Why do girls wear perfume and make-up? Because they smell and they’re ugly.
That was a joke! And a damn funny one too, huh?! They say that the humour in jokes come from the inherent truth disguised as fiction within the light-hearted quips, and in a lot of cases that’s rather true. See, sniff any girl you know and she probably smells as sweet as a rose on a sunny day, but step inside a boy’s bedroom and you’ll know the crippling funk that only a man can emit; so it’s easy to take it for granted that all girls smell lovely and boys stink of shit. And we all happily go through our lives thinking that’s just the natural order of things, just like how boys love the smell of their hands after they’ve scratched their boys and girls love the smell of their own pussy juice. But what an oversight! Use your brain for once you moron!! Of course girls don’t look and smell so nice and pretty as a matter of nature, they have to work for it, fucko. If you’ve got it, flaunt it… show what ya mama gave ya… Yep, those phrases apply to you too now, boyo. Welcome to the world of ‘male grooming’.
I went to a fashion thing a couple of weeks ago where the woman talking to us was joking about how fucking clueless guys who don’t groom themselves are, like ‘oh my god, can you believe some luddites still don’t even moisturise??’. Everyone laughed, but I didn’t really know what was so funny. Afterwards I was in conversation with someone and tried to laugh off the ‘luddite’ label attached to me moments earlier. I admitted that I only use Cussons Imperial Leather in the shower and don’t even use shampoo. They were pretty disgusted and suggested I try some proper ‘products’ as I ‘really should’… I took this to be the equivalent of being told that my breath stinks and I stink like I’ve been smearing meat pies over my naked body on a hot day, and started thinking about buying something to burn away my sinful odour.
I’d always been put off taking part in this kind of shit because I thought the whole ‘metrosexual’ thing was for dumb northerners who otherwise wouldn’t wash at all. Plus, wearing a thin cardigan, bleaching you hair and shaving slits into your eyebrow might be alright for guys who work in Dixons, but it didn’t seem like something I’d be. All of this made me think that male grooming is the worst idea in the world but, for whatever reasons, I’ve had to accept that male grooming is a lot less about pretending to the casual observer that you’re gay, and a lot more about making sure that you avoid really ugly sights, like having flakes of dry skin all over your face on a cold day.
The problem is, however much it might be a good idea to keep a decent level of personal hygiene and make sure you’re looking ‘your best’, the forces behind male grooming products still manage to fuck it up, and make you not want to buy their stuff. But why?
1. For a start, they give things really shit names and make it more confusing.
I don’t know anything about how to treat my skin, but what I do know I’ve learnt from listening in to girls’ conversations. They exfoliate, they moisturise, they put make up on, and if they’re really panicked they might do a few extra things like use anti-aging cream on their ‘crows feet’ (the cute lines that effectively act as big arrows directing you to look into their eyes). So it follows that if I’m going to start a beauty regime, I’m going to look for something to ‘exfoliate’ with, and then something to ‘moisturise’ with. Only, the companies try to butch these products up so it doesn’t sound like you’re using the same products as girls. They call things ‘Turbo Booster’ and ‘High Energy’, which only succeeds in confusing the fuck out of me – and leave me with no idea where these things fit in on the feminine process of skincare. The worst product for this is L’Oreal Expert Hydra Energetic Ice Cool eye roll (with vitamin E and DHA). Can anyone decipher behind all the super-macho buzzwords what the fuck this product does?? It’s like they’re trying to get one over on you by pretending that you’re a clueless James Bond and they’re a really clever Q showing you loads of top secret tools that you don’t understand how to work. Well, I’ve got news for you l’Oreal, men don’t give a fuck about the buzzwords you pepper your crappy face scrubs with, it only confuses us (just like the idiots in the background of a James Bond scene causing havoc by playing around with the secret spy tools).
2. They’re really expensive
I know it’s wrong to gripe about this when girls pay so much for their beauty products, but at least they can steal eyeliner and lipstick from Boots. All the male products come in big macho sized bottles, so they’re impossible to slip up your sleeve. I’d much rather wait and steal some of my girlfriend’s than pay £5 on a face gel.
3. They make out men are drunk all the time
Rather than make out that male grooming products are to make you look prettier, the manufacturers try to appeal to that James Bond element again and pretend grooming products only exist to help you conceal some terrible secret about how much of a party animal you are. Everything is to ‘high energise tiredness from your eyes’ or some shit, so you can keep on raving really late, and stay up all night shagging birds… Or hide your playboy lifestyle from your boss (who probably thinks you look tired because you were just staying up late with a few mates smoking poor quality skunk – the sucker!!).
So anyways, I guess my point is that whilst few would argue that cleaning yourself isn’t a good idea, but it’s still got a really long way to go before it’s not still the most embarrassing process a man can subject himself too. Or something like that.
