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Male Beauty Ri0tuals

Skin Deep

When we think about beauty rituals, primping, and preening, we generally don’t think of men. The last few decades have witnessed a rise in awareness and social acceptance for male grooming and pampering. Many men have routines that include spa visits, waxing, manicures and pedicures, and even male cosmetics.

By 2022, the global personal care market for men is forecast to soar to $166 billion (Allied Market Research).

Men in South Korea spend more on skin care than gents in any other region of the world. Beyond skin care, they’re snapping up hair care and color cosmetics, including compacts with tinted moisturizer. Men are featured in mascara ads in Brazil—a country obsessed with beauty. Male-centric spas have popped up in glam-centric cities such as New York and Los Angeles, but also in less expected destinations like Minneapolis.

While male cosmetics and primping may seem like an emerging market that targets “metrosexuals” (heterosexual men who are tuned into fashion and grooming), there’s a long line of men before them who also indulged in beauty.

In ancient Egypt, men used kohl to enhance their eyes. They believed that cosmetics would protect them from the gods. In Afghanistan, men still use kohl for these purposes. In ancient Egypt and Rome, men used perfume.

In literature, there are myriad male characters or “dandies” who were preoccupied with their physical appearances. Beyond their attention to fashion and grooming, they used refined language and enjoyed leisurely hobbies. In Sartor Resartus, Thomas Carlyle writes:

A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that the others dress to live, he lives to dress. (p. 247)

One of the most notable dandies of all time is George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (1795-1820), who was a friend of the Prince Regent—who was later crowned King George IV. In The Beaux and the Dandies, Clare Jerrold Armstrong Bridgman writes: “The most notable was George Bryan Brummell, he whose devotion to appearance was such that it is impossible to conceive of him doing any work in the world dissociated from it” (p. 11).

Beau Brummel’s fascination with fashion is mentioned in Billy Joel’s “It’s Still Rock & Roll to Me.” Joel croons, “How about a pair of pink sidewinders and a bright orange pair of pants?, Well, you could really be a Beau Brummel, baby if you just give it half a chance.” Fashion house Antonio Puig also has a men’s fragrance under the Brummel label.

The lead character in Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin is another fine example. Pushkin writes:

And my Eugene was free at last,
A London dandy safely classed
His hair cut neatly a la mode,
Into society he rode.
French he spoke and wrote with ease,
Danced the mazurka deftly too,
Bowed to each acquaintance new,
Did all that was required to please. (p. 8)

By Regina Molaro