Two Bees In A Pod

Where Beauty Work Meets Boundaries, Secrets, And Survival Humor

• Nicole & Sam • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Beauty can be glossy on the surface and unhinged underneath. We pull back the curtain on the salon floor and the strip club dressing room, sharing the stories that shaped our craft and our coping skills: a client plotting pregnancy to “teach a lesson,” a boyfriend delivering armfuls of roses to a Brazilian appointment, and a dancer convinced her ancestry test rewrote her foundation shade. It’s raw, awkward, and hilarious—and it’s also a masterclass in boundaries, hygiene, and emotional triage.

Nicole brings 17 years of waxing wisdom, the kind that comes from fielding impossible questions and navigating oversharing with grace. Sam draws on five years backstage at a strip club plus a decade and a half in beauty, where “therapist with tweezers” isn’t a joke, it’s the job description. Together we talk consent, client expectations, and the moments where you hold your line: protecting sanitation, protecting your name, and staying human when customers test your limits. The “house mom” makes a cameo, the lobby becomes a stage, and survival humor keeps us sane.

If you work with people—barbers, nail techs, artists, bartenders, nurses—you’ll recognize the playbook: short, clear communication, clean tools, firm boundaries, and a laugh ready when the room tilts sideways. The glam is real, the grit is real, and between them lies the craft. Hit play, ride the chaos with us, and learn a few tactics you can use at your own station. If you enjoyed the ride, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more curious listeners can find us.

Sam Rose Beauty

Queen Bee Wax Studio
Brazilian wax specialist in Norwood using hard wax. Smooth, clean, and confidence-boosting!

SPEAKER_00:

Hey everyone, I'm Sam, salon owner, entrepreneur, and makeup artist for the past 15 years, including five unforgettable years as a resident strip club makeup artist. I've seen it all from bridal meltdowns to naked backstage chaos, from clients confessing their wildest secrets to answering questions that'll make you wonder how some people made it this far in life.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm a professional secret keeper, part-time therapist, and a full-time beauty boss, always armed with a pair of lash tweezers and a little too much lip gloss.

SPEAKER_00:

I've got some wild work stories, a few solid life lessons, and a side hustle of dating all the wrong men, which let's be real, makes for some amazing podcast material. So if you're into glam, gossip, and growth, this is your place. Grab your Red Bull, touch up your lip gloss, and come hang with us while we spill the tea and tell you the stories that you won't hear anywhere anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, I'm Nicole. I've been a licensed esthetician for 17 years. And for the last 12, I've been exclusively waxing people for a living. Now, when you spend that long up close and personal with well people, you collect some wild stories. Over the years, I've been punched in the stomach, heard more juicy secrets than a therapist, and dealt with all kinds of hygiene situations. I get asked questions that you think everybody already knows the answers to, like, I don't use soap to wash my vagina. I just splash water down there. Do I actually need soap and a scrub, or can I just scrub? This podcast is where I share the real stories from behind the wax plot, the funny, the weird, and the downright unbelievable. All the names have been changed for privacy. And if I mention a current client, it's with their full consent. So buckle up. It's about to get sticky.

SPEAKER_00:

Sticky. All right. Nicole, let's play a game. Truth or dare.

SPEAKER_01:

Truth.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Let's hear your most unhinged client story.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Definitely this woman. We will call her Lara. The bear may not be her last name. We don't know. So Lara was a regular. I'm just gonna paint a picture. We'll call her, we'll say she was about 40 years old, had a 16-year-old at home already. Was pretty consistent with waxing. So she comes in one day and she says that she found a phone number in her boyfriend's jeans pocket when she was doing laundry. So she needed him to take her more seriously. So, like any normal person would, she said, I need to get pregnant to teach him a lesson. I was very confused, staring at her, trying not to be rude. And I said, Oh, that's weird. I didn't think that you wanted any more children. You already have teenagers. And she said, That's okay. I'll just take care of it. That's right. We're talking about abortion on podcast number one. So a little confused. I didn't really know how to respond. So I kind of just said, you know, I've never had to do that, but I've heard it takes a lot out of you emotionally and physically. So maybe you should reconsider a different plan. And she was sick and every gun. She didn't care. So she comes in a couple, like probably two months later, and I just wanted nothing to do with this conversation. So I'm asking her about the weather and her plans this weekend and talking about my life until I literally had nothing else to say. I'm in the middle of pulling one of the wax strips, and she says, Hold on, wait, I just want to say, when you put pressure down, can you just be careful of my stomach? It's still very tender. So I then had to ask the question if you know she had gone through with it. And she said, yes, that she had to get the abortion two weeks ago. So, you know, I'm horrified. I have no idea what to say. I'm working at the tank for corporate America, so I can't really say what I want to say. You know, I'm all about people doing what they want to do, but I don't think you should have a punch card. You know, your fourth abortion, you get the final punch, and then your fifth one is free. It's just weird. Like, I don't, it's weird. And also, why are you telling me this? Like, I don't understand. So, whatever. So, I'm trying to get this lady out of my room as fast as possible because I'm violently uncomfortable. So, we go into the lobby, and I see there's a bunch of people in the lobby, and I see a man standing there with a ridiculous amount of roses. There had to have been at least three dozen roses and a giant vase. And I'm just assuming, you know, I work with 25 female coworkers, one of which solid 10, constantly, you know, dating. She constantly had men bringing her edible arrangements and all these things that I obviously benefited from. Thank you. And so I just assumed, oh, okay, she went on a date. Here's a guy delivering, there's a delivering guy delivering her flowers. Like, no big deal. All of a sudden, Laura sees the man because she's behind me and yells his name and runs up to him in the lobby. And if I put together that this is her boyfriend who has now brought dozens of roses to her Brazilian appointment. She does not work there. Like, what? Why are you doing this? So I think that maybe she planned him to do that. So that I would think that her plan works now, but I don't care. So I'm just I'm just waxing her vagina. Like, I don't, I could care less, honestly, if her boyfriend takes her seriously. And I think she's a lunatic, honestly. So um, that's probably the most mentally unhinged for.

SPEAKER_00:

So did you ever see her again?

SPEAKER_01:

Unfortunately, I left to open my own business, and I just happened to not give her the information of where I was going. But two years after I left, a girl who I'd been waxing for a couple months had come in and she was like, Oh my God, I saw my aunt at a barbecue last weekend, and you used to wax her. She was telling her all about you and where you were. And I was like, Oh my god, well, who is your aunt? And she said Laura's name. And I was like, Oh my god, I can't deal with this. And thankfully, Laura decided that my salon was just too far for her to drive. So unfortunately, I have not seen Laura again. Hallelujah. I know. Exactly. Amen. Hallelujah. Yes. Okay. So I now would like to ask Sam a question that I have been wondering forever. And we're just too busy gossiping throughout my whole eyelash appointment that I've never asked. I would like to know the craziest or one of the craziest, I'm sure there's many. So, whatever craziest story comes to mind regarding your experience of being a makeup strip club artist or strip club makeup artist? Strip club makeup artist.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I will never forget. I was probably about three years into my career at the strip club at this point. And there was this one girl.

SPEAKER_01:

She was wild. Can we come up with fun stripper names for them? Let's call her Angel. Great, cool stripper name.

SPEAKER_00:

So Angel, she very much liked her powder. We'll call it powder.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, okay, okay. Yes. Cocaine. Cocaine. She's like her cocaine. Which was fine. You're gonna get three. I knew it, whatever.

SPEAKER_00:

That's fine. But this one day, she must have done too much cocaine. And she came in, she was in the dressing room. I would hang out in the dressing room, hoping somebody would see me free and say, Sam Lie, do my makeup. Cool, I'll make a few dollars. Sure. So I'm sitting at the desk and she's like, Sam, you're free.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm like, Yep. And now I see her rubbing her stomach, and I'm like, what is happening there? But like you don't really ask questions because lots of wild things happen. So like you don't necessarily want the answer. Yeah, you're I don't really care what you're doing. Just sit down and shut up. So she had this sun tattoo around her belly button. And apparently that day she didn't like it.

SPEAKER_00:

So she was putting foundation all over her stomach to cover the sun. Okay, so I was like, uh, all right, but maybe I'm having it off deck, whatever. Sure. She comes upstairs and she's like, now this girl is white.

SPEAKER_01:

She has a little too much self-tameron, a little orangey. Sure. How old is she?

SPEAKER_00:

She, I, you know, she couldn't be 22, she couldn't be 40. Not sure, sure. Not sure. Um, so she says, I have to tell you something. And I'm like, okay. So she asked me to put lashes and liner on her. So I'm doing the lash and liner, and she's like, Sam, my dad is 50 cent.

SPEAKER_01:

What? Dead serious. Oh my god, that is definitely accurate. That is so real. Okay. And I'm like, Angel, how is this even possible? Angel, you're white. Right. And she's like, I'm not white. Also, 57 is not that much older than us. And she was probably a little older than you, at least.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's literally impossible. Listen. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So she's like, my dad's 50 Cent. And I'm like, you're white. Like, now I want to mess with her because I just want it to be funny. Yeah. So another girl walks in and she's sitting in the corner, like. And she says, Oh, my lashes and my lighter look great. Can you do my foundation? I never do this girl's foundation. Sure. So I'm like, yeah, sure. Tell me about how you came to figure out that your dad's 50 cents. Oh, apparently she did an ancestor DNA. Oh. And it came up the 50 cent is on Ancestry. Apparently. Wow. So I go to get her color, which is White Girl from each other. Sure, Ivory. And she grabs my hand when I went to go put it on. And she said, wrong color. And I said, Angel, I've been doing your makeup for three years. Yeah. That's your color.

SPEAKER_01:

She said, I told you my daddy's 50 cents. Oh no. She wants to be a tan. I said, What? I'm not doing that to you. She said, I'm paying you. You're doing it. She was angry. Does she want you to roll body? You're a stripper. You're naked. So, so I said, Okay. Now everyone's looking at me. There's like three girls in the room, and they're like, are we sure she was just doing cocaine? So we start painting her face with the darkest shade that I had on my table. Love it. Because that's what she told me her color was. And I perfectly made a line. Oh wow. That's that one right there.

SPEAKER_00:

And she looked in the mirror and she said, Perfect.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And I said, Well, I'm glad you think so. Do not tell anyone you came in here.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't like credit for that.

SPEAKER_00:

She went downstairs into the dressing room. And the house mom. The house mom's like the person that like watches over the girls in the dressing room. Like she gives them tampons and like snacks and like anything that they need, they get from the house. She's their keeper. Basically. Yeah. They check them in. They like, yeah. Oh my god. It's like a whole thing. Yeah. So the house mom texts me and she's like, Sam, what did you do to Angel's face? She said, I've never seen anyone lean your trail like that. And I said, Well, that's because she insisted that 50 cent was her daddy, and I had to use the right shade foundation that apparently her color wasn't the right shade anymore after her ancestry DNA. She goes, What? Yeah. So the other girls in the room were crying, laughing. They're like, Sam, you did it, and you left a lot. What was I supposed to blend? Was it a light part of the light?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

unknown:

There was no end.

SPEAKER_01:

It's all about blending, Sam. It wasn't a scene. I guess. Yep. I would also like to know on her ancestry results. Do they literally just say 50 cents? Or was it has a real name on there? You know what I mean? Like I didn't get into it. Because somebody who apparently is her dad was probably doing some extracurriculars of his own. He decided that he was gonna pay for an Ancestry.com membership and the test and then register with his name as 50 Cent. So clearly, that's obviously what happened. Could be what it is. So I go downstairs into the dressing room later that night, and I see her still with her.

SPEAKER_00:

She had been out dancing like that all night.

SPEAKER_01:

I wonder how much money she made.

SPEAKER_00:

And I looked at her and I said, Angel, you still look like that. And she said, Fuck you, Sam. Oh wow. And I started laughing. And she said, She said, You are a goofy ass bitch. You are?

unknown:

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And I did exactly this. I cried laughing and she said, shut the fuck up. Stop not funny. That was all about to get involved.

SPEAKER_01:

Jessie was very adamant that this was the right color for her. She said you're always you're always goofy, you goofy lady. Okay. Like it. Okay, wow. Well, my first day there, hold on. I gotta tell this one because this one's really good. This is when I knew that like my life was over. This wasn't when you knew that you were supposed to be there forever.

SPEAKER_00:

I was 25 years old. Still a little naive. Like that place definitely put some years on me. Sure. 25 years old in the basement of a strip club. It was my first shift working by myself. I had like, you know, shadowed someone. So like I knew what I was getting into.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a rough first day.

SPEAKER_00:

Fine. Okay, first day by myself. I get this girl. She comes in. She's like, I heard you were so great. I can't wait for you to do my makeup. Awesome, sit down. She takes her finger and puts it in her punani. Okay. And sniffs it. Oh.

SPEAKER_01:

And says, I think the wash is good enough today.

SPEAKER_00:

And then grabs my chair. My god. And I looked at her and I said, Don't touch anything.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, what first of all, you're doing her makeup. Why do you care about the scent of her vagina? Yeah, no. I have had somebody do that in my room before. Uh, they were just, you know, which I guess is like kind of more acceptable because I am gonna see her vagina. And if it was bad, I guess I would smell things, but watching somebody look at you in the face and put their finger inside of them. It's uncomfortable. So I can only imagine. Please do not touch anything. No, no.

SPEAKER_00:

She left and I said, What am I doing with my life? Be back tomorrow. Be back tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it was a Sunday night too. Great. Like, yep. Must have been something on a Sunday night. I hope not. I hope nobody else found it. So I myself have also had strippers and scripts. I did not work in a strip club, although I feel like I probably would have been busy because they don't need, you know, they need no hair. So I have had two stripper experiences. Well, actually, I guess one was an escort or prostitute, whatever you want to call her. So the stripper that I had came in. Her manager had brought in about five girls to get West. And really? Yep. He paid for all of them. So they must have been walking around bushes. I don't know. She hadn't worked in three weeks because her dad passed away. And he apparently encouraged her to go back to work. So she came in and nice girl, but the second she got undressed, there was a smell that I've never smelled before. It was to this day the most horrific scent I've ever smelled in my life. It was to the point that after about four minutes of her being undressed, I could hear people walking down the hallway past my door that had been closed the whole time, saying, Oh my god, what is that smell? It is horrible. So literally her vagina, literally wafting under this tiny little spot under the door is her the scent. It got it was so bad that it was just wafting into the public area. So yeah, and then so I'm trying not to laugh because I can hear what's going on in the hallway. I didn't think it was that bad. I mean, I knew obviously like it was bad because I was in the room, but I didn't think it was so bad that everyone in this establishment could now smell how bad this was. And a couple of people when they walked by, both she heard them and she thought it was funny, and she was laughing about it, which is very uncomfortable. So she has no idea it's her. She definitely knows her. She definitely knows her. She did she was uncomfortably laughing. Yeah. Yeah. So that was gross. And then I had the and then I had a prostitute. So I had just started working at a big franchise waxing company. Wait, so did she tell you she was a prostitute? No, however, actually, she told me that she was an escort, but my so I just started working there, and my manager saw this girl was in my book. Her name was Debbie. And she saw that she was in there, and so she took me to my room and she was like, Hey, I just want you to know Debbie was probably in her late 30s, mid to late 30s. So she was like preying on those like older, richer men type vibe. So she came in and said, Hey, just so you know, Debbie is a prostitute. She talks about it in the room. So I just wanted to let you know, so you have a heads up, so that you're not like shocked when she tells you this. So I was like, all right, cool. This is interesting. Like, I'm in. I was concerned about hygiene, even though I had not met the other stripper yet. This was years before the gross stripper. So I was kind of nervous about, you know, touching that grossness. I definitely wore two pairs of gloves that day for sure. But I will say Debbie bought all of the products, and she was in the bathroom for about 20 minutes, and she crushed it up down there. So she wasn't gross, she was fun. She did ask me if uh because I was doing her eyebrow. I did a bunch of things on there. She I was doing her eyebrows. She asked me if I could take off half of her eyebrow from like the middle out so that she could draw them onto her hairline dramatically. So I said no. Yes, to the hairline. I don't know what kind of movie was popular that I don't know. I don't know what she was going for, but I said no because I just started working there and I didn't want my boss to think that's just how I did eyebrows. So I was like, Yeah, I can't do that. I can't do that. Beautiful template. Like you have to like sign a waiver or something. Like, I don't know. So I just did my eyebrows regular. And then I was doing her Brazilian and I had her flip over. And she asked me if she said that you know, she was with a client and she asked me if I've ever seen crystals in someone's asshole. Like a butt lug or like no crystals, like like salt sugar, like crystals, like white crystals, she said. I don't know what that is. Like some salt left over from your bath. I don't know. So crystals. Crystals. She wants to know about crystals, actually.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll tell her.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So she just didn't know if that was normal. Crystals. Yeah, she saw some crystals in some guy's asshole, apparently. Or girls. Well, who might have to do soon? It could have been. I mean, I've never done cocaine to know that if it was touched by the liquid of the animal clands, if it's headed crystals, it you hear this. This is something that you normally talk about. I have never heard that, but I don't typically discuss these type of things.

SPEAKER_00:

Life advice from Sam.

SPEAKER_01:

It's typical cake in your ass. Yeah, it makes sense because you do like a hair-pon thing with the alcohol and you shove it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, so maybe he was doing that. I mean, he doesn't have to get the vagina. So he just well, also, you know, people get holes in their science district. So maybe if you just stick it up, you're bum. You just get to interact them. Exactly. But who's gonna say that? That's fine. It's fine. So yeah, so I unfortunately, but I will say I have had my fair share of working ladies that are very clean and you know, especially in the days of in today's world of OnlyFans and you know the working bands. I wish I do have a lot of OnlyFans grows currently, yeah. They're like millionaires. Yeah, go for that. I'm like all for it. I'm jealous. Me too. I'm like, it's gotta grow. Wow, why the hell not? Who cares?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna make one of me eating food.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my god, stop. The ones with the snatch of bread, the face of the bread. Like what? Just have skills in my belly. Yeah, you just get dirty. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

So we uh we're already getting ahead of ourselves. Yeah, yeah, we're really drifting topics. So shocking. But that's what the people want. This is what the people want. They want the gross. Listen, if you're here for like me talking about how my client said that her best friend's sister is cheating on her husband, nobody wants to hear that. Nobody cares. That's not juicy. Okay. Well, I do have some of those. Well, of course. And like if they can get juicier, like as the you know, as time goes on. Real juicy. But we're mainly here for the shock and awe. You know, yeah. Like I wrote a list down, you know, there's several things on it that are just it's horrifying.

SPEAKER_00:

And like now, people know why we are the way that we are.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, sure. Yeah, exactly. Like how this is a trauma response. Absolutely. Like my whole personality. Like I'm dealing with this. Is I have had we'll get into this. This one lady, she needs her whole episode. I contemplated doing this for a living for like three weeks after waxing her. I literally was like, is this what I want to do? I don't know. Can I handle things like this? I don't know. So this is a trauma response. Mom, I can't wait to hear that story. Yeah, we're just fun. We're just this is how we have to be. I know.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's like Angel calling me a goofy bitch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello. Hello. It's inappropriate. Yeah. You're inappropriate.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. If you want to hear more of our ridiculous stories, we're gonna wrap up today and we'll be back for more.

SPEAKER_01:

We will be, just like our clients always come back to tell us more.

SPEAKER_00:

It's never ending.