Grooming for Men After 40

In my last post, I mentioned that Dave Barry has a Substack and in his most recent offering he wrote about his lifelong battle with his hairstyle, which he says, at times resembles this coconut:

At least he still has his hair.

Thank you, Dave, for bringing this issue to my attention, as it opens the door to discuss men’s grooming issues in general. Men have been problematic for women for a long time. Most of the complaints undoubtedly revolved around bathing and routine maintenance and this has led to the invention of many things including shaving cream, soap, scissors, razor blades, deodorant, tweezers, nose hair trimmers, toenail clippers, dental floss and SAXX underwear.

Cro-magnon wife: “Pheee-ew. Honey you need a bath, a haircut and you have to do something about those eyebrows.”

Clearly, based on his expression, you can see that this guy is basically OK with how he looks.

Cro-magnon husband (inside voice): “I’m not listening. I’m not listening.”

Apparently, some men ARE listening though, because now “brow servicing” for men is a thing. Especially for men over forty.

Man over forty in salon: “Hello, I’m here for my bi-monthly eyebrow servicing. And pest spraying. The eyelash mite situation is getting out of control.”

This now brings us to our destination, which is the “Particle 6-In-One Face Cream for Men” commercial. This commercial has to be a serious contender for the list of the World’s top ten most annoying commercials. You should watch it now. Then we’ll talk.

OK. Done?

Here’s my version:

“Most men over forty look into the mirror and see something like this:

Do not trust these men.

Other men over forty also look into the mirror and see something like this:

This particular group of men over the age of forty are not monks. However, that does not preclude the possibility that they might also be untrustworthy.

That aside, there are yet other men over forty who may be untrustworthy and are not monks, but still have a Constitutional right to look in mirrors. When they do, they see something like this:

These men are probably from another planet. Possibly the same planet that the alligator gars came from.

And not to belabor the point but there is also a sizeable cohort of men over forty who don’t even have a mirror but if they DID have a mirror and looked into it, they would see something like this:

These men may very well be the descendants of Leonid Brezhnev.

Sadly, quite a few of all these men over forty who watch this commercial will probably be suckered into using this:

For a variety of reasons including sheer desperation, a goodly number of the spouses of all these men over forty will also cannily take advantage of the free shipping and discount code and will buy Particle cream as a gift for Father’s Day or maybe Men’s Grooming Day, which hasn’t been invented yet but probably will be any time now.

Seeing is believing.”

End of commercial.

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Personally, I’m not buying. Even if Miami freezes over. And I have two good reasons for my stance.

My first reason is that Particle is a stupid name. For anything. Except maybe sandpaper. You wouldn’t buy a car named Particle. You wouldn’t name your cat Particle. Or your monkey, for that matter. Plus, you would be leaving yourself wide open to mockery:

Particle Physicist (at cosmetics counter): “Hello, I would like to buy some Particle Face Cream.”

Cosmetologist: “Particle Face Cream? Really? Are you serious? Who would buy face cream with a name like that?? What are you? A Particle Physicist? Bahahaha!”

Particle Physicist: “Actually, FYI, I am a Particle Physicist.”

My second reason is that, like the Cro-Magnon gentleman featured above, there remains a sizeable contingent of hardy, shaggy, yak-like men over forty who are trustworthy, are not monks, do not own alligator gars or mirrors and are not descended from Leonid Brezhnev. They simply don’t care that much about their looks.

Also, years ago, the long-suffering spouses of these same men over forty gave up trying to get their men to ask the hair stylist/barber/barberette/Barbarella to please trim their eyebrows and while they’re at it, deal with the small stand of hairs that have taken root in their ear canals, not to mention the other small stand of hairs festooning their shoulders.

These same long-suffering spouses of these same men over forty also gave up trying to get their men to stop wearing shorts, Converse sneakers and graphic T-shirts 355 days a year and to also stop fooling around like teenagers on the local Skyline Luge Downhill Kart track before they wind up in hospitals.

Yaks of the world, unite!