Edna Ma’s eyes widened when she got her first bikini wax four years ago.

“Oh, my God, this is so unnecessarily painful,” she recalled thinking. “It was a problem.”

Ma, a 34-year-old anesthesiologist at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, scoured shelves for a satisfactory anesthetic cream that would make waxing less unpleasant, but couldn’t find a good one. So she decided to make one.

Her BareEase & Cream has been selling online since March. Ma acknowledges sales are slow, but said they’re “gathering steam.” BareEase can also be found at Sports Club/LA, and local retailers Kitson and Beauty Collection.

While other wax anesthetics exist, Ma claims her product doesn’t cause as many side effects, such as skin discoloration or headaches. But the major innovation was packaging the cream with a latex panty. She came up with it after experimenting with several strategies, including a “Saran-wrap diaper,” which she eventually rejected. The garment holds the cream in place for about 30 minutes, allowing it to take effect.

While her credential as an anesthesiologist helps establish the product in the market, she acknowledged that it didn’t help her become a salesperson.

“When you’re an anesthesiologist, you go to the hospital and you don’t need to sell your service,” she said. “A business is a very nonlinear process. … It was something that I was totally unfamiliar with.”