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mates heart toothbrush, pumping and
has her ed that she
maintenance,most people engage in some sort of grooming.
holds half of her hair, another half of her hair with drops off her
or why she is, but she if she does
Rieke considers herself high-maintenance, except when it comes to getting ready for class. She spends 30 minutes grooming herself before she comes to campus, but closer to an hour and a half to get ready for a date or a night out with the girls. But no matter how little time she has, she always finds a moment to prep so she feels presentable in public.
throws me
ONLINE COMMUNITIES DEVOTED TO KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
primping con industry, nce or lowlike Kyle Kitson are proof that beauty isn't just a woman's worry.
Welovebeauty.com
Makeupalley.com
Bebetterguys.com
Badgerandblade.com
Shavemyface.com
"Unless I absolutely have to go without makeup, then I don't," she says. "I make sure I have time, because I do enjoy getting ready."
For some people, the grooming process is a relaxing ritual.
"In general, beauty has always been considered a luxurious experience," says Danielle Romano, editor of DailyCandy.com, afree daily e-mail service that provides insider beauty and lifestyle information to registered members.
Both the availability of products via the Internet and word-of-mouth recommendations have skyrocketed online sales of spaike treatments, according to research conducted by the LPK Beauty Group, an American market research firm.
SHELLING OUT THE DOUGH
Though she considers herself low-maintenance, Ashley Pate goes high-end when she purchases new beauty products. Pate, 2007 graduate, makes a trek twice a year to department store beauty counters to gather up new eye shadows, concealers and other makeup for her growing collection of colors. Because she invests in name-brand makeup, Pate spends between $100 and$ 150 each time.
ANNA FALTERMEIER
"It's expensive, but it's good stuff"
she says. "You get what you pay for."
Kyle Kitson, Hayes senior, spreads his homemade shaving lather on his face in preparation for a close, relaxing shave.
What she's paying for is MAC (MakeupArtCosmetics)eyeshadow, which runs at $14 a compact, and Benefit Cosmetics products. What she's also paying for is extensively-designed packaging that adds value to the name-brand products she uses, according to the LPK Beauty Group. Innovation in packaging blurs the lines between prestigious versus mass brands, the group says.
Where Pate's money is not going, though, is to haircuts. She dodges this expense by either receiving a haircut at a gift or by handing over a pair of scissors to a trusted friend. Until this past January, Pate hadn't visited a salon in ages. She got her first professional cut and color in years at a Los Angeles salon as a gift from her aunt. Because she did highlights and low-lightings and is a natural blonde, Pate doesn't worry much about visible roots growing in — meaning she doesn't have to pay for color upkeep.
Pate is in the minority of consumers who pass on indulging in salon hair treatments. The professional beauty services market in the U.S. is a $62 billion industry, according to a 2006 study by Research and Markets. The professional services market is expected to grow at a rate of 4 percent through 2010.
Alyson Beach, Winfield senior,
isn't as relaxed about her hair as
Pate. Beach visits a salon every
three months for a trim and dishes
out about $25 per visit to keep her
mane maintained. In addition, she
keeps her hair color vibrant with
highlights every six months, which
costs her$ 40 every time.
Over the course of a year, Beach spends close to $200 to keep her hair healthy and radiant. In addition to her regular maintenance fees, she spends an additional$ 30 a month keeping herself stocked up on personal care products such as makeup, skin care and hair spray. She opts for drugstore brands when purchasing these products to make her dollars stretch a little further.
Beach spends approximately $360 a year, nearly a dollar a day, to keep up her appearance.
"I don't worry about what I'm spending too much because keeping up my look is just one of those things you have to do."
Girls aren't the only ones who fret about their appearance. Guys
Kitson,Haysenior,spends plenty of time keeping up his appearance through shaving and finding new colognes to wear on dates. But he not just gliding a four-bladed razor across his face every day or spritzing on his old Spice.
MAINTAINING YOURSELF
"Ive always been a very scent-oriented person. My sense of smell is stronger and more acute than my other senses," he says.
Kitson is a cologne junkie: he owns 27 different scents, and is constantly on the search to add more. He enjoys letting his sense of smell guide him through individual fragrance notes in his colognes, from spicy or sweet to fruity or aquatic. A self-described "connoisseur of cologne", Kitson hunts for unusual scents that not every man on campus will be sporting. His latest discovery: 'LArtisan, a French line of fragrances.'
Label him metrosexual, if you must, but Kitson knows his fine grooming habits now will pay off in the future, and already sees how male grooming is catching on in the corporate world.
"You see high-powered attorneys going out for manicures now. It's all in the way you present yourself to people," he says.
Romano, the DailyCandycom editor, describes the metrouspheron phenomenon as "men catching on to what women have known for years." She says that in the New York City area, men have been flocking to manicurists in record numbers.
"Society is becoming more vocal about accepting relaxation and grooming." she says.
Kitson also indulges in a classic style of shaving that provides him both a smooth face and a calming experience.
Kitson uses the old-fashioned "wet shaving" technique. He prefers to use a single blade safety razor, shaving brush and shaving soap to get the perfect shave. He whips his own shaving father with a badger-hair shaving brush and creamy, round soap, and spends up to 20 minutes smoothing his face, a technique he learned from www.menessentials.com.
"Part of what I enjoy about traditional shaving is that it used to be part of the bonding experience between father and son," he says. "It was this you're becoming a man'moment and that doesn't happen anymore." Though Kitson's own father uses an electric razor, he plans to teach the wet washing process to his future sons to keep an old
Above: Double-blade safety razors used for men's shaving.
Right:The scented shaving cremes Kitson prefers.
BOTH PHOTOS/
ANNA FALTERMEIER
tradition alive.
THE FEEL-GOOD FACTOR
The only place you'll ever catch John Witt wearing sweatpants in public is in the gym.
-3/4
Witt, Eagan, Minn., junior, refuses to leave the house dressed in anything less than his best and prefers to keep the sweatpants and muscle tees at home.
Witt says whether he's going to class, running an errand or getting ready for a date, he always makes a conscious effort to look nice for who is going to see him that day. Though he's not just doing it for himself, Witt says it's a confidence booster to be dressed and showered when he's in public.
"I think that first impressions are really important." he says. "You might meet somebody, or you might have to go talk to a teacher — you never know what's going to happen. It's never bad to look halfway decent."
Witt attributes his gentlemanly grooming habits to his father, who always had a neat and clean appearance every time he stepped out of the door, and to his mother, who gave him advice on how to look nice in public.
"They influenced me a lot. My dad was always in professional clothes that were laundered and pressed and he always looked very put together," Witt says. "I just learned by observation."
Witt also says that as he works his way through college, he is learning more about how to keep up his appearance and wardrobe. This makes him feel better about becoming an adult and dressing
TERMINOLOGY
Metrosexual (metropolitan + heterosexual) A heterosexual male who has a strong aesthetic sense and inordinate interest in appearance and style
Ubersexual
a heterosexual man who is extremely masculine in the traditional sense; an ubersexual is a manly man who displays all the positive qualities associated with
the gender
Retrosexual
opposite of metrosexual; man who does not care much about style and
appearance
Sources: dictionary.com
wordspy.com
like an adult.
"in high school I was more of the sweatpants type of person," he says "Then one day my little brother made a comment about how i was in college now and needed to quit looking like a burn."
Witt knew that the earlier he started taking care of himself, the easier it would be to transition into the working world.
"I definitely don't want to be that person that you think, 'wow what happened there?"
1. Massage at a spa
About 20 million American women and men receive massage therapy and body work per year, according to the National Institute of Health.
2. Professional teeth
whitening
Whitening has become more popular because of the influx of marketing for at-home treatments. Results are faster
TOP 10 TREATMENTS WOMEN 18 AND OVER CRAVE
with professional treatments, though.
3. Professional facial The biggest trend in gift certificates and gift ideas are those for facials, according to www.giftingresources.com.
4. General visit to day spa more than 8,700 days exist in the U.S., with more and more popping up each year.
5. Salon manicure
6. Salon hair coloring
Approximately 60 percent of women color their hair either at home or in the salon. But only
a little more than 50 percent of women over the age of 18 crave a professional color treatment, meaning something must be going well with boxed hair color.
7. Staying at a destination spa
Just under half of women 18 and over said they would like to indulge themselves in a full-fledged mini-escape of steam rooms, mineral pools and on-site beauty salons.
8. Salon pedicure
It's what your tired feet crave after being up and moving all day. A salon pedicure, equipped with massage chair and warm, ocean blue water, is sure to give tired feet a wake up.
9. Visit to a dermatologist for preventative treatments
preventative treatments
dermatologist-recommended
skin care is out, and
dermatologist-created
skin care is in. If women can't get
the preventative treatments they need in the doctor's office, the next best thing is to get the treatments that the doctor made in the office.
10. Professional hair removal Waking and lasering off unwanted hair rounds out the list of the most sought-after beauty treatments. Just one of those necessary grooming evils.
Source: women's wear daily