The peacock-man cometh

Move over, pretty woman. The beautiful man has arrived. Today’s metrosexual male spends as much time prettifying himself and dressing up as the female of the species, discovers Ritusmita Biswas.

While she is becoming bold, he is becoming beautiful. As the modern Indian woman gears up to meet challenges in the corporate boardrooms, her counterpart, slowly but steadily, sheds his stereotyped traditional macho male role model and readies to explore the feminine world.

Meet the modern Indian metrosexual who has just discovered the joys of dressing up. This exfoliated, moisturised, tweezed, blow-dried and sweet smelling man, like the resplendent peacock, is keen to announce loudly that he can be as adventurous as ‘she’. He has, after all, tasted the forbidden fruit --the orange peel facial or the cucumber and clay face mask.

Men are dressing up like they have never done before, points out a global survey done by multinational advertising agency Euro RSCG. "The new age man has realised that it is not macho to be macho anymore and is keen to break the traditional male roles and explore the feminine world," the survey says.

So why should the new age Indian man want to be left behind? From regular visits to beauty parlours to patronising Clarins--a Paris based cosmetic company exclusively for men, or sporting sindoor as a fashion statement, he has done it all. In Bollywood today, the heroes are a game for kohl-lined eye like Abhisekh Bachhan in Mumbai se Aya Mera Dost or sport a sequined jacket like Shah Rukh in Kal Ho Naa Ho.

"Grooming is essential for both men and women. And since the past few years, Indian men have been as keen in presenting their well-groomed persona to public as Indian women. For well-dressed men, shaving or haircut had always been a necessity, but now a regular manicure and a pedicure are an absolute must," says Javed Habib, who runs Habibs, one of the most popular beauty salons for men across the country.

Officials at Sangam, a beauty parlour, agree that over the past few years, the number of men opting for facials or manicure have increased to a significant extent. "When the men’s section at Sangam opened about 15 years ago, most of our customers came in for a shave or a haircut. But now quite a number of them come in for beauty treatments as varied as eyebrow shaping to waxing or facials."

Today, men can opt for a wide range of beauty treatments, just like women, says Ajay Chakravarty of the Shahnaz for Men salon in Kolkata. The salon, which has branches all over the country, offers the same beauty treatments to men and women. "Even for men we have facials like the pearl or the gold facial, which are becoming increasingly popular. Eyebrows and threading of upper lip is now as essential to a well-groomed man as a shave or a haircut. After all, if given an option, who would like to have bushy eyebrows or joined eyebrows?" he counters.

Arindam Basu, who was indulging himself with a galvanic facial, corroborated Chakaravarty comment, saying that earlier it was considered effeminate for a men to groom themselves or dress up for an occasion. "But now the entire outlook has changed. A man has an equal right to make himself look good as a woman. And for me nothing is more relaxing than having a facial on a Sunday after a hectic week." Basu works in one of the hi-flying firms in the IT hub of the Salt Lake.

In this race to look good, professional compulsions also seem to have played a part. Basu’s friend Tuhinadri Roy affirmed that in Mumbai, most of his friends were regular visitors to the Shahnaz parlour. Roy works in the client servicing section of an international advertising agency in Mumbai. He pointed out that in metros like Mumbai, where there is cutthroat competition in every sector, it is a must for a man to be well- groomed in order to be successful. "Being well groomed gives me the cutting edge. I’m sure my clients won’t like to interact with a sales person who has dirty nails or smells awful. Besides, my hectic schedule leaves me little time for relaxation or grooming myself. Hence a visit to the parlour is a must," he said.

For professionals like Basu or Roy, hailing from middle-class families but holding plush jobs, shelling out Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 a month for the beauty regime is "money well spent." For the likes of Kamal Jeet Singh, Mumbai-based model, operating in an industry where looking good is mandatory, the monthly expenditure is often as high as Rs 4,000. "The John Wayne era of tough, hard-looking lover is gone. The new age women prefer men who are not only well dressed but well groomed. To keep with the times manicures have become a bare necessity for us," Singh says.

Beauty treatments have always been a must for male actors and models. What is interesting is that in the past few years it has become a regular part of the regime of the middle-class office goers. "Most young working men now visit a parlour and not the para saloon for a shave or haircut. The barber for them is now a stylist and more and more of them are experimenting with hair colours or dyes," says Kakoli Sengupta, who looks after a new unisexual beauty parlour.

Thus, the wedding season has seen the bookings in the men’s section getting almost as high as in the women’s section. The new age bridegroom "is worried about the smallest blemish in their face and is keen to find just the right concealer to hide it," according to Chakravarty. It is also a common practice for a bridegroom to have a manicure or even bleach his ring finger before the ring ceremony. The usual trend, however, is to go for the bridegroom package that comes at a moderate rate of Rs 1,500 or so which includes shaving, manicure, pedicure, a facial and a face bleach.

Ready for competition, ladies? TWF

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