The New Men's Grooming

Within the past several years there has been an upsurge in interest in men’s skin care and shaving. This fairly new phenomena gained ground with the emergence of the metrosexual a few years back and since then has had a steadily growing appeal across the board for all types of men. All of a sudden, men are actually interested in their appearance and creating a skin care regimen. Men want to look good and that includes their skin. Pop culture has helped increase awareness in this area tremendously because of openness of many Hollywood male stars about their own “beauty” regimens and treatments.

The industry has noticed and taken and active interest and role in providing men with new and innovative products for their growing grooming needs. From high end products to drugstore brands, men now have plenty of choices. However, the question remains whether men are actually buying the products. The unequivocal answer is yes. The men’s sector of the overall beauty business has been enjoying steady double digit growth yearly.

Of course, lest we forget the law of supply and demand. By the number of new men’s skin care companies that have steadily cropped up over the past several years as well as already established women’s cosmetic brands adding a men’s division, there is definitely a high demand and an equally high supply.

However with huge number of new companies cropping up, how does one make the right choice? Men’s only skin care lines offer many advantages for the consumer such as an R&D department totally devoted to creating solely men’s grooming products. This means that they can afford to use high quality ingredients that have been thoroughly researched and proven to work specifically for man’s skin type. As opposed to more established women’s skin care lines that just added a men’s line with a percentage of their R&D department devoted to it and may not have the specific knowledge about men‘s skin care needs. One must understand that although a lot of the ingredients are the same for both men’s and women’s’ skin care products, the concentration of these ingredients is very different and that is where the knowledge part comes in. Do not assume that if one can create and effective product for a woman, one can do the same for a man.
Nevertheless, do not count these companies out. Their men’s products have proven to be highly effective and the same high quality as their original women’s counterparts. This has shown to be the case in the continuous increase in women’s lines getting into the men’s skin care market.

What does all this mean to the end consumer? It means plenty of choices. Men’s only lines have an advantage of creating customer loyalty because they only cater to men and that creates trust. However, the more established women’s brands already have name recognition and familiarity. A guy will see these brands on their wife’s or girlfriends vanity and then see that same brand in the store but now with a men’s line and will want to buy it because of these factors.

The bottom line is that men now have many brands and products to choose from to fit any style and budget for their skin care, shaving and grooming needs.



Michael Walsh is the owner of http://www.ShopLOLEX.com, an ecommerce website that offers men's skin care, grooming and shaving products as well as male grooming advice, tips and articles.