Life

How NOT to Remove Your Movember 'Stache

by Lucia Peters

Now that December is upon us, dudes everywhere who participated in Movember have been faced with a daunting prospect: Getting rid of a month’s worth of facial hair (unless you dig the look and just plan on keeping it. That’s cool, too). Happily, though, YouTuber Medhi Sadaghdar is here to demonstrate exactly how not to remove your Movember mustache. When we think of the phrase, “I laughed, I cried,” we usually associate it with Oscar-winning movies; we don’t usually use it to apply to three-minute long comedic instructional videos. But believe you me when I say that Sadaghdar’s take on Movember hair removal will make you simultaneously cringe in pain and laugh your head off.

Sadaghdar is an engineer; accordingly, his YouTube channel is full of the nuttiest demonstrations of science-y things he can create. He’s careful to note on his website, ElectroBOOM!, that no one should try to recreate the crazy stuff he does themselves — it’s really, really easy to hurt yourself doing these kinds of stunts. But since he’s a pro, Sadaghdar knows what he’s doing (“most of the time,” he says); he combines comedy with engineering in order to make learning fun.

For his Movember wrap-up video, Sadaghdar tested four different methods for mustache removal, absolutely NONE OF WHICH SHOULD EVER BE USED BY ANYONE. I mean it, you guys. He went through all this so you don’t have to. Don't let his suffering be in vain. Here’s what not to do — or perhaps more accurately, how not to do it:

Waxing:

Seems simple enough, right? Alas, his face isn’t in the frame enough for me to be able to capture his reaction in all its glory, but here’s what the result is:

May we point you towards our extremely useful guide to what to know before going in for your first wax?

Electrolysis:

After his failure with waxing, Sadaghdar decided to give electrolysis a shot. “I assume they use something like a taser that zaps the hair dead,” he says, “and for that purpose, I’m going to use my homemade taser.” No, Sadaghdar! Don’t do it! Noooooooo!

…Too late. Eyes watering, he follows it up with:

“Here I would like to thank all women for going through so much pain to make themselves more appealing to us. And I want to say, it’s not necessary; some of us may like you for your looks, but at the end of the day, it’s your health and attitude that makes us love you. And it’s much less painful to obtain.”

To be fair, beauty rituals aren’t necessarily for the benefit of anyone other than ourselves; that sort of depends on the person. But I appreciate the sentiment.

Kitchen Knife:

Says Sadaghdar, “I once saw in an old movie some bearded guy on an island remove his mustache with a kitchen knife without soap, so I was wondering if that’s possible.” Something tells me this isn’t going to end well…

…Actually that’s not so bad, all things considered. Mostly it’s just ineffective because the knife isn’t as sharp as a standard razor is.

Burning It Off:

No. No, no, no, no, no. Do not try to burn your mustache off using a BIC lighter and lighter fluid, Sadaghdar. That is a bad idea. Don’t do it! Pleeeeeeeease!

…I cannot believe he just did that. Maybe it would be better to stick with a plain ol’ razor?

Again, do NOT try any of these at home — but if you want to witness more of Sadaghdar's antics, feel free head on over to his YouTube page.

Watch the full video below:

Images: Medhi Sadaghdar/YouTube (8)