Beauty gets a gender-bender

Alexander Fury

Does skin have gender? It’s something much of the beauty industry has spent several years (and countless millions) trying to convince us of. It’s responsible for the soaring popularity in men’s grooming, on top of a female-specific market worth over £1 billion in the UK alone. Male-orientated products make up just 5 per cent of the global skincare market, according to market research group NPD, based on retailers including John Lewis, Boots, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Debenhams and The Perfume Shop and covering beauty brands including Clinique, Crème De La Mer, Estée Lauder, Chanel and Clarins. “What’s really interesting is the opportunity within the men’s market of premium beauty,” said June Jensen, Executive Director of NPD, back in 2013, citing that percentile difference as “big potential to boost the number of products for men.”

But what if those products already exist? Because while unisex is touted as the next big thing in the wardrobe, it’s been going on in the bathroom for years. Men have been filching everything from regular moisturiser to specifics like concealer (Yves Saint Laurent’s Touché Éclat, specifically) from their wives and girlfriends - a survey by Escentual.com estimated that men were costing female partners £230 a year to replace “borrowed” skin-care. That flies in the face of other research, asserting that men’s skin is fundamentally different to women’s - that the former is oilier, hairier, all-round thicker and ages differently.

Then again, isn’t everyone’s skin different? “We do not present our collections by gender but by specific need and skin benefit,” says Greg Prodromides, chief marketing officer of La Prairie - the premium skincare line whose cult “skin caviar” sells for just shy of £300 a pop. Apparently, to men. “We know from our beauty advisors that for instance a lot of men are aficionados of our Skin Caviar collection,” continues Prodromides. “The light scent of several of our products, as well as their refined texture make them “wearable” for both men and women…. and I have to say that there is something masculine in the Swiss design of our packaging: simple, sleek, technical.”

La Prairie does not offer a specific menswear line (although Prodromides doesn’t rule it out), but reasons that pure fiction can appeal to both sexes. It’s something parroted by numerous other brands - Crème de la Mer, for example, whose website has a section denoting “Men’s Essentials” but is made up of products otherwise sold as part of their ostensible women line. “La Mer is a line for everyone. For young and old. For men and women,” states Loretta Miraglia, the brand’s senior vice president for Product Development and Innovation. “La Mer is not designed specifically for a man or a woman – it’s designed for transformation.”

Crème de la Mer was one of the original cross-over brands men took to lifting from women in the late nineties - hence the fact the line highlights its applications in a male grooming regime. “The renewal oil is a great product for a man,” reasons Miraglia. “It instantly calms and comforts the skin, aiding in post-shave recovery … additionally, as a grooming aid, it’s an excellent product to help maintain healthy-looking skin in between shaves, especially for guys who like to wear a scruffy look.” Shaving is, by and large, the biggest difference between male and female beauty regimes, bar make-up. It’s also the driving force behind male-specific cosmetics - shaving accoutrements (albeit including blades) made up 40% of total men’s grooming revenue in 2012, growing annually by 8% globally.