David Beckham’s Latest Pitch: Men’s Cosmetics

Men of the world, David Beckham has a message for you: Moisturize. “It’s the biggest thing,” he says in a London warehouse-turned-nightclub where he’s launching a grooming brand, House 99, in partnership with L’Oréal SA. The soccer superstar has long tapped his appeal both as a skilled midfielder and as a style icon with trendsetting hairdos to win endorsement deals from the likes of Adidas AG and Giorgio Armani SpA. In the L’Oréal venture, Beckham will pitch face creams, beard oil, and pomades designed to help buyers nail his slickbacks and pompadours. While men in the past might have balked at using, say, a $26 eye-brightening balm, “now it’s so accepted,” he says. “The majority of guys I know do look after themselves.”

L’Oréal’s stable of brands such as Maybelline and Urban Decay have made it the global leader in makeup, accounting for a fifth of the market—about double the share of No. 2 Estée Lauder Companies, according to researcher Euromonitor International. But in men’s grooming, it’s behind Procter & Gamble Co. (the owner of Old Spice and Gillette) and Unilever Group, with its Axe deodorant and Dollar Shave Club. As the market for shaving supplies slows—a survey by Braun found that half of European men sport facial hair—L’Oréal says it can close the gap with the leaders by persuading men to spend more on hair- and skin-care products. “There’s a growing interest in grooming around the world,” says David Fridlevski, general manager of House 99 and Biotherm, another L’Oréal unit that Beckham has endorsed since 2015.