Between going back to class and getting selected as a grand jury alternate last week, I couldn’t find the time to address last week’s Times article about the rise of cosmetic use among a certain class of men.
The Dude has his vanities, fer sure, but I don’t know that he’s rarin’ to buy or use “brow groomer” or “corrector.” Certainly I’ve heard him bemoan his pallor or whatever, I don’t know that he’s even ever thought about cosmetics–of the face-painting variety–as an option. Most guys don’t, I would imagine, although I had a friend whose fresh-scrubbed Aryan looks turned smoldering with the addition of a little guyliner. (His verdict: okay for debauched all night dance parties, inappropriate for anything else. My verdict: ROWR.)
The incompatibility of vanity and masculinity–itself a relatively recent phenomenon–seems to be eroding as quickly as new, masculine portMANteaus (see what I did there?) can be coined: mandals, manpris, mirdles, manbags (menbag?), mansturizer, manscara…
I see this not as a triumph of gender equity, but of commercialization/corporate dominance. Not content with destroying the self-esteem of slightly more than half the population, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, and it’s unsavory brethren have turned their sites on the dudes. Which, really, is only sensible, since they’re still pulling down more money than we ladies.
To do this, of course, they’ve had to butch up the products’ design (sleek black, charcoal, and/or silver packaging seems common) and description (“body detailer” rather than “shower pouf,” and my favorite: “lip agent,”) and make appeals based on traditionally masculine roles like breadwinner or ladykiller, but this is primarily about vanity, regardless of how it’s framed, as in this quote:
“Women use cosmetic products to beautify, but men have a totally different approach and totally different goals,” said Mr. Hewryk [founder of a men's cosmestics company], who holds degrees in applied chemistry and biology. “Men use cosmetic products in order to cover up or correct imperfections, not to enhance beauty.”
Correcting imperfections /= Enhancing beauty. Mmm-hmm.
I’ve not been surprised to see gender-benders, moneyed elites (those assholes can get away with anything), edgy youth and/or insecure teens use these products (a guy I sat next to in nearly every class in high school for alphabetical reasons was clearly buying the tinted zit cream marketed to me) but plumbers reaching for anti-aging cream? Lumberjacks and bus drivers applying undereye concealer? Maybe someday, but I don’t know that cosmantics, which seem to be rather pricey, will gain a foothold at least until the economy starts to recover (for real, with jobs and protections for the working and middle class). For now, it seems to be an affectation for the already-affected.
To be clear: I don’t have a problem with men buying and using cosmetics on gender-based grounds. I dig androgyny. I’m even curious to see how, or if, this changes the rhetoric surrounding women’s purported vanity (uh-oh, I smell fresh bickering over who gets space in front of the mirror!). Is this the birth of a new field of competition in the gender wars? Will this result in increased sympathy and ultimately rejection of lady-make-up (please, please!)? What about product safety? As men become consumers, will testing, labelling, and regulation get more rigorous? What does it all meeeeaan?
So men can now experience what it’s like never to be good enough? I wonder if they’ll learn anything.
But, as we learned earlier this week, bodies really aren’t what we should be focusing on, right? *rolls eyes*
It means that soon, only the puppies will be happy with their bodies and their appearances.
I confess, in high school, I always felt a little sorry for the boys who didn’t have the option of using concealer on their zits or powder on their shiny foreheads. I know my male friends agonized over their skin too.
But until dudes believe it’s their obligation to look as attractive as possible in all situations in order to attract the opposite sex…there will never be full make-up parity.
My brother who came out in grad school started stealing some of my foundation to to cover zits in middle school. Granted, bad cystic acne ran in the family, but he was the only one of the boys to use makeup to cover his.
I do think GBQ men / male identified people are sometimes more open to playing with makeup without it being a “girl” “boy” issue, which I think is awesome. I think makeup SHOULD be for fun across all gender identities. Not the rigid “for females” “not for males” prevailing paradigm we’ve got going right now.
I used to teach men how to apply make up and use cosmetics when I was working as a make up artist. This was 5 or 6 years ago when no one had ever used the word manscara or guyliner…and these men were crazy for make up.
Most of my clients were city traders who needed to hide the evidence of heavy nights out, long days on the floor and a generally unhealthy lifestyle. Others included a gent in his 70s, a rockbilly boy with a massive quiff and a load of average dads.
Where my female clients worried about looking natural and weraing too much make up, the men had to be forcibly stopped from wearing more and more.
Years of worrying about lines, acne, beard rash and other skin complaints had left them neurotic. They wanted to know how to hide embarrassing blemishes and not feel as if their skin was on fire from shaving. They wanted to hide a shiny head from a receding hairline and how to get rid of eye bags. They all felt judged on their appearance, usually by women, often by bosses and were envious that women had permission to wear stuff that covers the flaws up. They were so excited to hide their problems and look perfect.
Maybe the flipside is that they discovered nothing is ever good enough when you start drinking the beauty industry Kool Aid, but that’s why I taught all my clients not to believe the hype, but how to be sceptical and see the industry for what it is and what you want from it.
I’d hate to think gender equality involves eventually making men feel crappy about themselves all the time too. Shouldn’t we be working on making women feel more like men, not the other way round?
gherkin: Fascinating! That sounds like the seed for an article or book or something.
And although I don’t know if I wanna feel like a man (about what?), I don’t think undermining them with “hey there, oldy/ugly/zitty!” adverts is a net gain.