advice

What Should You Do With Your Mustache?

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Because there’s no such thing as a dumb beauty question, we’re reviving our beauty Q&A series

Question: I can’t deny it. I have a mustache. What should I do with it?

Answer: You have a few options. You can declare this month “Maugust,” the female version of “Movember.” Maybe the sight of Frida Kahlo’s mustache will comfort you in a world of unbending female beauty standards, as it once did Madonna.

But if that isn’t your thing and you want to remove it, your best options are either to tweeze it, laser it away forever, or use a depilatory cream. Waxing is clearly an option, too, but I wouldn’t recommend it — too painful and expensive over time. Tweezing is painful but inexpensive, and if you use a super-precise tweezer like a Tweezerman you can grab hair by the root, ensuring that it doesn’t grow back with stubble. And while lasering hurts your wallet as much as your skin, it also makes you hairless practically forever. (For what it’s worth, I find it much more bearable than threading or waxing.) Because we live in an age of innovation, you could even look into the LightSheer Duet, a new laser machine available at dermatologists’ offices and salons like Rita Hazan that uses a suction method to zap away large sections of hair at a time with almost no pain.

Unless your skin is really as sensitive as Drake is, you could try a depilatory cream like Olay’s Facial Hair Removal Duo, which is a budget-friendly option with few disadvantages. This is not the crusty depilatory cream you find in your mom’s medicine cabinet, although I won’t pretend hair-removal cream can ever be chic. Each kit comes with two tubes, one containing a slick, Vaseline-like gel you spread above your lip before applying the depilatory cream. The gel prevents the strong chemicals in the depilatory cream from irritating your skin, but still allows it to get the job done. Wipe it away and you’ll find your upper lip neither tingly nor red, but as hairless as a baby naked mole rat.

Bliss’s Fuzz Off Removal Cream is another good option and actually has a pleasing, innocuous scent. But remember to test any depilatory creams on your arm or someplace equally harmless to make sure you don’t have an allergic reaction.

As a last option, you could always use an itty-bitty razor to shave your face. It does make you glow, after all.

What Should You Do With Your Mustache?