, I’ll just whip out the razor because it’s so quick.  Now why would you say stop with the razor and go to the waxing

Well you’ve seen how fast you know waxing is

H: Very fast

Very fast so why would you even consider a razor, because you will shave today, but you will have to do it again tomorrow and the next day and you will end up with stubbles and you will end up with thick hair and so the problem continues to grow, whereas if you wax or remove the hair from the roots you are actually solving the problem long term.  The hair growth becomes finer and softer, the hair diminishes after a while.  I have no more hair on my legs from the knee down because Nad’s has killed it.  Over 15 years I’ve just been disrupting them and there’s just no hair whatsoever

H: Oh how nice, that sounds so lovely.  Now of course because it is sunny now, we’re in the summer, once we’ve removed the hair which is so very important, equally important is to protect the skin once you’ve done that.  What are the top tips you would give for protecting your skin against the sun?

Well obviously we have to make sure that you know we protect our sun with all the products out there – to protect from sun you wear your glasses, you wear your hat, you put your creams on, you put your lotions on and protect yourself from the sun.  but we know, we love, we enjoy the sun and a bit of it – a bit of that sun is just so good for energy

H: I agree

So yes it just, you draw energy from the sun so don’t think of it in a negative way, but in moderation it can help you

H: So it’s not just about looking good, it’s about protecting yourself and it’s about offering something to all of us ladies – and gents – out there that is so quick and easy

It is.  It is quick and it is easy, and all it needs is just – you know for the jar of Nad’s you just open it, reach for it, off you go, don’t worry about heating it, melting it, preparing yourself with it, damaging your skin with it.  It’s natural, it’s quick, it’s easy and it’s for both men and women

H: Brilliant.  Thank you so much.  Now to all of you at home if you want further information do have a look on nads.com, that’s right nads.com?

nads.com

H: Now on there you can see some live demos for all parts of the body, so maybe you’re moving into the world of waxing for the very first time, Sue’s got some great live demos on there so you can see just how to do it, and of course a full range of products.  Thank you so much, I’m looking forward to being silky smooth throughout the summer

Great

H: See you again soon

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