In the last two years, the bathroom mirror has stopped being the domain of women. Young men — armed with skincare serums, hair-growth devices and ever-expanding fragrance drawers — are rewriting the rules of male grooming.
“I used to grab whatever face wash was on offer. Now, I’m checking ingredients, saving TikToks about routines and actually budgeting for skincare,” says 24-year-old Martin, who works in the civil service and uses Horace face wash, Kiehl’s moisturiser and Malin + Goetz’s leather fragrance. “My mates and I send each other product links the same way we send gym tips. When someone says, ‘Your skin looks good,’ it feels great, like proof the effort is working.”
Across TikTok and Instagram, creators are helping to normalize a new, more expressive approach to men’s beauty. French-Vietnamese TikTok star Bách Buquen, for example, has gone viral for men’s makeup routines, while UK grooming and fragrance creator Luke Christian has amassed a following for his skin-first approach and product breakdowns. According to Cosmetic Business, male beauty and grooming sales surged 77% year-on-year in the UK, driven by young men and celebrity-led launches. NFL tight end Kyle Pitts was recently named the first-ever ambassador for men’s grooming brand Bevel, while Pharrell Williams’s Humanrace, Brad Pitt’s Le Domaine and Harry Styles’s Pleasing continue to pull male consumers deeper into the category.
Aesthetics clinics, too, report sharp increases in male clients seeking treatments once perceived as taboo. “Over the last three to four years, I’ve noticed a real rise in male patients coming through the doors — often people you wouldn’t necessarily expect. We’re seeing construction workers, heads of construction companies, CEOs, lots of corporate men in London, and, of course, A-listers and athletes,” says plastic and reconstructive surgeon Ash Soni, who has seen increasing demand for Botox, polynucleotides and Sculptra at his clinic in The Langham, London. Men, Dr. Soni adds, prefer language like “fresh”, “healthy-looking”, or “less tired” for discussing skin goals, rather than “beauty”.
The global men’s health and wellness market is forecast to reach $2.57 trillion by 2029, growing 12.4% annually, according to Daedal Research, with wellness culture increasingly shaped by contemporary ideals of performance, longevity and self-improvement. Strategic foresight agency The Future Laboratory calls this the “bromeopathy era” — an empirically driven, hyper-functional counterpart to traditional wellness. “In many ways, it’s an empirical alternative to the ‘Goopification’ of the industry, where stern and stoic language combines with scientific research and data for a distinctly masculine feel,” writes Adam Steel, in The Future Laboratory’s The Bromeopathy Market report.
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