Makeup for Men? Couldn’t We Just Kiss and Not Cake Up?
Makeup for men. If you’re a social gadabout, we bet you’ve seen some--a dab of berry gloss on his lips, a bit of blush on his cheek, a matte nose. Can macho-beige foundation be far behind? Are women ready for it? Are men?
SHE: The first time I noticed some cheek color on a man, I freaked. It was at a party--not a Halloween party--and I thought: Here’s a mirror-gazer, something I detest in males. Who is he kidding? I asked myself. I could spot those phony cheeks at 10 feet!
Then I took a second look. Here was a guy trying not to pass for Bela Lugosi, he was so pale. Here was a guy who didn’t want the hostess to dial 911 when he walked through the door. Here was a guy I could relate to. Suddenly, I wanted to throw my arms around him and say: “Welcome to the club!”
HE: Oh, yeah, I can see it: Legions of men troweling on makeup and getting giddy sisterly hugs from every woman on the planet. “Thank God you’ve finally realized how pitifully inadequate your actual face is,” they’ll gush. “I can relate to you now. Oh, do let’s dash off to Saks and get a make over!”
SHE: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at a prominent blemish on a man’s face and ached for it to be camouflaged with a smidge of flesh-toned cream. It’s not fair, it seems to me, that women get to disguise their flaws and men have to sport them like merit badges.
It goes without saying that our society dictates flawlessness on a woman’s face and rugged imperfection on the face of a man. But why should this be? Given a little cosmetic first aid, a man can enhance his appearance and still look ruggedly handsome.
HE: He neither enhances his appearance nor looks rugged, nor handsome. He looks like somebody just hit him with a glob of spackle. That, or he looks like he decided at the last minute against a career in mime.
We could defoliate all the rain forests using up all the paper we’d need to write about the female flawlessness-versus-male ruggedness argument, so we might as well just live with these facts, at least in the short term: Many women feel uncomfortably exposed and incomplete without makeup, and most men feel entirely comfortable without it, flaws or no flaws. Playing the facial cards you’re dealt is part of being a man. A man feels like he earned those lines and wrinkles. He’s proud of them. They give his face character and depth. A man likes to feel like he’s lived in his face for a while.
SHE: Lived, OK. But died? Some men are hideously hard to look at. Why not give them a little camouflage capability?
I think you would look terrific with a little moisture-based beige foundation on your face. It wouldn’t look like makeup; it wouldn’t look like anything. But your skin tone would become more even, and, if the foundation was also a sun-block, you would be protecting your delicate Irish/French skin.
HE: Let me reiterate: Men don’t want to be camouflaged. If you look like a toad, then, by God, try to stay in good shape, try to dress well, try to speak and act intelligently, be well-groomed, be a gentleman and be as proud as you can of looking like a toad. The very idea of makeup on a man, I think, implies self-dissatisfaction, even self-deceit. Men--actors--who wear makeup professionally wear it because, in that capacity, it is a trick. It makes them appear older, or younger, or less shiny, or makes them look like Godzilla for the camera. In real life, Spencer Tracy--my hero--wore his deep wrinkles proudly and looked all the better for it.
SHE: And in real life, all of the foundation in the world couldn’t cover up Katharine Hepburn’s proud wrinkles. Or Jessica Tandy’s. Or Maggie Smith’s. But a veil of tinted moisturizer cream--what makeup really is --protects their skin and makes it easier for us to gaze upon them.
The way I see it, it’s a matter of confidence. If a man looks in the mirror, doesn’t like what he sees and applies a tasteful amount of artifice, more power to him.
I’m a long way from wanting to see Mel Gibson in lipstick and mascara, but I could handle him with a speck of Clinique (for men) translucent powder on his nose.
HE: Not a thing wrong with using stuff that keeps your skin from turning to charcoal in the sun, or something that repairs the inevitable shaving damage or the high-tech goo that you take along on ski trips to make sure your face doesn’t develop more crevasses than the mountain. All that comes under the heading of smart prophylaxis. If these are considered cosmetics, so be it. But makeup is different. Makeup alters, no matter how subtly it’s applied.
Still that’s not the bottom line. The bottom line is this: The overwhelming majority of men, left to their own devices, will never do anything that they think will make them look like a dork in front of women. And on the dork scale of one to 10 (think of playing those stupid games at co-ed baby showers as scoring, oh, a 3), makeup rates a 75.
