Men behaving beautifully
Lindy Woodhead on the biggest thing to hit male marketing for 100 years It doesn’t surprise me to learn that David Cameron sports a sparkling set of buffed possibly even polished nails. It’s simply another sign of his impeccable modernist credentials.
It doesn’t seem so very long ago that a grooming regime for most men involved a razor, a can of shaving foam, a splash of aftershave and a monthly haircut. No more. To the delight of the cosmetic companies, today’s urban male is finally scouring the shelves for specialist malegrooming products. The result isn’t just smoother skin — it all adds up to a global market value of nearly £10 billion each year. There hasn’t been as much excitement in the business of male marketing since 1901, when Gillette launched the first safety razor with disposable blades.
Steering the complex pathway to seduce and educate the hearts and minds of the AngloSaxon ‘macho male’ hasn’t been easy. Most early offerings involved the ubiquitous ‘soap on a rope’ and waves of Old Spice. Until comparatively recently, even the most skilful of copywriters couldn’t persuade men between 30 and 50 to take their skincare seriously. It was the testosterone-fuelled twentysomething who was spending over an hour in the bathroom, showering and scenting to impress his hot date. Then suddenly — as with trends that become mainstream — the lines blurred and a new attitude took hold.
It could be argued it all started with hair. While Richard Gere and Bill Clinton have proved it’s cool to be grey, David Beckham fuelled the trend for the hairless body.
Suddenly, what was on top was of less importance than what lurked beneath, with the result that men have finally realised that there is nothing less appealing, not to mention more ageing, than too much hair in the wrong places.
The only problem for men failing the magnifying mirror test was how — and where — to get rid of the offending stuff in dignified comfort. Enter the male-only grooming salon. Leader in the field is the Refinery, which opened in Mayfair in 2000 and now operates a branch in Bishopsgate and another at Harrods, alongside its Brook Street flagship. Waxing dominates the treatment list, with the most popular parts to be stripped being backs, shoulders and hairy hands. For those brave enough to go further, the Refinery’s ‘Galaxy’ — a wince-inducing waxing of pubic hair — is apparently gaining in popularity. My husband, who happily experimented with several treatments at the Refinery by way of research for this feature, drew the line at the ‘Galaxy’, so I am unable to confirm if its Australian wax, specially formulated for shorter, coarser male hair, hovers beneath the pain threshold.
The feel-good/look-good phenomenon isn’t just about waxing. With George Clooney, aka
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the ‘king of grown-up grooming’, as a style hero, today’s urban man is happily discovering the relaxing delights of manicures and pedicures, deep-cleansing facials, stress-busting cranial massage and — thank heavens — trimming those tufty eyebrows and hairy ears. There’s even a marked increase in high-tech treatments like microdermabrasion and botox among high-flyers and those in the public eye — though judging by Tony Blair’s ever-deepening wrinkles, the rumours of his botox treatments are untrue. Those too reticent to make the first move into the world of pampering that we women take for granted are often prodded into action by being bought a gift voucher. Thereafter it seems they are hooked, and male-only salons such as Duke & Co. and the newly launched Nickel are part of a burgeoning business.
Back home in the bathroom, the alpha male has brushed up on his technique. He now knows that dipping into his partner’s pot of Crème de la Mer isn’t going to work. Male skin is 22 per cent thicker than women’s, has a higher acid pH, more sebum and a tendency to dehydrate more quickly. This means that the formula used to create a male product really does have to be different. Annoyingly for us girls, men’s skin also ages more slowly. For both sexes, however, skincare rules are the same: ‘keep it clean, keep it exfoliated and keep it moisturised’. With Christmas shopping in mind, there is a bewildering arsenal of creams, serums, oils and unguents specifically for men. Given it’s party time, Christmas spirit has probably hit the liver hard — which in turn dulls the skin. Milk Thistle tables should do the trick for the former, while Clarins for Men Fatigue Fighter (promoted as being great for tired and hungover skin) should keep your face in great shape.
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