Welcome To The Brave New World Of Male Beauty

In 2016, a regular facial and mani-pedi won’t cut it anymore. More men than ever before, both young and old, are turning to lasers, needles and chemicals to fix their hai face and even their hairy balls. Nothing is off limit GQ investigates the brave new world of male beauty in India.

- Pauline Zonunpuii

There’s a revolution brewing behind closed doors. In swanky, chandelier-lit dermatology clinics in some of the country’s toniest neighbourhoods. Men are spending more time and money – sometimes up to two lakhs for a single session – on fixing perceived flaws, sloughing off dead cells and trying to look their best.

For 26-year-old Delhi-based event manager Roshan Bhagat*, it began with a small insecurity. “My lips were too thin. I was very conscious of them,” he shares, “but within minutes of my arrival for a consultation, the doctor began picking apart my flaws. I’ve come back six times, since November, to fix the rest of my face.” The treatments he’s undertaken include skin lightening, acne therapy, face contouring and Botox for the furrows between his eyes.

Looking good au naturel seems like a distant concept for Bhagat and thousands of other Indian men who’re turning to fillers to lift their scars, grooms who want to look as good as their brides, and older men struggling with wrinkles and sagging skin. The last decade has seen a male beauty revolution in India, according to veteran celebrity dermatologist Dr Jamuna Pai, who’s treated men from her Mumbai-based clinic for over 20 years. “Though my clientele is still female dominated, the percentage of men has increased – today as many as 40 per cent of our clients are men.”

“If ten years back it was two men against eight women, today it is four men against six women,” adds Dr Rashmi Shetty, aesthetic physician and founder of Ra Skin & Aesthetics in Hyderabad.