I really hate shaving my legs. Then again, does anyone actually enjoy this activity? No matter what, I end up with a few nicks and bleeds. As for Nair? No way I would put up with the smell. And waxing? Forget it. Ouchy. So these doo-dads piqued my interest while I was in the drugstore the other day. (And weirdly, I realized that Smooth Away has been doing a ton of advertising in my neighborhood with posters at bus stops. Guess I was swayed.) But really, who isn’t interested in whether these things really work or not? The verdict, after the jump!

The fairer sex didn’t always have to spend time grooming their underarm area. Women didn’t shave their pits before about 1915 because no one ever saw that part of their body. According to Mental Floss, even the word “underarm” was considered scandalous before that time. But then designers cooked up a dress without sleeves, and an ad in Harper’s Bazaar said that to wear the style, women first needed to attend to “the removal of objectionable hair.” And we all got out our razors. [Mental Floss]

For all of us with sensitive skin, there’s nothing scarier than shaving armpits and bikini lines. Nothing makes us more self-conscious than red bumps and ingrown hairs all over. But this post-shave soother is excellent at keeping irritations at bay. It soothes skin while it exfoliates and releases ingrown hairs from underneath the skin’s surface. It comes in an awesome little bottle and smells delightful. No yucky odors, no burning sensations—just smoothing, cooling goodness. Finally, you’ll be able to sport that itty-bitty, teeny-weeny bikini without examining your crotch all day. [$25, Sephora]

During the ascent of the now pervasive male hipster style, we’ve fretted over mustaches gone wild, and hemmed and hawed over Galifianakis-ish hirsuteness. But men who remove all that hair are coming out of the closet, with a little help from grooming marketers, says The New York Times. Will the increasing popularity of manscaping (Diddy and Jay-Z are already converts) foretell the doom of dude body hair as we know it?!

Gillette thinks some men need assistance with not drawing blood while they shave their groin area, so its crack animation team put together this instructional “How to Shave your Balls” YouTube cartoon. The video’s basically just an infomercial for the Gillette Fusion Power razor and shaving cream—but don’t forget to use, as the voiceover dude intones, some common sense, too. 

Hey, anything that keeps our teeth from getting flossed when we go down for a beej is A-OK with us. But Gillette knows that to get men to spend money on shaving down there, it has to tell them what they want to hear: “You might say when there’s no underbrush, the tree looks taller.” (It makes the claim not once, but twice.) We’ll believe it when we see it…in the hair-free flesh.

This weekend, when I was in Atlantic City, one of my fellow ragers asked me if she could borrow my tweezers so she could pluck a nipple hair. A nipple hair? She had nipple hair? “Yeah, don’t you?” I honestly didn’t know. She also said she waxed above her lip. Crap, I’ve never waxed my lip. Have I been walking around with a ‘stache for years and no one has ever told me and that’s why I can’t get a rebound to save my life right now?!

On last nights episode of “The Hills” the female ‘stache came back to haunt me—Lauren Conrad had a very obvious dusting of facial fuzz about her lip. If Lauren Conrad has a mustache I must have it too. This morning, the grooming obsession continued when I discovered a horrendous ingrown hair bump, um, you know where. Eww. Maybe I should start listening to the lady mags and actually wax from now on. Especially since I am about to jump back into the dating pool—with that in mind, I decided to ask the dudes on my IM about what they look for, grooming-wise, in a bed mate. I didn’t tell them about my ingrown hair though. I’m hoping it’s gone by the time I sleep with any of them.

I’ve always been a late bloomer, so it wasn’t until my late ‘20s that it occurred to me to groom my somewhat pronounced Black Irish eyebrows. And it was only natural that my carpet was mostly natural; I did minimal trimming to reign in my coordinating pronounced downtown region. I believe SNL’s Amy Poehler on “Weekend Update” compared this old school size of pubic-hair real estate to a slice of New York City pizza, which would not be altogether off the mark in describing my zone’s unaltered state. My reasons were numerous, though I’d never had to give them.

We can’t figure out how Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter shaves his face without a mirror. That’s 100 percent talent. [6/30/2008, Times Square, New York City]

Does your guy have a hairy back? Maybe you should buy him a Mangroomer! The Mangroomer is a back hair shaver that will help him get to hard-to-reach areas so you don’t have to shave them for him. Apparently it folds completely flat for storage and is easy to clean. Sounds like the perfect gift. [$39.99, Target.com]

I have never had a bikini wax. Something about it scares me. The only people I allow near my vagina is the boyfriend and my gyno and unless one of them decides on a second career, I probably will never have one. Or so I have always thought. Lately I have been considering giving the ol’ wax a try, if I can muster up the patience and itch-resistance to grow out what hair my pathetic attempts at shaving have removed. But before I do so, I am curious: how are your pubes maintained?

Do guys REALLY care if you aren’t waxed or shaved down there?—Razor Ready, Virginia Beach, VA

I think women’s vaginas are like men’s faces. You’ve basically got three options: The clean-shaven, the week’s worth of stubble, or the mountain-man variety. At the end of the day, it’s all about preference. You might like your man with a baby-smooth face. He might want you to look like a tumble weed and call him mommy during sex. The bottom line is, everybody is different.

Whatever option you go with, I think it’s safe to say your landscaping habits are not going to prevent guys from having sex with you. As long as a guy doesn’t need a degree in bushwhacking to date you, I’m pretty sure you’ll get lucky.

The most hilarious moment in the Sex and the City movie trailer is the moment that Samantha comments that Miranda is growing a natural forest along her bikini line. Miranda replies, “When you’re married, you have a different set of priorities.” That is so true, and I am not even married yet. Waxing scares me, so I’m a shaver, but I have to admit that my artistry with the blade leaves much to be desired. My man doesn’t seem to mind, but then again, after four years, it’s a little too late to complain. So I decided to ask some of the other guys on my IM what their preference is for her hair down there. After the jump, The Music Nerd, The Hipster Guy, and The Sensitive Guy give their opinions.

• This underwear looks like you forgot to shave/wax/laser off a bunch of hair down there. The look is kind of asymmetrical actually. Wear a pair right after getting a bikini wax to mix things up. [Miss & Lady’s Boutique]
• When baking gingerbread men gets old, whip up a few sex position sugar cookies. Bet they’re extra tasty! [Pipparkakan]
• People are always associating mirrors with kinky sex, so why not buy one that says it outright (in a tasteful manner, of course)? This black framed mirror would be oh-so-subtle if hung above your bed. Nighty-night! [Comunistar]