Yep, I've been waxing myself at home--I've found that my favorite brand is Sally Hansen. They're sticky strips that you first warm by rubbing them between your hands, and then pull the strips apart. I tried using Veet, but the sticky stuff that brand uses makes quite a mess; on the other hand, veet comes with a nice minty, numbing spray. Oh, and I found that oftentimes the store only sells the body strips (for legs, etc.), and not the bikini/face strips. The body strips work just fine: unlike products like bleach, hair disolving creams, etc, which may have more sensitive formulas for face & bikini, the only difference in wax strips is the size of the strip. So, you can just cut them down to size.
Yeah, the thought of baring it all at a salon doesn't sound very attractive to me either, so I just gritted my teeth and started doing it myself. I'd say it took me a few months to get good at it--initially I'd go through half a box of strips, spending an hour in the bathroom, each time. Now I can get it done with far fewer strips and about half an hour. It doesn't do a totally perfect job, so I have to touch it up with a razor (but for heaven's sake, WAIT a day or two before putting a razor to that sensitive skin). Don't keep re-stripping an area that just doesn't seem to want to come clean, especially on the lowest parts of the bikini line--the skin there is very delicate and you'll end up ripping the skin off >.< Just give those areas one or two tries, and then leave it alone.
Yeah, it hurts. But since I have so much trouble with painful ingrown hairs, and waxing lasts a couple weeks before they start to show up (unlike shaving, after which they show up in a day), waxing is far less painful in the long run.
As for my suggested solution in the original post...yeah, not gonna work. First, shaving against the grain, no matter how open-minded I tried to be about it, produces throroughly unsatisfying results--the stubble feels awful and looks awful. Second, the bleach did absolutely nothing. Seriously, I left it on for the max amount of time the box said was safe (15 minutes), and I didn't notice a bit of change. Even if it had had an effect, I doubt it would have bleached the folicles beneath the skin, so those would have still been visible anyway.
ARRRGGG!! After a bit of reading, I think my best bet at this point is to try using more moisturizer and an astringent (like witch hazel, NOT alcohol), more frequently and particularly just after waxing/shaving. I had been a bit negligent in doing that because it rather hurts putting anything on the skin other than warm water after waxing. *crossing fingers again*
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