Here comes the pampered groom

“Groom­ing” must have seemed like a com­par­a­tive­ly macho euphemism for “men’s beau­ty” when the cos­met­ics indus­try first noticed that men were in want of an aes­thet­ic over­haul back in the Nineties.

Yet, if once it con­jured up images of dogs show­ing off in their shiny coats, it’s a moniker that’s not only stuck, but has grown to encom­pass the mois­turis­ers, scrubs, roll-on eye serums and all man­ner of prod­ucts that now make up the Mintel-esti­mat­ed £805-mil­lion UK groom­ing indus­try.

Today’s groom­ing cus­tomer is nei­ther the dom­i­nant alpha male of old, nor the myth­i­cal met­ro­sex­u­al of the ear­ly Noughties. He’s decid­ed­ly nor­mal. “Mr Aver­age” now uses a post-shave mois­tur­iz­er, and in recent years, the lan­guage employed by mar­ket­ing gurus has tak­en a cal­cu­lat­ed approach of fus­ing sci­ence and psy­chol­o­gy to snare his pur­chase.

Where women respond to mes­sages that appeal to their self-esteem – the 2011 40-year anniver­sary of L’Oréal’s “Because you’re worth it” is tes­ti­mo­ny to the suc­cess of this approach – men are more recep­tive to the kind of tech­ni­cal jar­gon employed by Black & Deck­er. The inher­ent­ly pow­er­ful lan­guage of sci­ence allows men to take an inter­est in groom­ing with­out feel­ing emas­cu­lat­ed.

Deodor­ants are put through their paces on Saha­ran ultra-marathons before they make it into the aver­age man’s gym bag. Sure adhere to a mes­sage of high endurance, while L’Oréal Men Expert’s Invin­ci­ble 96 Hours Deodor­ant all but elim­i­nates the need to show­er com­plete­ly. Gillette razors are dreamt up by the brains once respon­si­ble for nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems at British Aero­space, while men’s sham­poos are sold on the basis of their pow­er to spur fol­li­cles into action and help men regain the man­ly mop of their youth.

Yet it’s skin­care that, accord­ing to Mintel, is prov­ing to be one of the fastest grow­ing sec­tors in the groom­ing indus­try, account­ing for 25 per cent of the prof­it pie and gen­er­at­ing sales of an esti­mat­ed £123 mil­lion.

The 2012 man is seduced by high-tech, high-ener­gy mois­turis­ers with “tur­bo boost­er” prop­er­ties that promise instant results. Bio­therm Homme’s High Recharge Ener­gy prod­ucts are a pop­u­lar choice and L’Oréal Men Expert have turned up the vol­ume on the anti-fatigue Hydra Ener­getic range with the new Hydra Ener­getic X‑Treme. The mes­sage is less about beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and more about per­for­mance: work hard, play hard, groom hard.

As the sta­ple diet of ded­i­cat­ed gym rats, endurance-boost­ers, such as caf­feine, cre­a­tine and car­ni­tine, are already famil­iar to men who take their work­outs seri­ous­ly. It fol­lows that groom­ing prod­ucts that are mar­ket­ed on the basis of con­tain­ing sim­i­lar ingre­di­ents will dri­ve sales. Nivea For Men have a patent­ed mix of cre­a­tine and Coen­zyme Q10 in their Ener­gy facial gels and balms, while Clinique’s Anti-Fatigue Eye Gel com­bines caf­feine with a steel roller ball to min­imise post-hang­over puffi­ness.

With the wealth of prod­ucts now avail­able, the chal­lenge fac­ing the indus­try is to equip the male con­sumer with the knowl­edge to select the right serum, balm, mois­turis­er and scrub – then use them in the right order.

The inher­ent­ly pow­er­ful lan­guage of sci­ence allows men to take an inter­est in groom­ing with­out feel­ing emas­cu­lat­ed

One approach is to colour-code prod­ucts accord­ing to their func­tion. Anoth­er is it to offer cus­tomers a numer­i­cal step-by-step guide. Lab Series, one of the most pop­u­lar “masstige” men’s brands, under­went a dra­mat­ic makeover in 2007, replac­ing its orig­i­nal mono­chro­mat­ic pack­ag­ing with a colour-cod­ed sys­tem that broke the exten­sive range down into four user-friend­ly cat­e­gories: clean (light blue), shave (green), treat (dark blue) and hair/ body (red). Both Nivea For Men and L’Oréal Men Expert dif­fer­en­ti­ate between their pop­u­lar ener­gis­ing and sen­si­tive ranges with con­trast­ing colour­ways.

Such sim­pli­fi­ca­tion always pays off, if only because the male psy­che is eas­i­ly frus­trat­ed by too many choic­es. While woman are well-versed in the lan­guage of prod­ucts, a man requires direct, straight­for­ward com­mu­ni­ca­tion that spells out “exact­ly what it says on the tin”. The female con­sumer may be hap­py to go the extra mile to find the lat­est and great­est “mir­a­cle” mois­turis­er, but make the process too lengthy and a man will give up on the idea of groom­ing before he’s even start­ed.

When it comes to men’s treat­ments, reviv­ing the tried-and-test­ed con­cept of the tra­di­tion­al bar­ber­shop has proved fruit­ful. Yet, accord­ing to Olivi­er Bon­nefoy, founder and direc­tor of groom­ing empo­ri­um Gentlemen’s Ton­ic, the days of just get­ting a short back and sides are long gone. Clev­er­ly mar­ket­ed treat­ments include their “Hem­ing­way” that com­bines a Bloody Mary with an aro­mather­a­py facial and mas­sage for those that have had “a heavy night of drink­ing and bull fight­ing”.

For more spe­cial­ist require­ments, the alter­na­tive is book­ing in with a der­ma­tol­o­gist or facial­ist. Laud­ed skin expert Abi­gail James, whose bag of tricks includes male-friend­ly peels, LED light, micro-needling and elec­tri­cal micro-cur­rents, had the fore­sight to set up shop in Lomax, a high-end Lon­don gym where male cus­tomers indulge in Spar­tan war­rior-style work­outs and live off pro­tein shakes before pass­ing through the in-house clin­ic for a skin-smooth­ing facial. After all, the kind of man who pays that much atten­tion to his body will inevitably be just as keen to use the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy on his face.

Day spas and resorts, espe­cial­ly those in the Far East, Mid­dle East and US, are also doing a brisk trade among male clients. “Our male busi­ness is grow­ing steadi­ly in those ter­ri­to­ries. In Chi­na and Hong Kong, for exam­ple, 40 per cent of our cus­tomers are men,” says Susan Harmsworth, chief exec­u­tive of ESPA, who notes that men’s demands vary from coun­try to coun­try. “Asian men pre­fer a very strong mas­sage and don’t like ‘fluff’,” she says. “Man­i­cures and pedi­cures are pop­u­lar in the Mid­dle East and all men love Ham­mam when it’s done well.”

We may yet be years away from “guy­lin­er” being a social­ly accept­able norm, but one thing’s for sure, the groom­ing indus­try is in no way going to the dogs.