Let’s be honest: summer is a minefield of unspoken expectations. You’re supposed to feel confident in a swimsuit, but you’re also supposed to be waxed, moisturized, exfoliated, and somehow completely unbothered by the fact that you’ve entrusted your most sensitive areas to a stranger with hot wax and a tiny wooden stick. And just when you think you’ve mastered the art of summer grooming, a new warning emerges from the wild corners of social media to remind you that perfection is a lie. This year’s warning comes from Sarah Baus, a South Carolina-based content creator with about a million followers, and it has nothing to do with SPF, cellulite, or salty hair. It’s about farts. Specifically, the surprisingly violent, soul-shaking gas that can follow a Brazilian bikini wax. Baus calls these “booming butt bombs” — flatulence, toots, poots, farts — and she has made it her mission to warn hot girls everywhere before they find themselves standing at a pool party, suddenly responsible for a noise that sounds like a whoopee cushion being drop-kicked across a tiled room. In a video that has women everywhere clutching their cheeks, she shares her wisdom with the gravity of a war correspondent and the vocabulary of a locker room. “If you are going to get a Brazilian wax. If your backside is about to get the hair ripped out, and you’re going to be as smooth as a baby’s butt, that’s awesome,” she assures her viewers. Then she drops the bomb: “Here’s the thing nobody tells you. Let’s talk physics.” And just like that, the glossy, sterile world of beauty content collides with the warm, gassy reality of being human. It is a cautionary tale with a literal tail, and it’s spreading faster than a summer rash.
According to Baus, the problem is pure physics, and she wants you to know she is dead serious. In a normal, ungroomed state, the hair around your rear end provides a little friction, a little texture, something for gas to pass through. It’s not exactly dinner-table conversation, but it makes sense: hair breaks up the air stream, scattering it and muting the noise in the same way a muffler quiets an engine. When you rip that hair out by the root in pursuit of a hairless paradise, you remove that buffer. What’s left is smooth, bare skin, and smooth bare skin doesn’t just lie there — it seals. Your cheeks become two perfectly matched pieces of an airtight puzzle, especially if you’re even slightly sweaty, damp from a shower, or sitting on a hot pool chair. When gas inevitably builds up and tries to escape through that sealed chamber, it has to force the cheeks apart, and that’s when the noise happens. Baus, never one to mince words, described her own experience with a series of cheek-slapping sound effects: “Whap-pop-pop-pop-pop-pow!” She then delivered the line that has become the unofficial mantra of waxed women everywhere: “Silent farts are not a thing.” It’s a devastating realization. You can try to sneak one out during a quiet movie, but your body will betray you with a sound that bounces off every surface. You can pretend it didn’t happen, but you know, and the person next to you knows, and probably the people in the next room know too. The physics don’t lie. The smoothness that makes you feel like a sleek dolphin on the beach also makes your backside sound like a tuba section warming up. This is the hidden cost of hairlessness, and Baus is convinced nobody warns you because nobody survives the initial embarrassment long enough to talk about it.
At this point, you might be wondering whether Baus is just another internet provocateur exaggerating for engagement. But there’s actual anatomical logic behind her bizarre warning. Courtney Claghorn, the founder of SUGARED + BRONZED, a specialty grooming salon with locations in New York, California, and beyond, confirmed to The Post that the phenomenon is real enough to have earned its own nickname: “bikini farts.” Removing hair does leave you with smooth, bare skin, Claghorn explained, and that smoothness can lead to increased skin-to-skin contact. When there’s moisture involved — sweat, pool water, or just the natural humidity of a summer day — those bare surfaces tend to stick together even more, and the resulting friction can absolutely create unexpected sounds. Claghorn was careful to note that most of her clients have never complained about louder-than-usual gas, which could mean it doesn’t happen to everyone, or that they’re too mortified to raise the subject while lying spread-eagle on a waxing table. For those who do live with the phenomenon, she offered a few practical remedies. First, keep the area cool and dry; moisture is the enemy of silence. Second, wear loose, breathable underwear and clothing, because tight fabric only increases friction and seals the whole situation tighter. Once the skin settles after a wax, a gentle, fragrance-free moisturizer can help keep it comfortable without irritating freshly bare skin. And if you’re planning to show off your new smoothness in an intimate setting, wait at least 24 hours — or 48 if you’re prone to ingrown hairs. In other words, treat your freshly waxed backside like a recovering patient, not a party trick. It’s not the most glamorous aftercare routine, but neither is the alternative.
Of course, Baus didn’t just theorize from the safety of a salon chair. She went home, lived through the consequences, and came back to report with the weary authority of someone who had seen things. Her testimony struck a nerve, and the internet responded in the only way it knows how: by sharing the most embarrassing stories imaginable. “Dude… I felt so uncomfortable with how loud EVERY. SINGLE. FART. was,” confessed one follower, the capitalization doing an enormous amount of emotional labor. Another commenter found herself caught somewhere between horror and pride: “My farts have been putting my husband’s to shame since I started getting waxed.” A third tried to find the silver lining, noting that at least that first post-wax trip to the bathroom feels like “a seal gliding down the ice.” And then there was the unsung hero who offered an actual practical solution to the entire crisis. Her advice: when you need to let one go, cup and pull one butt cheek to the side. By breaking the seal between your cheeks, you remove the very thing causing the noise, allowing the gas to escape quietly into the open air. It’s not a trick you’ll see in any beauty magazine, and it requires a certain amount of flexibility and self-awareness, but it works. What makes the entire comment section so comforting is the instant recognition. Woman after woman confessed that they’d been living with this secret for years, thinking they were uniquely cursed, when in fact thousands of other waxed humans were dealing with the exact same soundtrack. There is solidarity in shared flatulence, it turns out, and Sarah Baus accidentally created the most honest support group on the internet.
Beyond the jokes and the vividly inappropriate sound effects, this entire saga says something important about the relationship women have with their own bodies. For as long as anyone can remember, the beauty industry has sold the idea that body hair is dirty, unkempt, and unladylike, and Brazilian waxes have become a rite of passage for anyone who wants to feel acceptable in a swimsuit, a pair of shorts, or a dimly lit bedroom. Women contort themselves into positions that would challenge a professional acrobat, bare their most sensitive areas to a stranger with a tray of hot wax, and endure pain that ranges from mildly uncomfortable to genuinely tear-inducing — all to achieve a standard of smoothness that nobody actually requires. And then, when the waxing is done and the body returns to its normal functions, women are expected to be silent, seamless, and invisible about the whole thing. Baus’s video is a rebellion against that absurd expectation. By describing the physics of flatulence with the seriousness of a physics lecture, she reminds us that no amount of waxing can separate us from our own biology. A woman can be perfectly smooth and still let out a fart that sounds like a water balloon popping. She can be a hot girl, a successful professional, a deeply respected human being, and still make a noise that would embarrass a middle school boy. That doesn’t make her less hot, less professional, or less respected. It makes her real. And in a culture that demands women be flawless at all times, being real is the most radical thing she can do. We should all be able to laugh at the absurdity of spending money and enduring pain to look like a baby, only to remember that real babies are noisy, messy, and completely unapologetic about their bodily functions.
So what should you actually do with this information? First, don’t panic. If you’re planning a Brazilian before a beach trip or a big date, just build in some forgiveness. Schedule the wax at least a day before the event so your skin has time to calm down and you have time to learn how your new, hairless backside behaves. Wear loose cotton underwear in the days after, keep the area aired out and dry, and maybe avoid gas-producing foods like broccoli, beans, and sparkling water until you’re confident in your own sound system. If you feel a toot coming on in public, excuse yourself, find a bathroom, or use the internet’s favorite butt-cheek pull trick to break the seal and silence the noise. And if you do accidentally let one go in an unfortunate moment, please don’t spiral. Every single human being on this planet farts. The right people will laugh it off with you; the wrong people aren’t worth your time anyway. Sarah Baus didn’t share her cautionary tale to humiliate anyone. She shared it because it’s true, and because the truth — even when it sounds like a wounded tuba — is something we all deserve to know before we hand over our money and our dignity for a smooth summer. So go ahead, get the wax, rock the bikini, and let your backside be as smooth as a baby’s butt. But remember what babies are actually like: loud, messy, and completely unashamed. That should be your energy too. Own your booming butt bombs, laugh at the weirdness of having a human body, and never let a little gas steal the joy of feeling good in your own skin.
