My Boys Don't Moisturize

What's the deal with dudes and face cream?

As America’s Number One Schvitz Reporter (I will go ahead and claim that title), I spend a fair amount of time in locker rooms with other dudes. Lucky me, right? The place where guys let it all literally and figuratively hang out and supposedly have a different manner of talking that might not fly in the world beyond the lockers. I generally go to places where the guys are speaking in Russian, Hebrew, Italian or Arabic in the locker rooms, so I can’t say what most of them are talking about. As for me, my own personal favorite topic of conversation when the boys have nothing but towels around our waists is I like to grill my friends on their skincare. And usually, the answers are all the same: They don’t have one. Guys, for whatever reason, don’t like to moisturize.

Now before you yell “Not all men” at me, sure. I’m not exactly Gallup over here, out on the streets polling the guys of the world about whether or not they smear cream on their faces. This is all just something I’ve noticed over the years of being a gentleman that likes to have nice skin. My guy friends will spend a hundred bucks on a haircut or countless dollars on a pair of sneakers, but ask them to put something on their faces—forget it. I always wonder why that is, so I asked. And since this is such a weirdly hot-button topic for reasons you’ll read, I changed the names of the people I talked to. I asked them simply why they don’t use moisturizer. I explained to them my own regimen (Paula’s Choice face wash morning and night, same brand’s Daytime Protect and I use the Nighttime Repair every other night. On the nights I don’t use the night cream I use retinol. Once a month, I go to the barber and get this treatment that’s hot and cold towels, then a 15-minute mask is applied to my face. Sometimes in the winter, I’ll do this twice a month. I also drink a ton of water. I think that’s important to note.

Now, onto my dudes…

James is 33. He’s a creative director. When I ask him if he can explain exactly what his job entails, he laughs and says “Not really.” James is tall and muscular. He says he works out five days a week because “Your body is important.” He’s currently really into pilates. When I ask him if he’s into using any face stuff, he laughs and tells me he washes once a night with soap and water and that’s it. “I’ve always had good skin,” he says. When I ask what he means by “good skin” he tells me “Not a lot of pimples.” When I ask why he laughed when I asked if he uses any sort of face creams, masks, etc. he tells me “That stuff reminds me of American Psycho.”

Pete is 44. He tells me “Just tell them I work in television” when I ask him about his job. “I’m around people that tend to be much better looking than me,” he says. “It used to not bother me as much, but I suppose as you get older you tend to question things more.” When I ask what he questions, he laughs and says “Just the way I look. I definitely feel like the old guy around some of the people I work with.” Does that bother him? “Not really. I’ve got a lot of confidence.” So what has he done to not look the part of the old guy? “Botox.”

Interesting, I say. I really didn’t know that prior to our conversation. “It’s mostly for my eyes. I’ve got good eyes and I want people to be able to see them.”

So he’s good with the ‘tox, what about creams or SPF or anything?

“No. My girlfriend has been bugging me for the last year,” he says. “But I tell her I can’t.” I ask why. Is he allergic or something? “No,” he says. “It’s just weird.”

Seth is 37. He’s a teacher at a private school in Manhattan. I decided to ask five guys the same questions about skincare and he was the first to say yes, he does have a routine. “I was using Kiehl's. It’s funny because nobody pushed me into using anything. My mom always made us wash our faces before bed, but that was it. One day I was walking past the Kiehl’s near where I live and I walked in. I felt like I’d been doing something not right. So I just started talking to the people there and I walked out with, like, several rubes of stuff.” Seth considers himself somebody who “gets really into things,” so he started doing his research. “There’s this podcast I was listening to called “Dewy Dudes,” that was a big one. Some Reddit stuff. But I didn’t have anybody to talk to about this stuff so it felt like a hobby more than anything.” He says that his bathroom drawer is filled with various products. “I’m always tinkering. I don’t think it hurts to do that.” Why is he tinkering? “Trying to find the perfect combination. It’s my white whale.”

Scott is 51. He’s a designer. He says “Nope” when I ask if he uses anything. When I ask why he says “We’re all going to end up looking the same way when we’re dead.” Obviously, I think this is a funny response, but when I ask him if he could give me a little more than that, he tells me “It just doesn’t seem like a thing men do.”

Tony is 28. He’s a bartender. He’s been thinking about using more facial stuff. “I use Dr. Bronner’s soap and I love that stuff, but my face feels like it’s going to peel off.” He adds that “I’m out until the sun is up a lot. I wouldn’t say I live hard, but I don’t think I’m exactly good to my body. I’m not even 30 and I’m starting to see this.” He points to some small lines on his face and mentions when he was a kid he had terrible acne and all the treatments his dermatologist gave him didn’t do much. So there’s a bit of baggage there, which makes sense. But mostly, he notes the problem is “I’m lazy. I’ll buy the stuff, use it once and then forget about it.”

Here’s what I think. Between these five guys and countless other conversations that I’ve had not only with other guys but their suffering significant others who want to see their partner use something, anything on their face, the only thing I can say is there’s some sort of stigma attached to guys wanting to make sure their faces don’t start looking like a Louis Vuitton bag. I’m not totally sure where it came from, but I have to believe it’s rooted somewhere deep in the fragile American male psyche. And no, I’m not pointing fingers or saying guys who have reservations about putting SPF on their faces are this, that or the other thing. I’m simply saying years and generations of doing things one way do sometimes take time to undo.

When I look through old magazines, I’m actually surprised at the sheer amount of ads for products like cologne and aftershave, but the face stuff is usually tucked away in the back or usually a front-of-book roundup every year or so in a men’s magazine. If there is an ad for face stuff aimed at guys, it’s usually this very clean, sleek, often scientific-looking deal. It’s as if we’ve turned making sure that we don’t look like Droopy dog by the time we’re in our 40s into this thing when the fact is that it’s really just two or three minutes of your time putting something on that literally nobody will be able to notice.

But it’s something the one guy who does use products for his face said that I kept thinking about. Seth the teacher and his tinkering. It’s about how we’ve become this culture of obsessive nerds (sorry, Seth) who need to “get really into” anything from cars to orange wines. I started to wonder if the path towards normalizing something as simple as using a face scrub and then something to help clear up any beating your skin took during the day is simply to make it more of a hobby.

Ultimately, whether or not you use skincare products is totally a You thing. I’m just interested in how much pushback I’ve always noted when talking about this topic and the number of partners of friends who are always taking me aside and whispering “Can you talk to him about using a moisturizer?” It’s honestly a lot and I feel for them, so consider this my way of doing that.