We had been looking at ourselves on-screen for more than two-and-a-half years, and it wasn’t pretty. The pandemic left many men with more wrinkles and weight, less hair and energy, and a general disapproval by the way we look.
“Studies show that the increase of webinars and virtual meetings have led to an increase in facial dissatisfaction overall.” notes Kim Nichols, M.D., the celebrity dermatologist and owner of NicholsMD of Greenwich.
So what? We’re guys -who cares how we look? Well, it’s finally time to admit the obvious: We do!
Women, of course, have long known both the benefits and the sublime pleasures of spa treatments. And for almost as long, they’ve been trying to get the men in their lives-husbands, boyfriends. fathers, brothers and sons -to experience them, too.
Now, as guys are back to in-person meetings and dates in real time, we’re having to do so without Zoom’s “Touch up my appearance” feature or the filter that smooths wrinkled skin. In fact, we’re steadily leaving virtual rooms and showing up in light-filled, calm and soothing spas in record numbers. According to the International SPA Association, men’s presence in spas has shot up from 31 percent ten years ago to 47 percent today.
In the past, guys had to travel to the grand spas of Europe for aesthetic treatments or to only a handful of iconic American spas -The Golden Door in Southern California during Men’s Week, for example or the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia (full, obnoxious disclosure: I’ve been to both). But the intersection of Covid-19, prolonged screen time and men’s growing concern for their health and wellness has given rise not only to new aesthetic centers, but also to the opening of half a dozen or more medical spas across Fairfield County in the past two years alone.
-Tom Connor
article from issuu.com (page. 84)
PHOTOGRAPHS: LEAF ©MILKJAN ZIVKOVID – STOCK.ADOBE
