'Skincare For Men' Shields Men From The Massive, Manipulative World of Women's Skincare

A guest column from Jared Holst of Brands Mean A Lot.

“Branding is how information is framed, repackaged, and delivered,” says Jared Holst, writer of newsletter Brands Mean a Lot. His work analyzes how corporate branding shapes culture — see: how Dawn normalized the climate crisis, how toy companies became Hollywood stars — and today, in a guest column for The Unpublishable, he’s taking on the rapidly expanding and seemingly inclusive men’s skincare market. Below, Holst reveals how gendered skincare lines reinforce sexist tropes and “shield men from the universe of women’s skincare products.”

-Jessica

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'Skincare For Men' Shields Men From The Massive, Manipulative World of Women's Skincare

by Jared Holst

Most days, and by most days I mean when I remember, I put on my BcomBIO Homme 2 in 1 facial moisturizer and facial energizer. The bottle is industrial black, with blue and white lettering — a stark contrast to the purple Olay Night Cream that I also only sometimes remember to apply. I share a Jack and Jill bathroom with my girlfriend and only one of these two products sits in the middle of our two sinks, while the other sits staunchly on my side. It’s unclear to me how the product energizes my face. I also don’t really understand how it moisturizes. What is easy to understand is that it is for me, the man of the house.

The market for men’s skincare products is large, and only growing larger. The sector is expected to reach nearly $19 billion by 2027 with a growth rate of 6.2%, quite a bit higher than the 4.7% expected growth rate for all skincare products over a similar time frame. With this growth comes new entrants to the fold, all trying their best to capture their own spruce-smelling, plaid-draped slice of the burgeoning market. 

Despite these new and different men’s skincare companies, there remain some common denominators in how they’re packaged and merchandised: dark, woodsy hues for the packaging, with masculine imagery for marketing campaigns. Below is the homepage for Every Man Jack, a popular line of men’s skincare and hygiene products sold in home and grocery stores. It has every dopey “I’m definitely a man’s man” signifier you can ask for: brown liquor, spruce/pine, a shiny watch, and a woodsy tone. The only thing missing is a hunting rifle. 

Alongside these marketing efforts is straightforward language for the product descriptions. The majority of labels feature words third graders know. The most exotic words are usually the scents — sandalwood, cedar wood, activated charcoal.

Contrast this with women’s skincare products, which use a mutating array of words and applications to advertise new items. One Clinique facial moisturizer uses “aloe-vera bio ferment technology” to lock in a “dewy glow.” Paula’s Choice C5 Super Boost Eye Cream has hyaluronic acid and peptides to “smooth, firm, and brighten.” And then there’s Clinique For Men:

Men’s skincare products aren’t immune to AP Bio wording, but generally, all of that jargon can be avoided by opting for masculine-marketed products. 

Then there’s the number of skincare products available for women to purchase. Men’s and women’s skin are slightly different, which means there is a reason to have some variance in the products each is meant to use. This still doesn’t account for the discrepancy. The “Skincare for Men” section on Clinique’s website lists, without the need of a dropdown menu, four sections: Shave, Cleanse and Exfoliate, Moisturize, and Targeted Solutions. Clinique’s not-for-men section has a dropdown menu with 12 different categories to choose from, or eight different skin concerns to filter, and five different forms (liquid, cream, gel, lotion, balm). There are more skin concerns to think about than there are entire categories in the men’s section of the site.

Given all this, and assuming both men and women have equally nuanced skincare needs, it feels safe to assume many of the products marketed to women are unnecessary. 

And guess what? Ignorance is bliss! Does a face mask do the same thing as toner? Do I put the under-eye cream on before or after my facial moisturizer? Will the Molecular Hero Serum for Hyperpigmentation & Dark Spots negate the work I’ve been doing with my Omnilux Contour Face Light Therapy Mask? The products marketed to me as a man mercifully spare me from having to answer any of these questions. What this means is that I get to spend less time rewriting my internal skincare hard drive for things like whatever “milky” is, less time reading labels online and in-store, and even less time applying products. I’m also not compelled, via omnipresent marketing and societal norms, to spend $596 per year on average on these products. Instead, I spend about half that. The signifiers of masculine skincare products are more than just guides — they’re protectors, shielding me from the universe of women’s skincare products that use jargon, insecurity, and hyper-specification to make sure they’re taken home from store shelves.

In this way, the skincare industry creates a flywheel continuously perpetuating sexist skincare tropes. It tells women they need far more products than they actually do and simultaneously gives men the option to limit how much time, effort, and money they have to spend on skincare. The more complex the women’s products are, the more appealing the sheltered world of men’s products becomes.

As the men’s skincare industry continues its growth, I imagine the shield I so covet will dwindle away. See the genderless skincare market, which has been growing for a while now. A quick perusal of the Sephora website or TikTok brings you across all manner of “genderless” beauty products. According to Google, “search interest for gender-neutral makeup and cosmetics has increased 400 percent over the last 10 years.” Rather than sticking products into one of the two gender binaries, genderless products invite anyone to use them — a move that reveals the differences in men’s and women’s skin aren’t very meaningful in the first place, and universalizes beauty standards previously aimed at women (e.g., collagen-boosting serum, radiance-enhancing cream). This approach seems to be working for the industry: According to the NPD Group, a market research company, 40% of adults ages 18-22 — a very juicy cohort — show interest in gender-neutral beauty products.

There may come a day when, without even realizing it, the market’s invisible hand gets me to ponder which facial moisturizer is actually best for me, instead of just buying the first thing I see with SPF in it. It’s likely this day is probably not far off. Until then, I get to stay in my bubble. And even if it has me smelling like NightPanther, I really don’t mind.

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You can read more from Jared Holst via his newsletter, Brands Mean A Lot.