Men and grooming !

Ok I do expect this to set off a debate 🙂 but if I hurt some of my men-friends’ sensibilities, I sincerely apologize upfront.

Today’s Brunch carries several pages on the new trends in Men’s grooming – waxing, eyebrow shaping, wearing women’s clothes, tote bags, androgynous model Andrej Peijic etc. I pride myself on having an open mind and acceptance of the unconventional and bizarre, the more outlandish something is the better I like it. But I dont like this new trend in Men’s grooming …. Yeah yeah freedom of expression is all very well, and some of you may say am not the new age woman, not a PYT of today. Hmmm that’s a debate for another day !

I grew up drooling over the likes of Dharmendra and Gregory Peck.. And then shifted loyalties to George Clooney, like millions of women across the world. There has never been a real replacement for Dharmendra, except maybe Vinod Khanna, a contemporary of his. Distant seconds would be Milind Soman, Vikram (Tamil cinema), Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan. And not one of these guys can carry off a yellow shirt and brown pants and still look like a million bucks !!!!

Now imagine Gregory Peck with a waxed chest and eyebrows shaped or George Clooney having smooth cheeks – yuck, sick ! Not that men should not groom themselves – nice smelling men, clean nails, great clothes and ofcourse a handsome face, is welcome anyday. Long hair, shaved heads, funky hairstyles – fit some and look great. No problem with any of that. What is unsettling about this new trend in Men’s grooming is the merging of the lines between the sexes – the world is interesting because there are men and women, yin and yang… It’s as much the physiological differences that are important as the psychological differences. Imagine a world full of men or women or unisexual beings – that’s the hell one dreads !

The trend started with modelling – from being able to distinctly identify one model from the other, I can’t tell one female model from the other, everyone looks the same, same haircut, same size, same coloring … How boring.

And while am at it – can we stop real men from using fairness creams, it’s revolting to even think of it. Men, just as women, need grooming – but please stay men…. Like Jason Statham :):) and please stay away from getting your eyebrows shaped and definitely away from that jar of fairness cream.