I’m not sure my grooming regimen really counts as a regimen: it takes six minutes, and the hottest product I own is a Lynx Africa gift set left over from Christmas. I can’t say I’m very proud of myself. I’m aware this kind of blokish indolence is fast becoming passé. Male grooming is a multibillion pound worldwide industry, and once-frivolous creams and lotions have broken into the mainstream. Under pressure to get with the times, I tried out a handful of grooming gadgets in the hope that they would make me look more like British model David Gandy.
NO!NO! HAIR PRO 5
£199
The No!No! Hair Pro comes with a warning not to apply the device to the nipples or genitals – a real no-no. This seems sensible, given that it uses “Thermicon technology”, which basically consists of an electrified wire that singes hair off as opposed to cutting it. With my options narrowed down, I decided to target some unattractive fuzz on my upper back. The result was painless, though the smell of burnt back-hair that engulfed the room was discouraging. I didn’t end up with the closest of shaves either: it only seemed to burn longer strands while ignoring everything else.
Verdict: No!No!Thanks! – I’ll stick to razors for now.
SMOOTHSKIN PERMANENT HAIR REMOVAL FOR MEN
£299
Shaped intimidatingly like a kind of sadistic alien space-taser, the SmoothSkin for Men is designed to banish hair permanently by sending pulses of light through the skin to disable your hair follicles. The word that involuntarily sprang to mind was “melanoma”, but the manual says it’s fine to use as long as you don’t already have skin cancer. Reassuring. So I started another assault on my spine, determined to destroy those hairs, and after a few weeks (for the purposes of this write-up I didn’t quite manage the recommended 12 weekly treatments) it seemed to work, more or less. Side-effects – all apparently normal – included tingling, itching, and missed hairs; though the latter is probably my fault for not yet perfecting my glide motion. The SmoothSkin comes with skin tone sensors to adjust energy levels, and features a “gentle mode” for sensitive skin.
Verdict: You’ll really need to dislike your hair to invest at this price, but it mostly does what it says on the snazzy packaging.
CLARISONIC ARIA FACIAL CLEANSER
£93
According to Clarisonic, the Aria Facial Cleanser is six times more effective than cleansing your face “manually”. I’m not sure how they measured this, but it’s all down to the cleanser’s brush head that vibrates at three different speeds. The instructions are thus: wet your skin and the brush head with warm water, rub on some of the accompanying cleanser product, and brush your face for two minutes. None of which was too demanding. It even makes a beeping noise as a prompt for you to stop massaging one bit of your face and move to the next, lest you over-exfoliate. I didn’t notice any real difference between settings, but afterwards it left me feeling like one of those glowing and overdubbed models from a cosmetics ad: my skin was softer, smoother, more radiant.
Verdict: If you asked me to use it again, I could face it.
BABYLISS PRO ITALIABRAVA HAIRDRYER
£120
I didn’t think a hairdryer could be cool until I unpacked the sleek and shiny Babyliss ItaliaBRAVA, engineered in partnership with Ferrari. Cool, but also obviously a bit lame. The publicist’s blurb seems to lose perspective of what a hairdryer actually does when it calls this thing “the Grand Prix of styling”. That said, it offers high pressure and concentrated airflow from a 2400W brushless engine, which itself isn’t too noisy. Performance is consistent between the hot and cool temperature settings, blow-drying my relatively large mop in good time.
Verdict: I’d recommend this to any longer-haired gent, even if the Ferrari gumpf is a load of hot air.
SIMPLEHUMAN 20CM MIRROR
£159.99
I’m looking at the man in the Simplehuman mirror. His face is five-times magnified and illuminated by a 600-lux LED that lines the frame. Every individual blackhead, wrinkle and blemish is rendered in unflattering detail – and yikes, the state of my upper molars! I can’t say I enjoyed gazing into this unit – by which I mean it does its job well. The mirror’s precise curvature provides a full and undistorted view of the face in all its zoomed-in gruesomeness. It’s accompanied by a USB cable to recharge the light, which lasts a reasonable month to five weeks. A motion sensor activates the powerful LED that switches on when you move your mush towards the glass. The stand is adjustable, and heavy enough to prevent unlucky breakages.
Verdict: It’s all-round quality, on reflection.
