An article by Foster Klug of The Associated Press highlights a new but pervasive trend with men in South Korea—skin care. And not just soaps and moisturizer, either. Apparently, men in South Korea are expected to have perfect skin, and make-up on men is common.
Cho Won-hyuk, a young South Korean man, explains what’s behind his attention to his skin:
“Having a clean, neat face makes you look sophisticated and creates an image that you can handle yourself well,” the 24-year-old college student said. “Your appearance matters, so when I wear makeup on special occasions, it makes me more confident.”
The article makes clear that while South Korea is a socially-coservative country (which also requires a minimum 2 year commitment to military service), their men spend nearly $500 million a year on skin care products… Which makes up for 21% of total sales in the market.
The difference between how South Korean men and American men view make-up is huge:
While U.S. cosmetics companies report growing sales in male cosmetics, American men are often wary of makeup. “Men Wearing Makeup a Disturbing Trend” was how American columnist Jim Shea titled a recent post.
In South Korea, however, effeminate male beauty is “a marker of social success,” according to Roald Maliangkay, head of Korean studies at Australian National University.
When and how did the shift toward men partaking in what is generally thought to be a feminine pursuit happen?
The metamorphosis of South Korean men from macho to makeup over the last decade or so can be partly explained by fierce competition for jobs, advancement and romance in a society where, as a popular catchphrase puts it, “appearance is power.” Women also have a growing expectation that men will take the time and effort to pamper their skin.
What do you think, men? I think we can all agree that appearance is hugely important in the USA, as well. We may not automatically think “handsome” when we picture the most powerful business men in America (or other Western countries), but beautiful people have been documented to elicit a more positive response in many social situations, including job interviews.
Do you think those of us in the West are headed toward the type of male skincare routines that guys in South Korea are into?
Photo of man with facial mask courtesy of Shutterstock
About Joanna Schroeder
Some of my college girl friends who are into kpop and jpop always saying to me how asian guys are far hotter and more beautiful than western guys. ( Notice when white girl saying asians it means japanese, korean or chinese, not arabs or indians ) . I think if western guys more care about their appearance they can be beautiful too. I personally like Japanese guys more than Korean guys, their fashion sense and hairstyles are amazing. If western guys using gel on their hair, they use “moving rubber”. Google it, Gatsby Moving Rubber, its amazing!!!
When western men care about our appearance, we’re assumed to be gay. By EVERYONE, including straight women we try to date.
Do you think those of us in the West are headed toward the type of male skincare routines that guys in South Korea are into?
Who can tell.
Fashion’s course is hard to predict. In fifty yrs time, formal wear for men might be just a loincloth, or a male equivalent of a burka
Who would have thought for example, that around 1800 middle class women would go from wearing an almost crewcut haircut the ‘titus’ , seethrough flimsy straight dresses – sometimes with nothing on underneath. To fifty years later wearing eyewatering corsets, immobilising crinolines, and covered from head to their very toes. That male clothing would lose its colour and beauty during the same period, or that male short lengths would increase twenty yrs ago [ when athletes started wearing lycra in the late 1980s, as athletics had always lead the way with sportswear. I remember thinking that footie players would soon start wearing lycra shorts of some type. I never expected soccer shorts and male nonsporting shorts to DROP TO THE KNEES. Who knows in twenty yrs, they may be playing in full unathletic trousers lololol]
In the last two hundred yrs there are have been greater periods of male unemployment in the West eg. the Great Depression.I am not aware that the men started to use makeup, howeverin the Great Depression they did started to use what was was considered ‘an article of women’.
This article says that advertisers played on the uncertain jobs environment to sell deodourant to men
At the beginning of the 20th century, body odor was not considered a problem for men because it was a part of being masculine, explains Cari Casteel, a history doctoral student at Auburn University, who is writing her dissertation on the advertisement of deodorants and antiperspirants to men. “But then companies realized that 50 percent of the market was not using their products.”
Initially copy writers for Odorno, Mum and other products “began adding snarky comments at the end of advertisements targeted to women saying, ‘Women, it’s time to stop letting your men be smelly. When you buy, buy two,’” Casteel says.
A 1928 survey of JWT’s male employees is revealing about that era’s opinions of deodorants and antiperspirants.
“I consider a body deodorant for masculine use to be sissified,” notes one responder. “I like to rub my body in pure grain alcohol after a bath but do not do so regularly,” asserts another.
[...]
“If someone like Mennen’s got out a deodorant, men would buy it. Present preparations have a feminine association most men only shy at.”
According to Casteels research, the first deodorant for men was launched in 1935, put in black bottle and called Top-Flite, like the modern, but unrelated golf ball brand.
As with the products for women, advertisers preyed on men’s insecurities: In the Great Depression of the 1930s men were worried about losing their job. Advertisements focused on the embarrassment of being stinky in the office, and how unprofessional grooming could foil your career, she says.
“The Depression shifted the roles of men,” Casteel says. “Men who had been farmers or laborers had lost their masculinity by losing their jobs. Top Flite offered a way to become masculine instantly—or so the advertisement said.” To do so, the products had to distance themselves from their origins as a female toiletry.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/How-Advertisers-Convinced-Americans-They-Smelled-Bad-164779646.html?c=y&story=fullstory
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In both these, and in many other fashion-changing occurrences, what causes a change in perceptions, the resetting of the social meaning of these articles is the confluence of a metasocial event and elite men leading the way.
With deodourant: The great depression, and advertisers acting as aristocrats giving a sumptory-lawlike decree, buttressed by targeting male insecurity about jobs.
With South Korean makeup: The esteem from doing well in the Home World Cup, elevating the footie team in the eyes of South Korean society, and causing emulation of their toilette practices
hmm i did blockquote the original, i dunno what ‘appened