GROOMING
Perfumes, Creams, Beauty
Jean Claude Ellena, one of the greatest creators of fragrances and for years maître
parfumer of Hermès, says, “There are no genres of fragrance. It’s up to the wearer to decide. Making distinctions is pointless. As is listing all the olfactory notes in a bouquet. Who cares? When you taste a dish prepared by a chef, do you ask him for the list of ingredients?” As such, in the mélange of olfactory proposals of the last season, the market is increasingly oriented towards unisex formulas. Even the most explicitly masculine scents are embellished with floral notes, delicate and transparent. “There’s no need to be afraid to wear a rose perfume,” counsels Jacques Cavallier Belletrud who, in anticipation of the trend, had already composed Red Garnet ( Le Gemme Collection Masculin by Bulgari) in 2016: “An ode to the rose. Only for men.”
Men’s skin undergoes a slower and later progressive aging. But when wrinkles do form they are sometimes deeper. “This is why, while men are less inclined to use preventive treatments or maintenance, when the signs of age become visible, they don’t hesitate to seek the intervention of a cosmetic surgeon,” says Emanuele Bartoletti, president of SIME (Italian Society of Aesthetic Medicine). In Italy, in general, men spend about € 154 million a year in cosmetics, representing the 24% of the global beauty business. Also in the case of aesthetic medicine, mens market, is about 20, of the general turnover but the clients’ demands are slightly different: “More natural effects that tend to be invisible,” says Bartoletti. Men spend more on the body than on the face (14% compared to 7.4%, according to Cosmetica Italia): the focus on the face is mainly on beard care.
“The hipster wave began at Brooklyn in 2010. The models all started looking like Ricki Hall and the beard took centre stage. The trend arrived in Italy a few years later,” says Romano Brida, founder of Bullfrog, an Anglo-style barbershop founded in Milan in 2013 and in continual expansion since. “Beard culture was not so widespread in our country in the past. According to the aesthetics of cleanliness and rigour of the 1930s and 1940s, the bearded man was either a revolutionary or a beggar. Today, almost the opposite is true: it is a detail that confers style and an air of wisdom, especially when the beard is white. Orson Welles once said, “Because I’m wearing a white beard, I’ve the terrible feeling that you expect me to tell you the truth about something.” The moustache, however,
always had a slightly different connotation, less subversive and more culturally integrated. “They were accepted even in the manual of the Carabinieri, which dictated the standards on how to wear them,” explains Brida. Today, however, the beard/moustache trend continues to grow, even if the hipster craze is slowing down. The norms of grooming have changed, especially with regard to length, which is now significantly shorter. The boom in grooming products has nevertheless continued. The explanation is not only aesthetic, but physiological: “The structure of Mediterranean beards is wirier than those of northern Europe,” says Brida. So yes to emollient oils, glossing conditioners, and detangling emulsions. (With packaging that tends to be minimal and a bit vintage.)