Wax Nostalgic – Best and Worst Celebrity Wax Figures

Ok, I’m just going to be honest here. I have a complicated relationship with wax figurines. It’s really kind of creepy when you think about it. You become a celebrity, and then they create a look-alike of you out of wax. That’s weird.

But the history is awesome.

A lot of French people in Paris in the late 1700′s ended up drowning in the Seine. Every morning, the bodies that were fished out of the river ended up on the banks in the center of the city so they could be identified. This soon became a spectator sport. A lot of people thought this morbid and insisted the bodies be moved into a tent out of respect.

In comes Madame Tussaud, a wax sculptor, who recognized this morbid curiosity for what it was; a great opportunity. So she made wax figurines of famous names, revolutionaries and prominent victims of the guillotine.  The eerie, lifelike, but still a little unreal nature of the wax closely resembled the bloated drowned corpses, thus scratching a powerful public itch in the new République.

If that doesn’t creep you out a little, try this. Imagine one of these wax museums at night. All those wax celebrities just hanging out in the dark, resembling real people, but they’re not. They’re just big dolls wearing fancy clothes. I freaked myself out just thinking about it.

However, I suppose, if you are going to agree to have yourself forever encrusted in wax, (at least until it melts) then it better be a realistic likeness. Here are some of the best and the worst wax effigies of real people, with their accompanying grade, because I am now a waxy expert.

Kate Winslet: Waxy Goodness – Grade A+

Madame Tussaud’s – London

Ok, this wax figure is anything but creepy. The only thing creepy about it is just how eerily similar this wax person is to the actual Kate. In fact the only way that I can tell that the real Kate is the one on the right is because she’s looking kind of haggard in that picture. Like she had one too many glasses of wine and fell asleep on her couch watching “Family Guy.” Meanwhile, her waxy person is looking bombshell hot. I would totally date the wax version of Winslet if she’d have me. She totally knows she looks good. Oh, never mind, it would never work out…

Justin Bieber – Wax Pathetic- C+

Madame Tussaud’s – New York, London and Amsterdam

Maybe it’s because Bieber is so excited and totally all up on his wax creation, but it looks ridiculously fake. Fake Bieber is so much smaller than the actual Bieber. The only real difference between these two is that the wax Bieber will actually be able to go through puberty, unlike the real version. That deal he made with a gypsy woman will force him to remain the same age for the rest of his mortal days. Mostly so he can continue to date Selena Gomez who is a known vampire.

Kim Kardashian – Wax Ecstatic – Grade A

Madame Tussaud’s – Hollywood

She is already mostly plastic so it makes it difficult to tell which one is “real” and which one is actually made of wax. Seriously, I’ve been staring at this for twenty minutes. I just can’t tell. Do you think they had to ship in extra wax from some magical wax forest to make sure that they had enough material to accurately depict her butt? And it also appears that they could have made approximately 42,000 candles from that chest alone. Just sayin’.

George Lopez – Doppelwaxer – Grade B+

Madame Tussaud’s – Hollywood

Ok, so this one is very well done. It looks almost more lifelike than George Lopez himself.  But George Lopez? Isn’t there some sort of criteria for getting your likeness wax-ified? Because being a washed up sitcom actor that hasn’t been funny in about 12 years seems to miss the mark when it comes to being featured in the pantheon that is waxy town.

Celine Dion – Wax Fail – Grade F

Grevin Museum – Paris

Worst wax figure ever. The wax sculptor here manages to make a very cold and robotic Celine Dion even less real and approachable. Also, what’s up with her having her hand over her heart? She’s freaking Canadian. FRENCH Canadian, even. Oh, unless the artist is depicting Celine admiring her stacks of US and Canadian dollars. That must be it. This pose makes sense now.

Eva Longoria – Waxtastic – Grade: A-

Madame Tussaud’s – Las Vegas

Ok, I finally figured it out. The taller one is actually the wax representation of Eva Longoria. In fact, it looks so good that Tony Parker just cheated on wax Eva with wax Rihanna. These are just like real life!

Christina Aguilera: Waste of Wax – F+
Madame Tussaud’s – New York.

Wax Christina here just looks kind of sad and desperate… and even more pasty than usual. First off, everyone knows that Christina wears MUCH more makeup than wax Christina has on her mug. And where’s adorable wax baby Max? There’s so much more they could have done with this to actually make it more lifelike. Keep trying Tussaud’s.