Can you really get herpes from waxing?

source:

I have to agree with this article. I believe that hot wax is simply
"too hot" for the herpes virus to survive in. I'm not a doctor or a
scientist, but it just seems logical to me.

January W. Payne
Washington Post
Nov. 29, 2005 10:50 AM

Many women turn to professional waxing to get rid
of unwanted hair, but could the practice put salon
customers at risk for herpes? A new e-mail making
the rounds warns that it could.

The message cites a woman's call to a radio station
explaining how she contracted herpes - a virus that
mostly causes painful oral or genital sores and
blisters - after having her lips and eyebrows waxed
at a nail salon in New York. "The married woman who
stated that she never cheated was wondering how
she possibly got herpes not only on her lip but on
her eyebrows," the e-mail states.

Here's how, the email suggests: Many salons don't
change wax tools between customers. According to
the e-mail, "If someone has herpes those bacteria
is now on the stick and now the bacteria festers
and grows in the hot wax."

Snopes.com, a Web site that identifies and vets
urban legends, says there's no truth to the tale,
citing information from the National Herpes Hot
Line. Site co-operator Barbara Mikkelson said
she first learned of the rumor when Snopes began
receiving five or six e-mails a day about the
purported waxer with herpes in early November.

According to Eileen Dunne, a medical epidemiologist
who specializes in sexually transmitted diseases at
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
herpes is a "very fragile" virus that is
transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, making
transmission via hot wax at a salon "very, very
unlikely." Said Dunne, "A lot of bacteria and
viruses (including herpes) don't like heat and
don't grow well in heat."