Beauty tips every man should know

00:00 06:18

Lara Prendergast has narrated this article for you to listen to.

British men are getting into ‘beauty’. ‘Now it’s men’s turn to hog the bathroom,’ reports the Times, as spending increases 77 per cent year on year. Beauty industry types argue that all men should want to look more groomed, even Anglo-Saxons. What’s wrong with some light fluffing up here, a bit of patching up there?

It’s a lucrative business and celebrities are, of course, cashing in. Harry Styles flogs nail varnish; Idris Elba’s skincare line S’Able is ‘powered by modern science’. Even Richard E. Grant has a range of smellies, ‘an exploration of his lifelong love affair with scent’. It’s a long way from Marwood scrubbing essence of petunia into his boots to cover up the odour of lighter-fluid-induced vomit.

Times change and so must we. But the impression I get is that some men – coming to all these elixirs a bit later in life than most women – could do with a few pointers. It is easy to veer from the fresh-faced into the peculiar.

Hair: A note on hair dye. It can be obvious when a man starts dying his hair using equipment bought in a chemist. It comes out a flat, uniform colour, which looks unconvincing. The trick, as most women know, is to ask a hairdresser for highlights which hide the grey much better. The effect should be more Monet landscape than Yves Klein monochrome. It is worth noting, too, that grey hair on men looks dignified.

If your hair is falling out, adverts on the London Underground insist a trip to Harley Street or even Turkey is the best course of action, to have hair harvested from other parts of the body and replanted into the scalp.