On my radio show last weekend, we were talking about celebrity beauty lines (something I’ve written about here before). Myself and our beauty contributor, Grace O’Connell, agreed that, with a few exceptions, we didn’t really think they were up to much. There is one, however, that I still have high hopes for, and that’s Humanrace by Pharrell Williams.
Pharrell is 48 years old, but he doesn’t appear to have aged a moment, never mind a day, since he rose to fame more than 20 years ago. We’ve all wondered what was going on there — rapper Travis Scott even quizzed him on it during quite a serious conversation about the music industry on HBO documentary The Shop: Uninterrupted a few years ago. He said he’d been googling ‘how does Pharrell look so young’ since he was 17. I loved seeing that — men discussing skincare. For a long time, men have been left out of that conversation, and perhaps weren’t comfortable starting it. To see two alpha males chatting about exfoliation is a real indication that things have changed.
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Lotus Enzyme Exfoliator, $46 at humanrace.com
Lotus Enzyme Exfoliator, $46 at humanrace.com
Pharrell’s answer, at the time, was exfoliation, so it’s no surprise that a glycolic exfoliator (Lotus Enzyme Exfoliator, $46 at humanrace.com) is at the centre of his Humanrace skincare line, which is ‘for all genders’. The truth is, though, that all skincare is for all genders — it’s only marketing that suggests otherwise. While hormones mean that men and women’s skin differ a little (men’s skin is physically thicker and oilier thanks to testosterone), its needs are generally the same: cleansing, hydration, exfoliation and protection. Thus, all skincare chat is relevant to men, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
What does this mean? It means that men absolutely do not need to be buying skincare products called ‘Edge’ or ‘Knife’ or ‘Legend’ or whatever powerful word a …….
