A real sugaring product whether a paste or gel will be water soluble, meaning you can clean off the residue from your skin with just plain water. Water won't cut it for a wax product, but will need something stronger for the left over stickiness to be removed.
Sugar wax (using a gel) does have some things in common with regular waxing in they way the product is applied and removed, and both require 1/4" of hair growth. The big differences are that sugaring gel is natural, and is known to be less painful on the skin than waxing.
Sugaring Gel Product Reviews:
Sugar Wax and Sugar Paste: Not the Same
Sugaring paste isn't as readily available, but used at salons and spas. The paste is much thicker and uses the hands rather than a stick when applied to the skin. Hair growth also only needs to be 1/16" for the paste to remove hair.Jenn Webdale of ALTERIS, in Scottsdale Arizona (now Jenn owns The Sugar Spa) uses the real sugaring paste method and explains for us further the differences. "The technique for sugaring involves molding a ball of sugar paste against the direction of hair growth and removing the hair in the direction of growth." (make your own sugar paste).
Jenn continues, "Sugar waxing, like Nads, is performed just like waxing using a stick to apply the gel in the direction of growth and a strip to remove the hair against the direction of growth. Sugar waxing provides the same results and has the same drawbacks of increased ingrown hairs, irritation and hair breakage as resin waxing and is not as effective as sugaring."
