Just a few a few years ago, most men thought that the term ’skin care’ had nothing to do with them. Skin care was seen as involving all manner of practices, some quite painful, done by the women folk in a bid to look attractive. Any man who showed even the slightest active interest in skin care was promptly branded ’sissy’ and shunned by other men.
The view that skin care is exclusively a woman’s thing has thankfully been largely done away with in the last few decades, and so much so that skin care product makers are now even making skin care products targeted wholly on men, with the number of such skin care products for men now outnumbering the skin care products for women in some outlets!
Yet the idea of skin care for men still attracts discomfort in some quarters - with one quite influential school of thought in men forums still holding the view that men should have nothing to do with ’skin care,’ which is perhaps a deluded view, as many things like ‘washing one’s face in the morning’ or ‘wearing shoes on the feet’ still fall within the confines of the term ’skin care.’ What this school of thought refers to when arguing that skin care practices are not masculine though are probably the so-called ‘advanced skin care practices’ like exfoliation and other types of cleansing. Still, the ideas of this school of thought can be confusing to the ‘ordinary’ man whose thinking it is seeking to influence, and whom the media and the makers of skin care products are also seeking to influence by arguing that the modern man has to ‘take care of how he looks’ if he is to be successful in this day and age.
Confused as to which point of view to follow - between making skin care a preoccupation and taking absolutely no care of their physical appearance - many men are opting to follow the path of moderation, namely taking some reasonably good care of their skin, but not making skin care a preoccupation - and for most men this seems to be the wisest route to follow.
The modern man sees the point in taking good skin care (if only to appear presentable for social and professional reasons), but he also doesn’t want to engage in skin care practices that could see his masculinity and male identity brought into question.
Of course, the evolution of skin care for men is likely to witness major shifts in the coming days, as the skin comes to be rightfully viewed as the ‘biggest body organ’ it is really is, and as the term ’skin care’ comes to be more associated with health maintenance than with appearance-enhancement.
