On-the-road post from Flagstaff, AZ:
The other day I was standing in a salon and noticed some styling products by Redken for Men. I realized they provide an excellent example of how, when companies try to convince men to buy things traditionally reserved for women (and thus marked feminine), they have to masculinize them. This is particularly true when it comes to beauty products, since men aren’t supposed to worry about things like their skin.
On the Redken website, the products are described as, “Focused technology for stronger hair and balanced scalp.” I’m not sure I’ve ever bought mousse or shampoo described to me as technology before. Notice how the names of these styling products attempt to make them seem manly:
Grip Tight gel.
Men maneuver things, like high-end cars and power tools. And their hair.
Don’t take dandruff lying down! Retaliate!
Tough = masculine.
Men work hard. So does their molding paste.
Bulk Up!
Be smarter and sportier than your hair.
Redken for Men’s gray-hair-covering service is not dye, it’s Color Camo.
It might be useful to compare images of products like these with this verse from the currently-popular country song “I’m Still a Guy,” by Brad Paisley:
These days there’s dudes getting facials
Manicured waxed and botoxed
But with deep spray on tans and creamy lotioney hands
You can’t grip a tackle box
With all of these men lining up to get neutered
It’s hip now to be feminized I don’t highlight my hair
I’ve still got a pair
Yeah, honey I’m still a guyMy eyebrows ain’t plucked
Theres a gun in my truck
Thank God I’m still a guy
I’ve driven from Vegas to Oklahoma and nearly back in the last 10 days. I’ve heard this song several times now.
Anyway, this could be good for a discussion of changing ideals of masculinity (and the idea of the metrosexual) or the gendering of products into men’s and women’s versions even though they’re really the same.
See also Touch of Gray hair dye and another set of beauty products for men.
UPDATE: In the comments, pharmacopaeia mentioned that the New Zealand salon Manscape caters to men and has to work to masculinize its services and products (starting with the name, obviously). Their tagline is “taking the ape out of the modern man.” They also offer clients cold beers while they get beautified. They offer a sports massage, “perfect for pre and post event training.” They reassure men about the eyebrow maintenance service by saying “Shape & tidy - there’s nothing girly about this!” The manicure (Man-I-Cure) is called Handy Work, and the pedicure is described as “manly.”
Thanks for letting us know, p.!
7 Comments
Hi, I’ve never commented before but I’ve followed your blog for a while.
This phenomenon of marketing cosmetics to men really interests me. Just recently I’ve noticed a campaign here in the UK which pushes a moisturiser for men promising to make men’s skin ‘tough’ and ‘resilient’. It features a close up of an aggressive looking guy with his hand up, as if he was a rugby player (an unassailably macho sport here!) Its on a lot of bus stop stands here and I’ll try and take a picture to send next time I see one.
I suspect its probably the same product as they sell to women, only this time you buy it in a chunky black, squeezable tube instead of a pearly pink pot. With a blocky, bold typeface logo of course.
I can’t decide if that song is funny, or just very, very, very sad. Gender is a social construct - not a secondary sex characteristic! Messing with gender stereotypes will not magically make one’s balls disappear! It puts masculinity on an unstable platform. What would happen to manly men if suddenly all women stopped primping and preening and grabbed a tackle box? How would they define themselves? This kind of mind-set also puts a lot of pressure on men to 1) still be physically attractive, “burliness” being a part of said attractiveness, and 2) to do so without putting in any effort or even caring about attractiveness whatsoever. i.e., they must be naturally good-looking. Women, however, are allowed to mutilate (botox, surgery), tweeze, and cover themselves with paint in order to reach the ideal.
Maybe it’s time we started embracing the natural beauty of all people. What would happen women stopped tweezing their eyebrows and threw out their makeup?
Missing my new fav: Jack Black Beard Lube (though this one seems somewhat tongue-in-cheek)
Also the equally ridiculous “AXE Detailer Shower Tool”
“Maybe it’s time we started embracing the natural beauty of all people. What would happen women stopped tweezing their eyebrows and threw out their makeup?”
Some other standard would be found to judge people. Same goes for men. Either it’s big burliness that defines you or makes you attractive or it’s something else; either way you’re going to be submitted to some standard. You, as an individual, might fare better under one or the other, but there will be someone else who doesn’t.
New boss, meet the old boss. Would those new standards be better/worse? Would a greater/smaller number of people be judged negatively? That’s an open question.
This reminds me a little of a local men’s boutique, “Manscape” (http://www.manscape.co.nz/) - tagline: ‘taking the ape out of the modern man’. The indication that good grooming is more ‘evolved’ sits with little asides throughout the site that there is nothing ‘girly’ about the products and services offered. The Man-icures are called ‘handy work’, their pedicures are deemed ‘foot maintenance’. The overall impression is that such grooming, normally a highly feminised thing, is masculine, assertive, and superior, never minding of course that regular treatments financially require the recipient to be of a certain socioeconomic status…
Yeah - my intro to wgs studies students have done some great analyses of beauty products over the years highlighting some of this stuff. For example, they have found that “masculine” products often pitch men’s bodies as machines or as urban warriors, with the products as tools or ammunition. Women’s bodies are often treated as mortal, frail and extensions of nature; the feminine products are pitched as the vital link between women and nature with a burst of technology to replace what was washed away by age. It has only gotten worse and more blatant and homophobic.
Garnier are currently running a campaign for both teenage boys (random sk8er dudes) and older men (Pierce Brosnan) on TV right now and what is noticeable is that the tag line at the end is spoken using a man’s voice as opposed to a woman’s: “Garnier, take care”. Sorry but could not find an online clip.
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