Yes, Real Men Drink Beer and Use Skin Moisturizer

Adam Causgrove is not a metrosexual. The 29-year-old grant administrator in Pittsburgh is a die-hard Pirates fan and sports a 6-inch handlebar mustache. He loves bourbon, drives a Chevy, and has a dog named Diesel. Yet after shaving, the only thing he trusts to soothe his “horrible” razor burn is Crabtree & Evelyn’s alcohol-free lotion. “Six years ago I had one shampoo, a body wash, and a toothbrush, and that was it,” he says. “As I’ve gotten older and more self-aware, I cannot begrudge anyone for wanting to put their best face forward.”

Men like Causgrove are proof that guys’ grooming products—hair serums, exfoliating scrubs, and manly eye creams with manly roll-on applicators—are reaching a wider audience. Over the past five years, the share of new personal-care merchandise geared to men rose to 5.6 percent, from 4.6 percent, researcher Mintel says. Global sales of male toiletries other than razors, blades, and shaving cream will rise 5 percent, to $17.5 billion, this year, surpassing the shaving stuff for the first time, according to Euromonitor International. Unilever, with its Axe and Dove brands, has 26 percent of the market, more than Procter & Gamble, Nivea maker Beiersdorf, and L’Oréal combined.