|
What are you doing in there?” So shouts my wife after I’ve spent getting on for 40 minutes in the bathroom. “I’m, er, exfoliating,” I call back merrily, while walking my fingers along the pots and potions crowding the windowsill. Holy Saint Francis, as Friar Laurence puts it in Romeo and Juliet, what a change is here! “你在里面折腾啥呢？”我在卫生间呆了足足40分钟后，我妻子在外大声喊道。“呵呵，正在去死皮呢，” 我一边用手找摸窗台上堆放的各种瓶瓶罐罐，一边愉快地回复道。就是《罗密欧与朱丽叶》(Romeo and Juliet)中劳伦斯神父(Friar Laurence)所说的Holy Saint Francis这类东西，如今的化妆品可谓琳琅满目，真是今非昔比！ And not just here: men’s beauty products — moisturisers supposedly optimised for male skin and sold in butch-yet-metrosexual tubs in science-fictional silvers and blacks — have been undergoing a boom. According to Mintel, sales of men’s skincare products rose last year to £95.1m, up from £85.4m in 2017, and are forecast to reach £96.2m in 2017. Men also appear to be hell-bent on not just washing but “cleansing”, not just rubbing but “gently massaging”, on introducing the skin not just to water, but to a very superior scientific product called “aqua” And — that holy grail, that precise incantation marking the line where the marketing departments of cosmetics companies fought the Advertising Standards Authority to a standstill — on “reducing the appearance of wrinkles”. The comforting idea that, as men age, they become more attractive seems not to be endorsed here; anti-ageing is the thing. The holy trinity of Tom Ford’s bumf, for instance, is: “Deep clean, soothe and rejuvenate.” | 
