Male Grooming, The Rise (and continued rise) of Male Vanity

I remember being an impressionable and possibly slightly awkward young undergraduate and having a conversation late at night with some guys who had come back to my room after the College bar had closed and we were drinking coffee.

The conversation drifted round to the fact that I had on my bedside cabinet a small bottle of Christian Dior “Eau Savage” (hey it was the seventies and I thought I was cool). One of my colleagues turned to the rest and announced in a very macho manner that he didn’t see the need for “any effeminate smells as he had no problem with getting girlfriends and basically they didn't see anything wrong with a good honest approach to smelling natural.”

OK, I could go for that, but it was only later that I noticed that any girlfriends the guy had usually had possessed on average more facial hair than he did so I guess he wasn’t too on the ball after all.

Listen its as old as time, after all weren’t two of the gifts brought by the Three Wise Men travelling from afar, precious scents – Frankincense and Myrrh?

The inescapable fact as far as the switched man of today is concerned is that it doesn’t really cut it with your lady friend to constantly go around smelling as if you have just come back from a “wrestling session with a woolly Mammoth”.

Guys you have to get real. Today’s man is actually not that much more different than those of old, it is just that instead, the art of good personal hygiene and body odour management is no longer the privilege of the “wealthy few” (and according to certain reports even they were not always as “fragrant as they thought they were”) and now is available to all and sundry – as long as you have the money to pay for it.

So it would certainly appear that nowadays “Vanity, thy name is also Man (as well as Woman)” and that in the cold hard financial stakes, the market for “male personal grooming” products is either fast catching up or surpassing in certain categories that of the more traditional markets for their female counterparts.

According to Dylan Jones (Editor of GQ Magazine) “The men’s grooming industry is still in its infancy but will be huge”.

Also according to industry analysts the male skincare market in the United Kingdom alone is worth £46 million a year and would you believe it that it is growing at an apparent rate of 13 percent per annum?

Companies are tripping over themselves to be represented in this marketplace and are coming up with one new vision and dream after another to gain market share.

The Shaver manufacturer, Remington has just launched a new “performance body hair trimmer” for guys who no longer think that resembling “a slightly mangy grizzly bear” works any more and would rather not spend the thousands necessary to have their body hair removed by laser treatment.

Remington’s marketing manager Kamal Grewall remarked that it was mainly “men between the ages of 20 and 40 who are much more interested in personal grooming”.

Not for much longer methinks. Why should we guys stop when we hit 40?

Stephen Morgan writes about a wide variety of subjects for the Internet and for more information on Male Grooming and especially
mens cologne especially then visit
http://www.perfectperfume.com