‘I can see change spreading’: why male grooming is booming
Michael has been getting manicures and pedicures for the last 15 years, ever since he and his wife began attending goth club nights in his southern state of the US.
The number of treatments Michael indulges in has increased ever since: two-and-a-half years ago, the 65-yearold former forecast analyst escalated to regular full-body waxes. Now he gets “waxed from fingers to toes, and everything in between, every six weeks”, he said.
“As I got used to each stage, it made sense to go further because I saw the positive difference that each extra step made to my appearance,” he said, responding to a callout to Guardian readers. “I didn’t like the look of my body hair as I got older. I realised the less hair I had, the better I looked.”
Between waxes, Michael alternates using a self-tanning cream and a peppermint-scented lotion, uses “a variety of Yardley scented talc powders to control my sweat and body odour – and I get a foot peel mask every three to five months”.
Male grooming is a booming business: a recent survey found that spending on male beauty products had increased 77% year on year.
The subject was the focus of column inches this week after the former Neighbours actor Jason Donovan was pictured emerging from the sea on Bondi beach in Sydney sporting black nail polish. “My product is me, maintaining myself is a selfish existence. I like to get a massage twice a week and love a foot massage and to get my nails done,” Donovan recently told the Times.
Men’s nails have had a bit of a moment of late – catching up with Michael’s approach of a decade-and-ahalf earlier – with A-list celebrities from Harry Styles to the rapper A$AP Rocky and Jeremy Allen White, star of the TV series The Bear, stepping out with shellacked paws.
It’s not just the nails. Perhaps spurred on by the rise of male beauty influencers showcasing beauty tips and makeup routines on social media, dedicated makeup products for men have been appearing on high streets and upmarket beauty salons in the UK and the US.
Chanel launched a male makeup line in 2018. It has been followed by VIP male beauty lines, such as Styles’s Pleasing and Idris Elba’s S’able Labs, which have already had an effect on how men in the UK view grooming.
Celebrity endorsement has helped on the high street too, with the appointment of male celebrities as ambassadors, such as Tom Daley for Rimmel, encouraging non-celeb men to experiment with their looks.
The impact may be incremental in the real world – the bulk of spending on beauty products and treatments is still made by women – but, said Michael, things are changing. “My friends know about my treatment routines and, even though they don’t share them, they totally accept it. But I can see change spreading around me: I’ve definitely noticed more older men at the nail salon in recent years. And why not? They’re just discovering what I realised years ago: that beauty treatments work.”
Male beauty enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes: John Gessler, a 60-year-old carer and Guardian reader from Barnsley, uses “a bit of moisturiser for my dry bits” and anticipates perhaps needing to adapt his routine in future by using “a bit more moisturiser”. Fernando López, a Guardian reader from Miami, on the other hand, uses a face scrub, eye cream, vitamin C serum and a twice-yearly Botox injection.
At the far end of the scale is 74year-old John King. King not only hasn’t washed his hair for more than 12 years but has, for the last five years, simply rinsed himself in the freezing rivers of Ardnamurchan in the Scottish Highlands.
“I use no soap or deodorant and I do not smell, even when I work hard cutting firewood,” said the former architect. “It was a revelation for me to realise that the whole cosmetic industry is based on a confidence trick. We simply do not need these products.”