The Men's Guide to Grooming

As stated yesterday, one of the essentials of being a gentleman is having a proper grooming regimen. It isn't simply important to wear fashionable clothes and have a successful life, taking care of your appearance keeps you looking healthy, attractive, and youthful. Nothing says swag like a brother who's got his looks together.  And we all want that for ourselves. To help out our gentleman, I've included a primer on the essentials of grooming and beauty for men provided by one of our friendly websites Homorazzi.com. The first step to building a beauty regimen is learning to stick with it. It takes 21 days to build a new habit so add these items to your morning to-do list and watch your attraction factor take off. Check it out below.

Before I get into my recommendation for your fall tune up to your grooming regime, I want to make sure you’re following the basic system you should be following year round. You should be cleansing your face morning and night every day, with a cleanser to emulsify dirt & oil from the surface of the skin. By using a gentle cleanser instead of harsh soaps, you will avoid stripping the natural protective oils on your skin. Also, every day, morning and night, you should also be moisturizing your face to protect, nourish, and hydrate the skin in order to keep your skin looking at its best. Moisturizers are necessary, even for people with oily skin – just get the right moisturizer for your skin type. For me, those are the absolute basic steps (assuming you’re also using a QUALITY shaving cream) you should all be doing. No more excuses. Once you graduate from that, you get to start using products for big boys, like eye creams that help to minimize dark circles and fine lines. Cool, huh?

Now, a few recommendations for your fall tune up…

Lip Balm. Listen chaps, nobody wants to talk to you, let alone kiss you when your lips are peeling. Unless your significant other likes smooching with sandpaper and you happen to like the feeling of your lips tearing apart whenever you smile, protect your bloody lips! Solution: Men’s Health 2009 Grooming Award Winner for Best Lip Treatment – Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm (Lemon & Chamomile) SPF 25. This is not one of those chap sticks that don’t work, yet you still keep on reapplying and reapplying. It works and it tastes great. In short, it’s the balm! PS: The BRAND Jack Black has no relation to the ACTOR, Jack Black.

Teeth Whitening To-Go.
With fall & winter comes holiday parties, and with holiday parties comes red wine, and with red wine comes immediate dark/stained teeth. Every talked to someone that has been drinking red wine and found their overly stained teeth to be extremely distracting? Well if you drink red wine, chances are, people have had the same experience with you. Solution: Just a drop of pocket-size Quikee, smoothed over your teeth and around your mouth with the tip of your tongue provides the perfect discreet tooth whitening, breath freshening experience when you can’t brush. Just think, with the embarrassing red wine stained teeth avoided, Quikee just may lead to a Quickee at one of your holiday parties this season. A cheesy “Axe Effect” commercial would do well for a product like coupled with a name like Quikee, don’t you think?

Hydrating Moisturizer. Most good moisturizers ARE by nature hydrating, but some people will require a more intense moisturizer as the cold weather approaches. The cold temperature can have some harsh effects on your skin, causing it to get dry and flaky very easily- like dandruff of the face! Eww, nobody wants that. Nobody wants to have a greasy face either, so by using a more intense moisturizer, that doesn’t have to mean that your face will be oily. Solution: (MALIN+GOETZ) Vitamin E Moisturizer as your daily moisturizer or for a more intense moisturizer (or evening moisturizer) use the (MALIN+GOETZ) Cellular Renewal Cream. This intensive treatment helps build collagen and restore damage for all skin types. It stimulates cellular renewal, addresses lines, wrinkles, clarity, and firmness. Aww, it makes you look younger? Bummer! In all seriousness, I used this moisturizer all last winter and was extremely impressed on how great my skin felt and looked. The thing about using quality skin care products is that although they sometimes appear to be more expensive, they actually generally last longer, are more effective, and you aren’t paying for mass marketing campaigns like mainstream drug store brands. Quality products build their clientele by the reputation of their fantastic products.

Scrub. As aforementioned, the Fall and Winter temperatures can dry out your skin. In order to help keep your skin healthy and glowing, it’s important to exfoliate your skin regularly. Gently exfoliating or scrubbing your skin helps to buff dead cells and dull build up, smooth and revitalize your complexion, and when used prior to your shave it helps to loosen up your beard hair in preparation for a closer shave. Use your scrub in place of your cleanser 2-3 times a week before you shave (if you are blessed with facial hair…or unblessed for that matter). This is an easy way to integrate it into your routine, and a great way to improve the quality of your shave (Sayanora, ingrown hairs!) Solution: Menscience Microfine Face Scrub. This is another Mens Health Grooming Awards Winner for Best Scrub. Just apply a quarter-size amount to a wet face and neck, massage with a light, circular motion for about a minute (avoid the eye and under eye area of course), then rinse.

Hand Moisturizer. The theme is moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Your hands are no exception. If everything else is all bundled up, your hands and face tend to be the only parts of your flesh exposed when going from Point A to Point B in the fall/winter months, so their they parts that require the most love. Keep a hand moisturizer on your desk, in your bag, and beside your bed. Take it with you wherever you go, or leave it in the location that you think will the best place for you to remember to use it. Solution: Jack Black Industrial Strength Hand Healer. Without a doubt. This is the best hand cream I’ve ever tried. Conveniently, it comes in a travel size tube and a bigger size with a pump dispenser. This product is a must.

Scent. Sounds easy enough, huh? Well, as the temperature increases, so will the amount of time you spend indoors with your peers and coworkers, and what better time to make yourself stand out with your signature scent. The key thing is making yourself stand out (in a positive way). You don’t want to smell like the dweeb in the cubicle next to you do you? If you don’t want something mass produced, I have a hard to find scent to tell you about that will make your secret crush jump your bones in an instant. Solution: Encre Noire from Lalique. Part of me doesn’t want to tell you about this because IT’S THAT GOOD and I use it, and thus I’m kind of sabotaging myself with my own advice, but if you’re reading this guide on getting well equipped for fall then I deem you worthy of this fragrance. The notes are fresh and woody vetiver and cypress mix with enticing cashmere wood and musk. On that note, make sure your place smells good to if you’re entertaining with a sophisticated/sexy smelling candle!