Boys & Girls Together

The big news in the skin game is that it's getting masculine to be feminine. The leathery look in men is Out. Creams and cleansers, powders and pomades, hair-tinting combs, face-tightening masks, nail lacquers, hair sprays and sweet-smelling stuff in all sizes, shapes and prices are booming in the male market, and the cosmetics industry is rushing to repackage its female products into something for the boys.

Green for Ruddy, Blue for Sallow. The trend became obvious two years ago, when Elizabeth Arden noticed a sudden sales increase on its Arden for Men line (which includes face cream and face mask, hair spray, brilliantine, three kinds of scent and two shades of powder). Sales doubled in 1962 and are running about 100% higher this year. Revlon and Lanvin have followed Elizabeth Arden into the masculine market; Clairol may soon join the parade.

A mask called Sudden Youth is a big seller at Jerry's barbershop on Madison Avenue, where the favorite tinting color is Banker's Grey and a new hair-styling by Jerry himself costs $25. About half of his clients are show biz; the rest are executives, and they are the ones that care. "A lot of actors don't worry about what they look like except when they're onstage," says Jerry. "But a businessman has to think about it all the time."

Beautician Aida Grey has branched out from her female trade in Beverly Hills to open two masculine beauty parlors--the Esquire for Men and Boys, and the more expensive Olympian, where she has facilities for facials, massages, instant skin-tanning and eyebrow tinting. "In the past year, or year and a half," chirps chic, French-born Aida, "there's been a tremendous rise in men's cosmetics. I got into the male line when I discovered that about 50% of my customers had husbands who were using their beauty creams. We sell green powder for ruddy skin and blue powder for sallow skin. We don't sell them powder puffs, of course. We sell a special soap cream with sea salt grains. One night, there was a knock on my door. It was a man who said, 'My wife and I have separated. I used to use her pore cleanser. Now my skin is breaking out again.' "

The Rush to Foo-Foo Juice. The new customers are not just Madison Avenue-niks and Wilshire Boulevardiers, who might be especially uninhibited about nurturing their masculine beauty. Men from Boston to Houston are sloshing themselves with expensive colognes and lotions as never before.

Jordan Marsh's department store in Miami spent twice as much on men's cosmetics this year as last year. "It's fantastic," says one of the buyers. "I can remember when we had one unit on the floor for men's cosmetics. This Christmas we'll have four units, plus three tables to display the merchandise. We have a face cream for men that costs $15 a tube!" Burdine's Miami store reports that more and more men are buying "friction lotions"--light colognes for use after bathing--and deodorant "body fresheners" in such hairy-sounding scents as Clover Hay, Tumbleweed, Boots and Saddle.

Why the sudden rush to foo-foo juice in the land of Willy and Joe, Huck Finn and Bathless Groggins? No one seems to know. "Men have just decided not to smell like men any more," said a female department-store buyer happily last week. "They want to smell good."

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