The Men at the Salon
Clients and staff at one Beijing nail salon illustrate China’s changing attitudes towards male grooming.
Zhang Yang laughs in exasperation when asked what others say about his grooming habits. “Why does men’s grooming have to be a problem?”
Zhang, a stylist from Shenzhen, sits in a comfortable leather chair at the Sanlitun branch of Beijing’s Lily Nails salon. When his schedule allows, he likes to come in to get a manicure or pedicure. Though he is only one of a handful of men in the spacious store on this Sunday afternoon, he asserts there is nothing strange about men getting their hands professionally treated. He says “It’s a very normal way of life.”
That lifestyle is starting to catch on with other men in China.
Yu Xiaoli has been a nail technician at Lily Nails for ten years. Though there is little data available regarding the number of men getting spa treatments in China, she estimates that male clients at her store have risen from just one or two a day several years ago to now making up about 20 percent of the customers.
Despite the uptick, Yu believes many people still see the salon—theirs with a wall of brightly colored nail polish and displays of ornate nail designs—as the domain of women, and so many male clients tend to keep a low profile. “[Men] might feel they are being looked at differently… after they finish their treatment they rush out.”
Though not all men may be open about getting groomed in and out of the salon, the topic is gaining attention beyond China. In the past year, Quartz, The Telegraph and the Washington Post have all covered the recent trend of Chinese men wearing makeup.
According to Euromonitor International, year over year sales of men’s grooming products has continued to increase since 2015, with men’s fragrances expected to increase by 14.3% in 2018.
In September 2018, Alibab's online retail platform TMall and L’Oréal China announced a partnership to explore ways to expand into China’s male grooming market. Their white paper on sales of men’s grooming on the TMall platform showed that sales of male-specific grooming products had risen much faster than general grooming products, suggesting that men are looking for a diverse range of grooming products made specifically with them in mind.
Many attribute the increased interest in men’s grooming and beauty by Chinese urbanites to international influence, and South Korea in particular, which spends more per-capita on men’s skincare products than any other country in the world. Although spending on a manicure every two weeks seems frivolous to some, some believe that in a competitive society like South Korea, that detailed attention to appearance could be what gives a job applicant the edge they need.
Zhang Yang agrees. For him, spending money on his nails is just like taking care of any other aspect of his appearance. “If someone’s shoes are dirty and you go out without polishing them, it could affect your work.” Although he acknowledges that his line of work requires him to invest more in his appearance than other men might need, he believes that careful attention to appearance says a lot about the man.
“If you’re a slob and you tell someone that you’re quality-conscious… No one’s going to believe that, right?”
