AND WHEN I ROSE TO WOMAN’S ESTATE, I PUT AWAY MY BOY TOYS

Male order: the rise of the metrosexual (The Telegraph, June 7th, 2005)

Last year, the research company Datamonitor found that British men now spend £1.3 billion a year on grooming products. The overwhelming majority of those purchases are being made by men under 40 who spend £111 a year each on personal beauty products - only £27 a year less than women in the same age bracket.

Scenting the growth in demand among younger men, cosmetics giants such as L'Oréal and Nivea have been rushing to stock the shelves of Boots with male hair and face care products.

But the grooming boom has also led to the growth of many smaller British companies such as Pur:phuel and King of Shaves, the second biggest selling 'shaving software' brand in the UK after Gillette. Founded 12 years ago in his bedroom by Will King, the company offers everything from moisturisers, cleansers and exfoliators to XCD, a 'male image enhancement regime for men' - otherwise known as make-up.

Recent years have also seen the growth of dedicated men's grooming salons such as Carnaby Street's G Room and the Refinery, a chain of male beauty parlours offering such treatment as back waxes and Botox injections.

According to Joanna Broughton of Truefitt & Hill, a men's salon in St James's, London, 'the perception of masculine good looks has undergone a tremendous transformation in the past few years. Men not only want to look their best, they now recognise the importance of being flawlessly groomed.

Men no longer consider that manicured fingernails or smooth skin detract from their masculinity. Awareness of appearance is becoming paramount in the psychology of the modern male.'

Quite what is prompting this change is open to question. Mark Hooper cites the popularity of makeover shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and style icons such as David Beckham.

He also points to the rising number of single men in Britain. Six in 10 men aged between 25 and 34 are not married, with 40 per cent of that figure completely single - double the amount of two decades ago. 'Men are in and out of relationships, and it forces them to work harder at their appearance because they have to be on the lookout for a partner.' [...]

Perhaps it's not surprising then that types of health problems traditionally ascribed to women are on the rise among young men. The Eating Disorders Association estimates that 10 per cent of Britain's 90,000 anorexics and bulimics are male.

Men are increasingly liable to fall prey to eating disorders and more exotic conditions such as dysmorphia, sometimes known as 'bigorexia', an obsessive-compulsive syndrome that leads sufferers to work out constantly in the gym, abusing steroids and developing hypertrophied bodies, in the delusion that they are puny and underweight.

Dr Roberto Olivardia is co-author of The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of the Male Body. 'To a degree unprecedented in history,' he says, 'men are being made to feel more and more inadequate about how they look - while simultaneously being prohibited from talking about it or even admitting it to themselves.'

This is the bleak underside of men's new regard for their appearance. Far from a problem, most see the shift in attitudes as a positive sign. For Steve Beale of the men's fashion magazine Arena Homme Plus, the grooming boom is the belated expression of an age-old impulse. 'Ordinary men have always obsessed about their appearance, even if they haven't had all the moisturisers and hair gels they do now. Besides, good-looking people get the best jobs and the most women. What you're seeing now is the reproductive instinct writ large.'

Pity the modern woman. A girl is entitled to some fun after all, and how could any sexually liberated sister resist the temptation of wild and reckless passion with one (or more, or many more) of these sweet smelling, smooth-skinned, well-coiffed and sculpted Adonis’? Yet their mothers and that ticking biological clock keep warning them that family and security come, not from these feckless neurotics, but from good, solid, plain ‘ole sweaty and hairy conservative types who shower weekly whether they need it or not and view the regular use of antiperspirant as a gift they bestow out of love. Fortunately, our old pal natural selection is on the case and is taking steps to ensure the weaker vessel is not sidetracked by these frivolous narcissists and exercises its sexual selection prerogatives wisely and sensibly. But talk about trade-offs!