Once upon a time, man grooming was limited to constructing a loincloth that would effectively house the family jewels during hunting exhibitions.

Fast-forward thousands of years and men are paying professionals to rip out all the hair surrounding said area.

No longer just the domain of women, Brazilians are now a favourite of men (gay and straight). And that’s not the only extreme in man grooming options.

The new tanorexics

Last spring, Jean Paul Gaultier launched Monsieur – a line of make-up for men – while every paparazzi snap of teen idol Zac Efron begs the question: “Is that dude addicted to spray tanning?”.

Quite possibly. But even lower levels of male adjustments – say, eyebrow plucking or obsessive use of hair products – can be a little frightening.

Scarier still is the chance that, at this very moment, a man you love, or have loved, slept with, or will sleep with, is slathering on some La Mer and, most likely, looking prettier than you.

Natural beauty

As women, we’ve long had the option (or, perhaps, the obligation) to cover up a pimple with concealer, to tweeze two brows from one, to spend an obscene amount of time, money and blow-dryer power to get our hair just right.

Yet, we want – and expect – our guys to be natural beauties; the female equivalent of that annoying friend whose hair just happens to be thick and shiny and perfect when she rolls out of bed; the one who never learnt to apply make-up because she never needed it.

So, perhaps man grooming is just the latest, oddest challenge to traditional gender roles. Of course, women can now do the asking out, guys can stay home and raise
the kids, plus, it seems, real men can wear bronzer and foundation.

How much is too much?

But, with all this male beauty work, as with Madonna’s muscle mass and MTV reality shows, we must ask ourselves: how much is too much?

Man grooming isn’t a total turn-off though. Like drinking tequila or dancing to ’80s music, it’s typically all right in moderation.

We want someone who feels, smells and looks good, but we don’t want him to have spent hours at the salon getting that way. Taking care of oneself is sexy – vanity is not.

That’s something women have long had to remind themselves of amid cosmetic chaos. Now, it seems, it’s something we have to remind our boyfriends of as well.