Trend Report

Tech Bro Face Lifts & GLP1 Fragrance F*ckery

Predicting your own appearance might just make you invest in an ounce or two of prevention for yourself

Julie Fredrickson · 7-minute read

I love reading the style sections. Trend pieces are cultural futures markets, predictions about where attention will focus on crucial issues of human vanity.

One such trend is the drug induced lack of appetite for sweets. Could it be that no longer eating cake is driving an increase in consumption of cosmetics that smell like cake? Perfumers have a theory.

We are in a food scent boom in the fragrance world and Bloomberg ponders if the rising popularity of gourmand perfumes are being driven by the same market wide shifts as the 6% drop in food purchasing. Ozempic and other weight loss peptides are changing our tastes in more ways than one.

Vanilla, caramel, pistachio, frangipane, and other sweet scents are all the rage from soaps, to body mists, to perfumes. Thus we must have think pieces on diet culture and what it means that we have substituted the consumption of food for inedible products masquerading as a simulacra of savoring a sweet morsel. Someone call Zizek, since we can’t raise Baudrillard from the dead.

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I strongly dislike gourmand fragrances, and I take semaglutide, so take that as an n of 1 in judging the trend. The fragrance world has their own trend cycles, and gourmand waves come and go. Remember the Bath and Body Works era of “warm sugar”? I shudder. Gourmand is a bit like western wear or fringe detailing, a cyclical trend which has its time and place. A trend is not always appropriate to your tastes and culture, so don’t get too sucked in. Unless you are descended from Viennese pastry chefs.

And while you won’t catch me smelling like a baked good, I did find myself sentimental over the 100th anniversary of Guerlain’s Shalimar. My mother and grandmother both the original amber fragrance. I don’t know if the update of added Madagascan vanilla enhancement to the original ethylvanillin will be quite as iconic.

If gluttony is a sin, do we need to confess if we never actually indulged in anything? Catholics please let me know, as this is a Protestant flavored shopping column. Why do you think I have so many features on getting you a good deal?

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a $100K Facelift

Continuing with trend pieces, I’ll introduce today’s routine for “Men whose faces have wear and tear,” with a Wall Street Journal piece about tech bros getting face lifts (though in truth, the featured patients have gotten far more than just a facelift).

As an aside, whoever did the publicity on this deserves a raise, as the lucky dermatologist Dr. Ben Talei had two patients featured with extremely thorough work.

My thesis for this shopping column is explicitly that appearances do matter, and I’ve written previously about how men took themselves from the arena of appearances and are now fighting to regain the lost arts of this power.

So, if you are a guy who is aging, maybe in your forties or fifties, what can you do? Assuming that you would prefer to save money by needing less time under the knife, let me provide an ounce of skincare routine prevention to avoid that later $100,000 surgical cure.

First, remember that men have 20-25% thicker skin than women, so while you’re initially more resistant to aging, once life takes its toll, I’m sorry to say your wrinkles may be more pronounced. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we can easily achieve glowing, clear, and vibrant skin that keeps its character.

This is a routine that focuses on doing barrier care of your dermis with hydration that balances pore size and sebaceous gland clogging (that’s a fancy way of saying stopping zits). We do this while cultivating a healthful glow that shows you aren’t losing a step, but instead gaining grounding.

It also avoids excessive use of acids and has no retinols. Many men overuse pharmaceutical grade tretinoin and aldapene reasoning that it is cheap and simple. Reddit said so! But aggressive pharmaceutical induced turnover will age you.

And chances are good that if you look a bit rugged, it is because you don’t always use sunscreen (a prerequisite for retinols) so we need to build a routine that works with your actual lifestyle.

If you are working hard, long hours, and stripping your skin with intense drugs, you won’t have the same results as treating your skin with love and care. Men love a bitch, but let’s treat your skin to pampering worthy of a trad wife.

Or, to put it in extremely online terms: you are in the arena and must treat yourself like the king you are. Enlist the ladies in your life on this mission and you may be pleased with the support they give.

Bringing Vibrancy to Rugged Male Faces Who Show Some Wear and Tear

The “Good” Routine

I’m happy to keep recommending good basics like CeraVe, but Amazon is having its annual holiday beauty sale and there are good buys for higher end products like Kiehl’s and dermatologist favorite EltaMD, so there’s an opportunity to upgrade if you move quickly.

Original Morning

Morning Alternative Upgrade

Evening

Better

If you are prepared to add in a few products and use them consistently, The INKEY List is a well priced line with excellent active ingredients, and a clean look you won’t mind in your medicine cabinet.

Morning

Start by picking up The INKEY List You Need to Build Barriers Skincare Gift ($31)

Evening

Best

I am again recommending Beauty Pie in the “best” spot for its buyer’s club prices, excellent sourcing, ingredient quality, and generally low key multi-tasking products. If you need help buying just ping me as I use many of their products and my husband’s routine is close to this one, but with retinol.

If you manage this for 6 months, you could consider an intensity upgrade if you like your results. But let’s get the habit instilled first.

Morning

Evening

  • Wash with Super Healthy Skin Foamy Face Wash ($20)

  • Treat by repeating morning treatments

  • Moisturize with Youthbomb Breakthrough Repair Cream ($59) – you could repeat the morning moisturizer for simplicity and cost, but if you want to up your game this would be my choice. It has Geranylgeranone (GGA) plus Polyglutamic Acid and 5% Niacinamide, so its doubling up on Swiss Lab efficiency.

  • Finally, seal everything up with Plantastic Overnight Miracle Face Oil ($22) by applying 3-4 drops on top of the routine. Ingredients like Bakuchiol give you a plant based retinol mimic that has the benefits of softening wrinkles without the photosensitivity that retinols cause, so you can still roll out into the world without SPF.