How To Sugar
Sugaring is a simple, inexpensive hair removal method you can do yourself at home. It’s gentle on sensitive skin and the results last much longer than shaving — the hairs grow back slower and thinner. It’s also a great exfoliant! Sugaring is often confused with waxing with sugar-based wax, but it’s completely different. Sugar paste is used at room temperature without cloth strips.
Part I. Making the sugar
The sugar paste you use for hair removal is basically soft sugar candy. The ingredients are simple:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon or lime juice
- 1/8 cup water
- 1 tsp guar gum
Any kind of sugar is fine. You can use the pre-packaged lemon/lime juice from the grocery store (no need to squeeze your own). And the guar gum is optional — I think it helps the product last longer, but it will still work without it.
You only need a few basic kitchen supplies:
- A small saucepan
- A candy thermometer
The procedure
- Add the sugar, lemon juice, and water to a small saucepan.
- Turn the heat up to high; stir so that the sugar dissolves. If your saucepan is non-stick, be sure you use something safe to stir, like a rubber spatula.
- Attach the thermometer to your saucepan so you can watch the temperature.
- Take the saucepan off the heat once the thermometer hits soft ball stage (240 degrees F).
- Stir in the guar gum, vigorously.
- Pour the sugar into a storage container while it’s still liquid but not so hot that it’ll melt/crack your container.
It takes several hours to cool to room temperature. Don’t try to use the sugar hot! It’s meant to be used at room temperature.
A note on temperature: The temperature rises pretty quickly once it gets going, so watch carefully for the moment to take the sugar off the heat (it will continue to go up a degree or two). The longer you boil the sugar, the stiffer/harder the final paste will be. 240F works well for my climate (dry, mild — California).
Part 2: Sugaring!
It’s really important that you start sugaring by prepping your skin. I recommend sugaring after a shower, but not immediately after. Moisture stops the sugar from sticking.
- Start with clean, dry skin.
- Apply baby powder/talcum powder liberally. This helps the sugar stick to your hair.
- Pull out a scoop of sugar paste. I like about the size of a Cutie or mandarine orange.
- Stretch the paste out over your skin by pulling it against the direction of hair growth. Careful – if your hair is very long, this can pull a bit. Sugaring works on fairly short hairs, so you can trim beforehand if this bothers you.
- Quickly pull the sugar off in a flicking motion, with the direction of hair growth along your skin.
It’s hard to describe this well in words, so take a look this video by Grace J Power.
Some tips and important notes on technique:
- Flick only as far as your wrist can go — don’t try to pull from, say, your knee to your ankle in one go.
- Don’t pull up/out — pull along. You want to slide out the hairs in their natural direction of growth.
- Hold your skin tight with your other hand. You don’t want your skin bouncing as you pull the sugar out.
Sugaring is generally gentle on the skin. You can go over the same skin multiple times if you need to. It should only hurt a little — you are, after all, pulling your hair out — but it’s nothing compared to waxing or epilating. If you are experiencing pain after sugaring (sometimes this happens on more sensitive areas), just rub the newly-sugared area with your clean hand. The rubbing sensation blocks out the pain.
Sugar sticks to itself — if you have little bitsies left behind, you can just “pick them up” with the sugar in your hand — the way you pick up bits of Play-Doh. Much less messy than waxing! If you do end up getting sugar on anything, it’s water soluble so it should just wash out.
Part 3: Common questions and problems
When I try to cook the paste on high, it boils over!
I’ve noticed that different saucepans seem to perform differently. When I switched to a non-stick, smaller saucepan, this stopped happening to me. However, if your stove+saucepan tends to boil over, move the saucepan so it’s only half on the burner, or turn the heat down.
My paste comes out dark red/brown… is that OK?
The color of the paste is related to how long you’ve cooked it. Sugar turns brown and caramelizes when it’s heated for a long time. This affects the taste and smell but not how well it removes hair 🙂 Any color — light amber, dark amber, deep maroon — is fine, as long as the paste is soft enough to use at room temperature.
My sugar paste starts clear but turns white/opaque when I use it.
Yep. That’s what it does. Just means you’re doing it right.
The paste is super soft and it “melts” when I try to apply it!
If the sugar does this when you first take it out of the box, that means you need to cook it longer. Your thermometer might be “off” or perhaps it’s some other factor. You can try re-cooking this batch, or chuck it and try again. Make a note of what temperature works for you.
I can’t get the paste out of the container — it’s too hard.
It’s easy to do this if you get distracted and miss taking the sugar paste off the heat in time. This can usually be rescued by adding water and microwaving — see this post for how.
I’m flicking the sugar off, but it’s not actually pulling the hairs out.
Some hairs are more stubborn than others! If you have especially stubborn hair, exfoliating well before sugaring will help. You can also pause for several seconds between applying the sugar and pulling it off — give the sugar some time to “melt” into your pores and get a really good grip.
I heard you can use the same paste for your whole body, but mine gets “gooey” after a while.
Mine too. I think it is because I don’t exfoliate enough. The guar gum helps, but for the most part, I just pull out new sugar when the paste stops feeling “stretchy”.
I used too-soft paste and now it is stuck to my skin. D: Help!
Normally, the paste flicks right off, but if you use it too long, it can get “gooey” or “melty” and just stick to your skin. Once the paste gets to this point, you can’t use it any more. But how to get it off? My preferred method: take a new piece of sugar out of the container and stretch it over the gooey stuff. Flick that off in the normal way; then throw it away and continue with a completely new ball of sugar. For other techniques, check out Tips to Getting Unstuck with Sugaring.
Happy sugaring, everyone!
Wow! This is an incredibly helpful posts; thank you for sharing it!
I’m definitely going to give this a go as I’ve recently learned to do waxing at home and I love the promise that sugaring is less painful!
GOD! Thank you! I realize this is likely a rather old post, but I would like to link to it in my own hair removal post – it is the first article I was able to find with detailed instructions that included an ACCURATE temperature for actual sugaring paste. I hate the store bought stuff and I’m training at work on this and need to make my own at home to practice. 😉
Thank you for making such a great guide for this!
Hi!! Thanks for this beautiful explaining, but I still have one question.. Its normal when you take the sugar from the heat, its totally liquid!
Thanks!! 🙂
Hi!! Thanks for this beautiful explaining, but I still have one question.. Its normal when you take the sugar from the heat, its totally liquid!
Thanks!! 🙂 from portugal
Yes, totally normal. Your goal is to get a soft but substantial paste — kind of the consistency of toothpaste.
But all sugar pastes are stiffer when cold (say, if you left it in the fridge) and runnier when warm (say if it’s a hot summer day). At stove-top temperature, it’s normal to be really liquidy! But it should stiffen to a paste when it reaches room temperature.
Thanks for this post. Now, I don’t need to travel just to be “sugared”.
I love the effect of sugaring compared to other non-laser alternatives. 🙂
Love your posts! I just started trying sugaring. When I did it your original recipe way, cooking it to 260 degrees, it worked okay. Then I tried it with the new way, with guar gum and only cooking to 240. It sticks to my skin right away. I do it after I take a shower and heavily prep the skin with baby powder, but it just sticks to my skin right away. I have watched a bunch of videos. I am just not sure what I am doing wrong.
Do you mean it’s soft and sticky and won’t flick off?
It’s possible your room temperature is higher than mine (low 70’s here).
Or, it’s possible your thermometer isn’t calibrated quite right.
Have you tried cooking to 245 or 250, or switching thermometers?
Is there a way I can do this if I don’t have a candy thermometer?
You can test whether your sugar is at the soft ball stage by pulling out a little bit in a spoon, dropping it in cold water, and seeing what consistency it becomes. You’re aiming for the very end of soft ball stage, or just entering firm ball stage. See this page for more details:
https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/sugar-stages.html
Ok so I have tried three times in the last week to make sugar wax and have failed. I noticed you didn’t mention anything about having to stretch and pull the wax once cooled off. Is this necessary? I’ve watched several videos where they say you must do this
Hi Bekah,
I’ve seen videos that mention kneading the wax before using, but I’ve never found it to make a difference. The first couple of applications basically do all the kneading for me.
What’s “failing” about your attempts? Some common issues I’ve run into:
– If the paste is too soft or too hard, that’s generally a temperature issue: try cooking it hotter if it’s too soft, or cooler if it’s too hard. Make sure your thermometer is good.
– If the paste seems to be grainy or crystallized, try adding more lemon juice; make sure you aren’t dropping any stray sugar crystals in after cooking.
– If the paste isn’t “sticking” to the hair, or doesn’t seem to be pulling the hair out, make sure you’re prepping your skin well: take a hot shower beforehand, dry off *thoroughly* with a towel, then dry off *more* by generously putting on baby powder. You want lots of it — should see the translucent powder layer on your skin.
A couple things to note, and you may already be aware… When people are “prepping” to sugar:
1. if their skin is too warm from the shower it can cause the sugar to breakdown too quickly and stick to their skin.
1b. Their own body heat in their hands also contributes to the sugar breaking down. Gloves help.
2. If they exfoliate the same day as they sugar it makes it harder for the sugar to stay on because it is an excellent exfoliator but it needs some dead skin to stick to.
3. If they are in an area with high humidity they may want a thicker sugar so it won’t break down too fast.
Hope it helps.
Very helpful, Thank you!
I just want to add another important advice: don’t use any lotion 24 h before you do sugaring.
A professional told me this before I was going to have a treatment at her salon, and when I did sugaring myself I really found out that is was true. The sugar would not stick to my hair if I had used lotion the day before.
So interesting! I guess it makes sense that lotion would make it less sticky. This was even if you showered with soap before sugaring?
Thanks so much for the detailed post… I can’t wait to try it out! How long does the unused sugar paste stay okay to use? I guess my question is does it ‘expire’ after some time?
I’ve never had it “go bad” — as in, grow mold or anything weird like that. However, it does seem to absorb moisture from the air: in my experience, it gets a little wet film on the surface over time. If you kinda scrape that off, the rest is fine.
Just made sugar for the first time. Boiled over very fast, removed it from the stove, the boiled over part on the stove caught on fire. Exploding sugar all over the kitchen. Lower heat…different pan…if I try it again!
this removes hair permanentaly???
No – epilating lasts longer than shaving, but the hairs do grow back. Many people find they tend to grow slower if you sugar consistently, though.
Made one batch at 240 degrees. Sugar color is light yellow. Is this the right color? When I did some testing the sugar doesn’t stick. Yes my skin is prep. The other batch I made the color is dark amber without guar gum this one is soft and stick. Can you tell me what I did wrong? Thanks.
Hi there, love this post. Have tried making my own sugar once and it was a total flop, going to try your method! Another question, I have sugared clients in a salon using professional sugar pastes and they sell them in soft or firm versions (firm being stiffer and easier to work with for beginners or for hotter areas like brazilian) do you know how you create different pastes at home? Is it how long or how much hotter than 240 you let it get? I am very curious! Thanks so much
Yes, exactly — the higher the temperature you cook to, the stiffer the paste.
This looks like the most comprehensive guide to making sugar paste I’ve seen, thank you! One suggestion: add in details on how to adjust for elevation, as the temperature for soft ball stage depends on altitude. Basically you subtract 2 degrees for every 1000 feet above sea level, so as I’m 5000 feet above sea level I would need to cook the paste to 230 instead of 240. Thanks again!
Yay! First comment of 2017!!!!
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