The funny thing about winter is that, while your corporeal meat sack goes squidgy, you’re also supposed to be toning it up using a gym membership you sign up for but stop using once you realize other fitness establishments serve free pizza and bagels. This paradox also extends to beauty: You could let your armpit hair grow until it’s long enough to Dutch braid. Or you could be doing the following beauty treatments for which NOW is prime time, instead of later, when it’s again prime time, but for your bare limbs.
1. Laser hair removal
We know that the optimum conditions are as high contrast between hair and skin as possible—so the laser can detect (and destroy) the latter easier. Any hint of golden-brown, and you’ll have to use a lower intensity, which means more sessions and more $$$. Start now on your vitamin-D-starved arms and legs, and you’ll be good to go by summer.
2. Tattoo removal
Nobody would ever regret a Law & Order tramp stamp, but for less righteous ink, there is PicoSure. It won’t zap off all in one go, however, so plan ahead, and you won’t be the girl who can’t go in the water because she can’t get her bandages wet.
3. Chemical peels
Even if you hadn’t had the outright thought to do it, logic would guide us to stay indoors after sloughing off the topmost layers of your face. This is even easier to do when the sun sets, like, right after lunch. Plus you probably don’t feel like going out anyway, where you might risk putting somebody off her meal as you walk by looking like a cut of veal that’s gone around with a tenderizer.
4. Fraxel
Another treatment—this time for pigmentation—that exposes raw, fresh-out-the-womb baby skin you’ll want to protect, as it’s more susceptible to sun damage.