Fake Media's New Fake Trend: Makeup For Men

I’m looking at the man in the mirror. And he looks great, to be honest. It’s how I feel I should look, when I am at my most optimistic. There’s a smooth sheen across my cheeks. My eyes are bright, my brows orderly.

And the reason I look so good? Because a makeup artist has spent 40 minutes on my face. First, she dowsed it with Hollywood Flawless Filter by Charlotte Tilbury. Later, I look it up: it says it’s “a customisable complexion booster” with “the versatility of a primer” and “the mega-watt glow of a highlighter”. I would say it’s more like a glossy Polyfilla, miraculously levelling my chipboard skin. Next, she added blobs of what looks like green toothpaste across my cheeks. I am briefly horrified; does she want me to look like Grotbags? But it gets rid of all my blotchy redness. Who knew?

Women know, obviously. For the last century, makeup has been mostly the preserve of just half the population. Even as society has become more feminist, and less ruled by gender binaries, women’s cosmetics use has become even more prolific, while men have continued to go au naturel, occasionally boshing on a bit of moisturiser and hoping for the best.

Men’s makeup is far from a new phenomenon. Male courtiers in 18th-century Europe wore it, and as Yi points out, cosmetics are already popular among men in South Korea. But in the US, men have traditionally shunned makeup.

If that’s changing, makeup could help men break down restrictive gender norms and express themselves more fully. But it could also force them to face something that has, until now, been mostly the province of women: the pressure to live up to unrealistic beauty standards by spending ever more of their income on lipsticks, powders, and creams.

Historically, American men haven’t worn makeup. That might be changing.

Who says men can’t use makeup and other beauty products marketed toward women? With the help of some nice people at a local makeup store (and my girlfriend), I found some items that even the manliest of men can use discreetly and comfortably. Trust me, the only thing people will notice is how good you look.