Get It Off Your Chest : Once only rock stars dared to go bare. Now the common man is taking the leap. Gentlemen, prepare to color, clip and wax.

It’s not just MTV stars who are baring their chests these days. The look that Axl Rose and Hammer helped make popular in the music biz has spilled onto fashion runways and into city streets. On the Venice boardwalk, along La Brea Avenue, in trendy restaurants and pool halls starting with the Hollywood Athletic Club, men are baring their chests in the name of fashion.

Shorts and a bare chest are the look on hot days. Add a vest or a denim jacket for the dinner-to-pool hall option. One subtler way to show some skin is to wear a hooded sweat shirt unzipped with the hood up, like the prize fighters do. And there is the Casanova classic--a tailored shirt worn tucked in, but totally unbuttoned.

This increase in northern exposure has encouraged a range of men’s grooming techniques centered on the chest, including waxing, clipping and tinting.

“Men with big chests and slim chests come in and want them waxed perfectly smooth,” says skin-care specialist Nance Mitchell, who tends to the face and ultra-smooth torso of Guns ‘n Roses lead singer Axl Rose.

“Rock and film stars prefer a smooth chest, while executives tend to like a bit more hair, refined and controlled,” says Sunset Boulevard facialist Ole Henriksen, whose salon caters to the faces, chests and backs of David Bowie, Sylvester Stallone and Eric Roberts (all smoothies).

Mitchell points out that another option is just as popular. “There are an equal number who want their hairy chests trimmed and groomed,” she says. “There’s no one look.”

Umberto for Men salon in Beverly Hills reports that chest and back waxing has increased by about 30% in recent months. Most clients come in every four to six weeks and pay about $50 for front and back waxing.

In addition, salon coordinator Babette Beja says a favorite at the salon these days is a $40 Solan clipper that can be set to snip chest hair evenly.

“The most popular length is 1/8 inch, so it looks like about one week’s growth, yet the hair lays down and isn’t stubbly,” says Beja.

Along with clipping and waxing, tinting is a brisk business. “They have these 30-year-old heads of hair and 60-year-old chests, so they get rid of the gray there, too,” says Lemaire of Lemaire Hair on Robertson Boulevard.

In her salon the procedure takes 20 minutes and costs $25 (“for just a little patch”) to $50 (“for a forest”).

Some men take the tint home and do it themselves. “Many men are shy to be seen in the salon with tint on their chest,” Beja of Umberto says. The salon charges $10 for an average tint job.

Shy men come in at 7 a.m. to have their chests dyed in near seclusion, says Lemaire. “One day a woman walked in unexpectedly, saw this very recognizable Hollywood executive with reddish dye on his chest and screamed because she thought he’d been shot--no kidding.”

Despite the growing attention to the chest, men have been slow to attempt one technique women have used for years. They aren’t bronzing, blushing or applying other makeup to their cleavage.

Robin Fredriksz, the makeup artist who groomed Bruce Springsteen for his new, “Human Touch” video, says his bare-chested scene is pure buff. Not so much as a fake tan.

“It would be very tricky for regular guys to try to do any kind of chest makeup, “ she says. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Women often use blusher to emphasize their cleavage, but females are more comfortable with makeup.”