Monday 20 August 2007

The reason men don't do skin care

For a little while now I've been a test dummy for some of Deb's skin care products, and I've developed a theory on why men don't use anything like that. Reason one is that it's too girly, but besides that, I have another theory.

Skin care products are too fiddly. You have to wet your face, smear on this one product, wipe it off with a warm towel, put this other product on a cotton ball and wipe that all over your face and so on. It's just too much to bother with every day. It might be okay if it was like a fixed term prescription that you do for three weeks and then you're fine, but it's once or twice a day for the rest of your life. As men, we can't imagine that's the easiest way. Someone, somewhere must be optimising this whole process.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know there are products in "soap bar" configurations for men.
PPS - That's the kind of thing we need.

5 comments:

Erin Marie said...

Yeah it's fiddly, but it's your skin.

If someone told you that you had to go through some kind of fiddly process in order to keep your liver healthy for the rest of your life, you'd do it, right?

It's the same kind of thing.

Anyway - guys do fiddly things all the time! Putting together furniture, computers, cars...

I guess the difference is that it's not really so much of a priority of guys. If a girl looks 30 at age 40, then it's extremely good. If a guy does, then it's *shrug*.

It doesn't seem fair, but I guess them's the breaks.

John said...

If someone told you that you had to go through some kind of fiddly process in order to keep your liver healthy for the rest of your life, you'd do it, right?

I thought most people did the exact opposite of keeping their liver healthy...

And, yes, a guy looking slightly younger than he is would actually be a bit of a disadvantage, especially if he's 20 or so. We don't want to look young, we want to feel young.

Anonymous said...

Ah the benefits of being allowed to look rugged!

I still stand by my original position though, that the beauty industry is propped up by the feminine side of the species, rather than the masculine side as the usual female retort of "But we do this to look good for you!" suggests.

I know Julia looks fantastic regardless. I agree that there are benefits in skin care, however their needs to be an understanding that affection stems from within, not whether your face has the appearance of chiseled marble!

Back to John's comments though... There are products that are based on product substitute rather than product addition. Using a face wash instead of normal soap, using a particular shaving gel instead of the usual soap/cream, using an aftershave balm instead of aftershave with alcohol.

End of Transmission: Rant Over.

John said...

Product substitution is definitely appealing, as long as the products are suitably branded. That may be the hardest part of the process.

Anonymous said...

I've found a brand called Natio that I originally got at Myer, although I have seen it in a number of chemists of late. I use the Face Wash daily, and substitute it for a scrub once a week (sounds nancy like, but it is more effective than saying "somthing with little bits of good dirt in it").

There is also a aftershave balm that is quite good, as well as a shaving gel, but I haven't found the gel quite as useful. I tend to use straight sorbolene (sic) myself.