Father's World | Style & Grooming

Health & Fitness

Exercise & Fitness

Turn your medicine cabinet into an arsenal

We look at a woman's morning routine with a mixture of curiosity, horror and puzzlement. Having a girlfriend stay over or walking in on your wife's morning routine is like having an art studio open in your bathroom: the place where occasionally get cozy with Sports Illustrated is suddenly stocked with creams, palettes and brushes. You stare quizzically and wonder: What is all this stuff?

It's for her face and body, guy, and it's why she always looks twice as good as you do. While she exfoliates you figure that with a bar of soap, shampoo and some hair gel you're set.

Wrong. While no one is suggesting you become a regular at the Estee Lauder counter, adding just a few extra steps to your morning routine can pump up your looks almost overnight. And guys are doing it at a pretty decent clip: men's grooming products now account for more than $3 billion in sales annually, an increase of $600 million since 1990.

Here are five simple ways to have the look she'll want to know better.

FIND A SIGNATURE SCENT. Most men drag out whatever they got last Christmas, spray it on for weddings and let the dust collect the other months of the year. But using fragrance to complement your looks stamps you as a man of style.

What to choose? Avoid anything that's cheap or smells like your dad (translation: no more Aqua Velva). And' you -are absolutely forbidden to buy anything with the word "musk" in the title. Select one and wear it all the time: you want a nice scent that people will pleasantly associate as smelling like you.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR HAIR. Some guys spend a small fortune on expensive gel and then ruin it by cheaping out on a WalMart brush. Hair care is important: brushing dry hair stimulates oil glands at the base of the scalp, lubricating hair; brushing oily hair helps lift away excess oils.

If you've got dry or normal hair, try an old-fashioned wooden-handle brush from Kent ($46), the British authority that made its first brushes when the redcoats were battling the colonists. For fine or thinning hair, consider the sensitive brush from Mason Pearson ($75), another English import. This brush features boar bristle tufts set on a pneumatic pad for deep penetration.

GET RIP OF YOUR OTHER HAIR. There's just one word for nose hair and ear hair: gross. For the easiest to get rid of it, check out the Personal Groomer by Panasonic ($32). It's safe to use with water and contours to both the nose and ears.

BE SKIN SMART. Your face takes a pretty nasty beating most weeks, especially if you're an outdoorsman, golfer or sun worshipper. Fight back. Greg Panaro, a skincare consultant at Saks Fifth Avenue in New Jersey's upscale Mall at Short Hills, says men are buying moisturizers and cleansers in droves. "I have a pretty big clientele of men," he says, "and they're all concerned with how their faces look."

Supplement your soap-and-water drill with a basic moisturizer. Panaro suggests M Lotion by Clinique (2 ounces, $10.50), abetted by daily cleansing with Clinique Facial Scrub (3 ounces, $13-50). A good backup is Kiehls Ultra Facial Moisturizer with SPF 13 (4 ounces, $18-50), a lightweight, versatile lotion for both the acne prone or flaky-skin type.

NAIL IT. Since you're probably not going for a salon manicure anytime soon, turn to Dovo, one of the world's finest suppliers of cutlery, for a classy leather-encased grooming kit designed to keep your cuticles gleaming. It's pricey ($115), but you'll have it until you retire. But leave the nail polish to the ladies: as with imported beer and Cowboys football, in male grooming there is sometimes too much of a good thing.

Suggestions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you.

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