'Call that mascara, mate? And I can see your foundation,' says Lionel, a 28-year-old South African with a straggly beard, hard-hat and luminous jacket who clearly wasn't appreciating my new-found metrosexuality. Thanks, my friend - I was already feeling self-conscious enough without being mocked by passing strangers. To underline his point he then started laughing and pointing at my face. Moisturiser is passe. Even the most hardened brickie indulges in a regular facial wash and toning routine. Where the real adventure starts, and where the future of man (apparently) lies, is with make-up.
For the past month I have given male make-up a go. I've woken early, religiously washed and moisturised my face, applied tints, bronzed my cheeks, defined my eyebrows and jaw line, powdered my nose to remove shine, put on lipstick, and added mascara for good measure.
In the early days, leaving the house was a fraught exercise. As I stepped over the threshold, my face a picture of delicate hues, I'd lose my nerve and scurry back inside for a last look in the mirror. But as the weeks passed, something odd happened: I began to like it. It began to feel good.
Men - it's said - are now more susceptible to anxieties about their body than ever before, but according to recent research by make-up manufacturer Shiseido, British men are also the leaders in Europe when it comes to forking out for cosmetics. We may not be happy with how we look, but we're trying to do something about it.
I started my journey to the dark side in the Beyond Beauty department of London's Harvey Nichols department store. After a little cheerful preamble, Hilary Andrews, who supplies cosmetics to tens of thousands of the nation's men through her website
mankind.co.uk, presented me with my first compact. Between the wheatgrass shots, revitalising juice drinks and the high-maintenance women cruising the aisles, I didn't know where to look. It was like an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, only without the validation of a TV camera pointed at my face.
She then applied some St Tropez bronzer, some anti-shine powder and under-eye concealer. I returned to the office, not just a new man, but a newly decorated man.
When in 1990, Naomi Wolf wrote The Beauty Myth, which attempted to unshackle women from their make-up bags, the world was a different place. She wrote, 'Men are exposed to male fashion models, but do not see them as role models.' This no longer seems so self-evidently true.
Times have changed: dress-down Fridays, dowdy pinstripes replaced by well-cut suits with flashy linings from celebrity tailors, and the broadening effect of metrosexual 'style icons' such as David Beckham ... If received wisdom has it that women have increasingly become more like men, maybe we should ask - in the manner of one of Carrie Bradshaw's questions that drove Sex and the City - are men becoming more like women?
Saturday night and it sure felt that way. My girlfriend and I were off to the cinema. With around an hour in which to get ready, we fought over the mirror - something that has never, ever happened before, honest - to apply our various cosmetics before heading out to watch Brad Pitt in a skirt in Troy. The process of moisturising, slapping on the under-eye concealer, and powdering my nose took far longer than planned and so we missed the start of the film by about 15 minutes. So far, so bad.
But it got worse. About 45 minutes into the film there is a scene in which Paris fights Menelaus and we get a close up of Helen's famous face, tearful and distraught. It's a moment of high tension. Will she lose the man she loves? Will disaster for Troy be averted? Who cares? As the sword swung to deliver the fatal blow, my girlfriend turned to me and said: 'They've only made up one of her eyes!' Horrifyingly, I'd spotted it too.
Following Wolf, should I now think that to fulfil my potential as a man I need to look like Pitt? I'm not convinced by much of the 'crisis of masculinity' chatter, but this make-up malarky does make you aware of your own physical failings.
I call Ben Coler who runs
Studio5ive.com, an American online male make-up provider, for his thoughts. He's got about 10,000 clients on his database from the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. He started the business in 2000 and now stocks about 30 products to help give men that 'undetectable look' - a wellgroomed, chiselled, masculine image. 'Guys look in the mirror and see a face that is average,' he says. 'They see these ideal men and want a chiselled jaw and a really masculine look.' Undetectable makeup, he says, is the answer.
For many women, wearing make-up is the default setting: you only notice when it's not there. Women friends of mine tell me they think twice about exposing their naked face to a new partner too soon in a relationship for fear of what he might think. Will I soon feel the same?
Coler explains that male make-up has three broad purposes: to correct blemishes; to create an androgynous look with eye-shadow and lip colour; and to make a face look more masculine, closer to those that feature on our screens and in our magazines. The solution, Coler says, is in the colour palette. His company has analysed male faces and created a range that only uses colours from the natural male palette (there are no bright blues, pinks or reds). The pale blue-grey from the eye-socket can be used to highlight the eyebrows or define the beard and jaw line for example.
Coler told me that men are terrified of getting it wrong, of standing out as the guy who wears make-up. His company receives the majority of its orders between 11pm and 2am from new experimenters keen on privacy. These are not men who want to look like Boy George in his prime.
I set up a lesson with make-up artist extraordinaire Kate Strong. She's done everyone from the Stones to Paddy Ashdown, so hopefully I don't pose too much of a challenge. She showed me how to get a blemish-free face without looking like Eddie Izzard. She lightened my deep-set eyes, darkened my brows, picked out my eyelashes with mascara and bronzed my cheeks. Looking in the mirror I couldn't say precisely what had changed, but I definitely looked better, healthier.
So far, the main focus of the make-up industry has been correction: to make men look better but natural. But there are signs that an attempt at decoration is now emerging, and the key for cosmetics brands is to find a way through the conundrum of creating 'non-girly' make-up for real men.
Jean Paul Gaultier is the latest designer to enter the market. Last year he launched his Le Male Tout Beau line which, far from being the camp excess one would imagine, is of a subdued masculine design, with colours designed to enhance rather than draw attention to the features. Kate was impressed. The bronzer comes in a black Perspex cube with a large sable brush. The lipstick is a dark chocolate colour that blends well with your lips. There is lip-gloss, too, but that, I think, is a step too far - it gives you soft-porn lips that wouldn't look out of place in a Kylie video. On Kylie.
Terminology is crucial. Where female make-up is all lipstick and soft powders, male make-up, the branding would like to convince you, is 'war paint for the 21st-century urban man'. The concealer I'd got from Mankind is dubbed a 'Camo Stick'. The word make-up is used sparingly. Where female products talk of 'exfoliating', male products are all 'scrubbing', and so on. It's the old 'Horses sweat, men perspire and ladies merely glow' idea updated.
After initial, disparaging remarks, friends, when informed, were curious rather than rejecting. 'Really?' They asked in disbelief. Then, 'You can't tell,' said with a hint of disappointment. One even said he'd seen the compact in Men's Health and assumed it was 'for cocaine', which I suppose is one way of passing off the fact you've got make-up on your person.
Female friends had mixed views. My friend, Hannah thought it 'a bit weird. There's no need, is there? Men are meant to be rough and ready.' Several suggested they felt shackled to make-up. Would it be good for men to feel the same way? Some said that going without felt like exposing yourself in public. I had perhaps an equal and opposite reaction. For me, the oddly caked feeling of my made-up face left me uncomfortable and lacking confidence. On escalators or in the lift at work I found myself staring at my feet, looking away from people and not meeting their eyes. It took time to adjust.
However, as the days went by the make-up started to feel occasionally like a welcome addition. If you stick to the basics - a quick brush of bronzer (the equivalent, I think, of women's blusher), a dab of under-eye concealer and a quick bit of anti-shine powder (guys sweat more, apparently) - you really can look better, healthier.
And with my new found confidence I became more at ease trying out my face on fellow commuters. As calmly as possible I powdered my nose and started drawing a wiggly line of lipstick around my mouth. From the way the men reacted, I'd say Britain is not yet ready for this.
Later, on the Tube, a girl in her early twenties sat next to me. She kept catching my eye and smiling. Then I remembered I was in full make-up: perhaps I was looking pretty. Time to brazen it out. I pulled out the compact and checked my make-up - yup, still there. I looked back at her and she gave me a look, the sort of highly articulate look that managed to say both 'drop dead' and 'weirdo' at the same time. She got off at the next station without looking back.
'Cosmetics can do miracles,' Ben Coler had told me. 'They give you instant results, boost confidence and make you feel more handsome.' All true. In future, I may even be tempted to put on a bit of bronzer if I'm heading out for the evening. But lipstick and mascara? They're back with the girlfriend
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/27/gender.menshealth6
