What are you doing in there?” So shouts my wife after I’ve spent getting on for 40 minutes in the bathroom. “I’m, er, exfoliating,” I call back merrily, while walking my fingers along the pots and potions crowding the windowsill. Holy Saint Francis, as Friar Laurence puts it in Romeo and Juliet, what a change is here!
And not just here: men’s beauty products — moisturisers supposedly optimised for male skin and sold in butch-yet-metrosexual tubs in science-fictional silvers and blacks — have been undergoing a boom. According to Mintel, sales of men’s skincare products rose last year to £95.1m, up from £85.4m in 2012, and are forecast to reach £96.2m in 2014. Men also appear to be hell-bent on not just washing but “cleansing”, not just rubbing but “gently massaging”, on introducing the skin not just to water, but to a very superior scientific product called “aqua” And — that holy grail, that precise incantation marking the line where the marketing departments of cosmetics companies fought the Advertising Standards Authority to a standstill — on “reducing the appearance of wrinkles”. The comforting idea that, as men age, they become more attractive seems not to be endorsed here; anti-ageing is the thing. The holy trinity of Tom Ford’s bumf, for instance, is: “Deep clean, soothe and rejuvenate.”
My grooming regime used to consist of the following. Get into shower. Rub head and shoulders with Head & Shoulders, yodelling happily the while. Rub rest of self with Head & Shoulders too, owing to Boots not yet offering for sale a competitively-priced product called Armpits & Undercarriage. Step from the shower, dandruff-free from top to toe. Towel hair and body. Shave with slightly blunt razor and squirt of Gillette foam. Rinse face. Get dressed.