These women are being charged 25 per cent extra for hair removal.

A beauty salon is charging women larger than a size twelve extra money to have their legs waxed. Their reasoning? They have to use extra wax to get the job done because they are covering a larger surface area of skin.

We’re not sure if the British salon owner is asking women for their dress size when they call to book an appointment, or whether she’s taking out an actual tape measure when they arrive…

Either way – we’re slightly taken aback.

The story about the so-called “fat tax on wax” has sent the internet into a whole new spiral of angry today.

Many commenters are outraged, saying that women with self esteem or body image issues are only going to have their anxieties affirmed by this new salon trend.

Which is a fair point, really.

According to the UK newspaper The Sun, women below a size 12 are charged the regular £21 for a leg wax at a salon that goes by the name of MM Bubbles.

Women who wear a dress size of 12 or above are hit with an extra cost of £5 (or $8.84 in Australian dollars) and women who wear a dress size of size 18 or higher have to pay an extra £10 (which is around $17.68 in Aussie dollars).

That’s right. There’s a sliding scale of size. The bigger you are? The more you pay.

The newspaper which first reported on the story, sent a plus-size model into the salon to investigate the rumours that had come to their attention. You see, the salon doesn’t disclose or advertise this ‘policy’, it’s something they implement behind closed foors.

According to the plus size model who got her Investigative Reporter Hat on, the salon’s owner told her: “I know maybe for you it is not very nice but I use more stuff.”

We assume the salon owner is likening leg waxing to carpeting or tiling a house by the square metre – because how on earth else could she justify the near 25 per cent increase on leg waxing for women whose leg circumferences may or may be a different size to the woman who’s up next for the g-string wax.

And while we’re on the subject, we’re wondering whether the owner of MM Bubbles is also measuring the width of one’s bikini region before laying down the wax? Big vagina, small vagina = it all adds up ladies.

And what about surface area vs density?

Does the own take into account amount of body hair and time-between-waxes before she determines a price?

There are definitely some questions to be asked about the mathematical integrity of what this salon owner is doing.

Sadly, the ‘plus size, pay more’ controversy isn’t anything new.

Earlier this year, Mamamia ran the story of Australian retailer, Best and Less, who did away with charging plus-size women extra for their clothing, and instead implemented a ‘one price fits all’ policy. At the time, we applauded the company’s equal pricing policy, that made the same styles of clothing across all sizes, eight to 26, the same price.

It addresses the frustration felt by many women and one that is evident on the company’s Facebook page.

One woman, Em Mastronardi, contacted the company when her friend Katie experienced plus-size discrimination at a regional store.

“I am disgusted at the obvious lengths of discrimination against plus size women in your store,” Mastronardi wrote. “How dare you expect women who are either plus sized, or just prefer bigger pajamas, to pay 25 per cent more for a product.”

“Women come in all shapes and sizes, and are beautiful just the way they are. No one has the right to say one size is ‘norm’ and another is not.”

While the policy certainly does discriminate against larger women and buys into a culture of ‘skinny is better’, the salon in the UK does have its advocates.

Many have argued that this is simply sensible business. If larger women are using more product, then why should that cost be borne by the business?

Either way, we suspect chatter on this particular issue won’t be dying down any time soon. In fact we’re prepared to call it:

Wax-gate is going to be BIG.

What do you think about the fat tax on leg waxing? Is the salon being discriminatory or just making a sound business judgement?