It’s bad enough that I’ve got to deal with the facial hair on my upper lip, which in many circles is referred to as a MUSTACHE — but when the no-fail product that I’ve known and loved and used for years FAILS? I am ragin’.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, waxing, but see, the thing about the Upper Lip Hair {ULH, which is good, because it sounds like the noise I make when I notice it} is silent and deadly. One day it is not there, and the next day it is, and when it is the day that it is there, you just want it gone, right?

So I became quite used to reaching for a facial hair removing cream from Boots: great value, excellent result. When the last tube I bought didn’t work so well, I thought, Eh, it’s just a bum tube, it could happen to anybody.

When I woke up this morning and noticed that the ULH was flourishing, I felt as annoyed as I did the first time I ever noticed it in my life — I don’t know why, it’s the same thing as being surprised that I got my period — and since I dropped my JML Beauty Trimmer eight times too many, I figured I’d break open the new tube of the Boots stuff, and so applied it. It’s awful the way the cream highlights a whole bunch of hairs that you didn’t even see. I applied some more.

The box says 3 minutes. Since I was still wary after the last tube bombed, I left it on for 6 minutes. When I took up the little plastic spatula and scraped it away? NOTHING. Honest to God, not one single hair came away.

I clearly need to replace my trimmer, because it is even more immediate than a depilatory cream. It was so handy *sob*.

In an act of pure desperation, I fired up my Braun Silk-épil and went at the ULHs. I have pretty much sensitised my chin to that gear, but OMG, my poor wee upper lip. It hurt so much, I had to close my eyes, like that was gonna help? {It did, actually.} Then I started sneezing and my upper inner eyelid liner got all over my face.

I suppose that after several rounds of extreme pain, the nerve endings will be sufficiently deadened to the insult. I really, really don’t want to have to do that again. If anyone has any suggestions as to a cream that works, please, I am begging you: share.