Jun 2, 2018

The Ultimate Guide To Male Grooming: 50+ Head To Toe Tips

It’s easy to get lost in the world of male grooming advice.

With thousands of tips, tricks, tools, creams, colognes, and cuts to choose from… where’s a fella to start when it comes to grooming himself?

Every man wants to be able to feel 100% confident in how he looks, smells, and feels when he’s getting close to someone he finds attractive.

Whether it’s bad breath, body odour, an unfortunate haircut, or something else, poor hygiene or grooming should never put a damper on your ability to fully connect with people.

Similar to picking a morning routine, or a favourite go-to breakfast to stand by, male grooming is about cutting things down to the essential. Think, ‘less is more.’

It’s better to have your one favourite hair product than it is to have a dozen to choose from. Better one signature scent than to have a medicine cabinet filled with ten barely used bottles.

In this article, I’ll be going over some of the best essential male grooming tips, along with the most unfortunately ignored.

Enough pre-amble. Let’s start at the top, and work our way down.

Male Grooming Advice: Haircuts

Unless you have an especially long hairstyle, getting haircuts regularly is essential. For most men, every 2-4 weeks is best.

If you notice that you’re due for a haircut, other people have noticed too.

You can take this task into your own hands if you have a shaved head or really tight fade, but haircuts are generally best left to the professionals.

If you don’t know what type of haircut best suits your face shape, either go to someone who is good at what they do (it’s a safer bet to spend $50+ on a haircut than it is to spend $20) or consult these rules of thumb.

Best Men’s Haircuts For Different Face Shapes

If you have an oval face shape: keep the sides and back on the shorter side, and definitely little to no bangs… since you want to increase the attention that your semi-angular jaw deserves.

If you have a more rectangular face: avoid having super short trims on the side of your head, as this will elongate your face further. Ditto for the reason that this face shape should also avoid long beards.

If you have a square shaped face: you have a fairly versatile face and you can get away with longer or shorter cuts.

If you have a round face shape: since you don’t have as much natural angles to your face, your cut will need to create the illusion of cheekbones/jawline through whatever you wear. Facial hair/beards can help this endeavour, as can tighter fades.

And finally, if you have a heart shaped face: beards and facial hair help to fill out the bottom half of your face, and mid-length/longer hair styles will help to balance our the larger forehead area.

Hair Products

Again, if you’re seeing a quality barber/hair stylist (which you should be) they will be able to advise on what exactly you should be opting for, but you should always go for quality.

For styling:

If you want your hair to be frozen in time, you’ll want a high quality hair gel.

If you want some shine and mobility, cream is best.

If you want a matte finish and the ability to restructure your hair half way through your date (say, one look for the boardroom and another for the bedroom), styling wax is recommended.

And for hair health and daily maintenance, pick a high quality shampoo and conditioner and use them 2-3x per week (daily if you have oily hair).

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Skin Health

Put your best face forward by giving your skin some proactive loving.

Splash your face with warm water (or, even better, open up your pores by having a hot shower) and wash off the accumulated dirt with a gentle, natural face cleanser.

After gently rubbing the face wash on, and rinsing it with warm water, douse your face in cold water (to help shrink your pores back up and prevent dirt from getting in them) and pat your face dry with a clean towel.

If you feel like giving your skin some extra love, use a high quality moisturizer. For this product, more than most, I really advocate for going for quality. If you’re using a cheap drugstore brand of moisturizer, it’s usually better to just not use one at all and let your skin do its own thing.

To prevent dead skin from piling up on your face, make sure to exfoliate your skin 1-2 times per week by gently rubbing it with an exfoliating glove or using an exfoliant face wash.

Also, to prevent premature aging, make sure you use sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15 when you go out in the sun for longer than twenty minutes at a time.

When you’re using cleanser, exfoliant, moisturizer, sunscreen, etc., make sure that you only use a dime size of each per session, otherwise you’ll just be flushing your money down the drain. Your skin can only utilize so much product at a time.

If you really want to go American Psycho with your skin health, you can apply an under eye serum before you go to bed, and use a pore strip every two weeks to get out the stubborn dirt that lives on your nose.

Final note on making your skin look healthy… just like you can’t out-supplement a terrible diet, you can’t out-moisturize a terrible lifestyle. To ensure your skin is looking it’s best, make sure you are drinking lots of water on a daily basis (3-4 litres), and getting adequate amounts of sleep (7-9 hours per day).

Eyebrow Maintenance

Well kept eyebrows can make for the subtle difference between knuckle-dragging neanderthal and suave, handsome gentlemen.

Every 1-2 weeks, take a set of tweezers to the unruly hairs between your eyebrows (because, yes, you should have two of them) and pluck off any strays that are adventuring off towards your forehead. Ditto for any eyebrow hairs that are at the same level to, or below, the sides of your eyes.

Finally, you will need to trim any extra long eyebrow hairs. Comb up your eyebrows, and trim any long hairs with scissors.

If you decide to get your eyebrows professionally waxed or threaded, make sure that you communicate that you only want your eyebrows to be minimally impacted/cleaned up, because overly shaped eyebrows don’t look great on most men.

Ear And Nose Hair

Stray hairs protruding from your ears and nose should be removed immediately. Same goes for any hairs that are living on the surface of your nose.

Tweezers, nose hair trimmers, round tipped scissors… whatever you need to use… just get rid of them.

Facial Hair, Beards, And Shaving 

Facial hair, like many male grooming tips, are subject to your personal preferences, the preferences of your significant other, and the culture and environment around you.

I am going to focus less on the ‘what facial hair shape is the ‘right’ shape to look the best?’ (since there is no such thing), but rather the how of shaving.

Step 1: Get your facial hair warm and wet, by splashing warm water on yourself, using a hot towel, or showering.

Step 2: Cover your fuzzy areas in a high quality shaving cream.

Step 3: Take your razor and go with the grain. If you go against the grain, do that after you’ve gone with the grain first. If you have sensitive skin, a straight razor works best. If your skin isn’t too sensitive and your facial hair is fairly easy to cut, a basic multi-blade razor should work just fine.

Step 4: Rinse off with cool water, pat dry, and use a quality aftershave to sooth and hydrate your skin.

If you are the proud owner of a beard and you have more coarse beard hair (like I do), then you’ll want to keep it soft with a high quality beard oil. I love beard oils that smell like nature, so I usually use one that smells like pine or cedar.

Taking Care Of Your Lips

One to two times per week, gently rub an exfoliating pad or exfoliating glove along your lips (while in the shower is usually the easiest since they’ll already be wet).

Doing this will get rid of all of the residual dead skin-gunk that can accumulate over time (especially true in the colder months), and make your lips that much more kissable and fresh looking.

If you want to wear chap stick or some kind of lip balm throughout the day, go for it. But in many cultures, men having obviously shiny lips can be considered less than attractive… so go with whatever feels natural. You can always wear your lip balm when you go to bed at night if you don’t want to be seen as a shiny lip guy in the daylight (to each their own).

Oral Hygiene

Bad breath stinks, and is one of the more universally unattractive things that turn people off.

While hygiene in general is important, I would say that oral hygiene is doubly so.

Considering how much work you put it through, your mouth doesn’t ask for much from you. Would it kill you to give it 5-10 minutes a day of focused love? No. No it wouldn’t.

After you’ve exfoliated your lips, try on the following as a regular oral hygiene routine.

– Use an electric toothbrush with a built-in timer on it (so you know that you’re brushing for a full two minutes)

– Floss daily

– Use a natural toothpaste

– Use a tongue scraper

– Occasionally use teeth whitening strips if you’re looking to boost your teeth-whiteness (if you have sensitive teeth, then avoid whitening strips, and just drink less coffee and red wine)

– Go to the dentist for a professional level deep clean every 6-12 months

Deodorant

Three rules for deodorant use:

1. Wear it

2. Wear it every day

3. Use a natural deodorant that actually works and will have you smelling fresh for at least 24 hours

I am a huge fan of Routine Cream. These two scents for men (Johnny’s Cash and Like A Boss) are my favourites and I can’t recommend them highly enough. Plus, a $25 container lasts me for about 9-12 months, so it’s a lot less expensive than using a crappy, off-the-shelf product.

If you don’t care about jamming parabens and aluminum into your pores and messing with your hormones, feel free to use other basic, drugstore brands. But I’d prefer to not piss off my body with my personal care products as much as I can avoid it.

Body Exfoliation 

Just like your scalp, face, and feet need to be exfoliated, your body skin needs love too.

One to two times per week, while in the shower, rub down your entire body with a soapy exfoliating glove to scrub off all of the dead skin that would otherwise eventually turn into a funky smell or bacne.

Key areas to focus on: arms, shoulders, back, scrotum, and chest.

Body Wash, Soap

Again, just like a low quality deodorant can clog up your pores and negatively impact your hormonal health, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using a high quality, natural soap to clean yourself with.

My all-time favourite soap that I use on a daily basis for everything but my face and scalp is Dr. Bronner’s Baby Mild Unscented Soap. It’s natural, it works, and a bottle lasts me for over a year.

Pubic Hair Etiquette: Crotch Grooming

Full bush? Neat and trimmed? Bald monk? Landing strip?

So many crotch options! Crotchptions!

This is the pinnacle of where personal preference meets partner preference. Sure, you have your own preferred style of pubic hair for yourself (even if that means doing zero grooming), but you’re also not the one who has to put your genitals in your mouth. So be considerate, and ask your partner what they prefer on you.

Generally, the current trend for men is to trim away the bulk of the short and curly’s, while still leaving some pubic hair visible. Second step past that would be to shave or wax your balls.

I know men who get their ‘sack and crack’ waxed on a monthly basis, and others who go full bush… so really, the whole spectrum is fine and acceptable.

If you do decide to get waxed, make sure you go to a place that has a strict ‘no double dipping’ policy (for your health).

When in doubt, simply take an electric razor/beard hair trimmer, put it on the longest setting, and, with a comb providing some separation between the trimmer and your skin, trim off the bulk of your pubes. Voila! You are now that much more blowjob ready.

Also, while we’re on the subject of crotch/genital hygiene and grooming, if you’re uncircumcised, make sure you’re pulling back your foreskin and cleaning your penis on a daily basis.

(Bonus summer time/warm weather tip: if you’re heading out for the day and can rightfully assume that you’ll be getting busy with your partner later on in the day, I would recommend sprinkling a light dusting of baby powder on your testicles to keep it fresher for longer.)

Body Hair And Overall Body Grooming

Similar to pubic hair grooming, there is a lot of wiggle room in terms of what you can do here.

Common best practices for body hair grooming include: getting your back and/or chest waxed, trimming chest hairs down with an electric razor, and (for some men) getting your arms waxed.

Your Feet

A lot of men ignore their feet to their partner’s dismay.

If you ever sleep in a bed with another person, and you don’t tend to your feet at all, it has likely been noticed.

Make sure your feet aren’t covered in blood-drawing spikes by regularly trimming down your nails with a basic nail clipper, and edging down any hard, calloused skin with a foot-specific pumice stone or emory board.

Also, if you tend to get dry and/or cracked heels in the colder months (like I do), then here’s what I’ve found works best to overcome this problem. 1) Make sure you’re drinking more than enough water (because dry heels are often tied to dehydration). And 2) use this healing foot balm that I use from Skinfix. It is ridiculously effective. I’d tried dozens of moisturizers that often made things worse, but this is the only product that not only made my heels feel softer to the touch, but also completely healed them in two days of use. It’s seriously a miracle cream for anyone who is prone to dry heels.

And hey, if you aren’t super ticklish, you might even want to try getting a pedicure every now and then.

Nails

Keep them short and trimmed. Buff them until they’re shiny, if you want.

Do it yourself using nail clippers, cuticle trimmers, and a multi-gradient buffer block.

Get a manicure one time and watch what the nail technician is doing, to figure out what to do, and then do it yourself from there on out.

If you bite your nails and want to stop, you can pick up a nail topper that tastes awful and forces you to stop pretty quickly.

Cologne: Picking Your Signature Scent

There are two things that really matter when it comes to picking out cologne:

1. Make sure it’s quality

2. Pick something that not a lot of people wear. Pick your own signature scent and rock it for years.

And bonus point, if you can afford it, have a go-to scent that you wear in the cold months, and another for the warm months.

 

Internal Grooming: Vitamins And Food

What good is all of this grooming if you’re treating your insides like crap?

If you’re on a constant diet of overly processed junk food, then your pores will be like a Play-Doh Fun Factory working overtime to pump out oil, toxins, and chemicals.

Treat yourself well. Feed yourself like the self-honouring King that you are.

Nothing new here. Eat a diet loaded with vegetables, dark leafy greens, nuts, seeds, fruit, and lean, organic meats like turkey, lamb, grass fed steak/ground beef, and pasture raised eggs. Also, drink 2-4 litres of water per day.

Key supplements that I most recommend for overall health and healthy skin: vitamin E, magnesium bisglycinate, vitamin D, vitamin C, and fish oil or krill oil.

Or, if you want the grand-daddy of all supplements (in a one-stop-shop kind of way), I would recommend Athletic Greens above all else. I consume this greens powder daily and it’s been an absolute game changer for me.

The Grooming Choices You Make Come Down To This…

I see personal grooming as the sweet spot between your personal preferences, your cultural/environmental influences, and your partner’s preferences. So, when in doubt (especially in matters of facial hair/body hair/pubic hair), consult yourself, and then consult your partner.

I hope that you learned something new in this article… and that you feel that much better prepared to face the world as the handsome beast that you are.

Do you want to learn about specific grooming techniques that are more sex specific (as in, what part of your face you need to keep well groomed to not negatively impact oral sex, and which three spots on your body you need to spend the most time giving your grooming attention to)? If so, you can check out my Advanced Grooming Techniques For Men video in my Supercharge Your Sex Life video program.

Dedicated to your success,

Jordan

Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you will also love checking out:

The Better Sex Diet: Exactly What I Eat Every Day

The 6 Best Herbs And Supplements For Boosting Sex Drive

21 Of The Best Self Care Practices Ever

5 Weird Stress Busting Techniques You’ve Never Heard Of

The Greatest Health Investment You Could Make

9 Ways Anyone Can Instantly Be More Attractive

Jordan Gray
About Jordan Gray

Jordan Gray has been a sex and relationship coach for over 15+ years, with his work reaching over 200 million people worldwide. His writing has been featured in Vogue, GQ, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and countless other publications around the world. When he’s not working with 1-on-1 coaching clients or writing a new article, he’s most likely to be found reading, chopping wood, or spending time with his wife on a little island off the west coast of Canada.

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