Coronavirus: Is make-up the new normal for men?

They’re not going the full Ziggy Stardust, but lockdown is seeing blokes try bronzer and foundation for video conferences.

The late David Bowie as his alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Picture: Supplied

For many American men, the lockdown period of working from home has been an opportunity to replace their office suits with sweatpants.

Others, however, drawn into the brave new world of video conferencing, are putting so much care into their appearance that they are using make-up for the first time.

That is the conclusion drawn by CVS, America’s largest pharmacy chain, which has begun rolling out male make-up products in its shops around the country.

Stryx, a men’s cosmetics brand, is already being stocked in hundreds of CVS pharmacies and will be available in 2000 by the end of the year. The company, which launched in January last year, has posted videos online offering tips such as “three ways to look your best on Zoom calls”: dress as if going to the office, make sure natural light is not facing the camera, and wear concealer.

Actor Mel Gibson applies make-up in the 2000 film "What Women Want". Picture: Supplied

Stryx’s YouTube channel also offers tutorials on “how to use men’s cosmetics with a beard” and “the best men’s cosmetics routine for clear skin”. They tout the company’s three products: a concealer tool, a tinted moisturiser and a gel cleanser.

Men’s make-up has never taken off in the US as it has in parts of Asia, especially South Korea, where it is far more common for men to wear tinted moisturiser or even eyeliner. But about a third of American men under 45 say they would consider wearing make-up, according to a poll by Morning Consult last September.

Chanel launched its first line of make-up for men in the US last year after an initial release in South Korea, and sales of men’s beauty and fashion products have been growing faster than women’s since 2010. In 2018 male cosmetics manufacturers were encouraged by the success of the Netflix show Queer Eye: in the first episode a gruff, 57-year-old divorcee is shown how to use make-up to tone down his red skin.

Some men turning to cosmetics say it is nothing to do with their colleagues; they’re doing it purely for themselves. They would not have felt comfortable doing so before the pandemic confined them to their homes. “It’s a Zoom effect,” Max Belovol, 23, told the Chicago Tribune. “People don’t have to worry about how they look at work. You can paint your nails, and nobody on the Zoom call is going to know.”

A man watches make-up applied to a woman’s lips. Picture: Supplied

Axel Getz, 24, told Bloomberg that he began using make-up after a shop assistant convinced him to try a tinted moisturiser marketed for women. His skin turned “angelic”, he said. “A lot of guys just never give themselves the chance, and that goes for men of all sexualities.”

Devir Kahan, Stryx’s co-founder, decided to enter the field when he woke up on his wedding day with a pimple. “It really bothered me, but I had no easy solution,” he told Forbes last year. “I thought maybe I could get women’s make-up artists at the wedding to cover it up, but ultimately that never happened and so the pimple was there to stay for the thousands of pictures taken that day.”

The Times