The Delights of being a MAN (part 2)

In an ongoing project to celebrate the differences between blokes and our lovely ladies, I may occasionally meander into areas of some disagreement.

I am quite willing to agree that you may disagree with some of my comments, but I know who's right.



Let's look at cosmetics.

Bloke's ideas on this topic have changed over the years since I was a boy.

I can remember that my grandfather had only three things in his section of the bathroom cupboard.

A safety razor
Spare blades for said razor
A Styptic Pencil (if you don't know what the hell a Styptic Pencil is then you can look here.  But is was basically a solid mass of a rather nasty coagulant called Aluminium Sulphate, which stopped bleeding Try and think of applying a concentrated mix of salt and acid to a cut.  By God, it really stung, but it stopped any bleeding from shaving nicks very quickly.  If you ignored the muffled screams, it was quite efficient)

A Styptic Pencil

My Dad had the same, plus
A bottle of Old Spice aftershave (remember the opaque white glass bottle?)
A jar of Brylcream
A bottle of Vaseline Hair Oil

Men were men and not afraid of smelling like one (although rather an oily one in my Dad's case)

I, like most of my generation are rather more effete (bloody poofs in my Dad's words) and would rather not smell of 5 day old rancid sweat, so we do tend to use deodorants.  But that was basically it.

Then I got older.

I have a terrible dark secret, of which I am deeply ashamed.

I moisturise.

For the last 5 years, after showering every day (another effete habit.  My grandfather had a quick wash using cold water from a bucket and a flannel cloth every night, and a bath once a month) I have discovered that I really need to use a moisturising cream on my face, otherwise it gets terribly itchy and flaky. This I can understand.  As one gets older, the body changes.  The youthful surplus of skin oils, which kept my boyish complexion fresh and supple, can no longer be relied on to maintain my epidermis in a comfortable state, so I now use a moisturising cream. I can hear my grandad spinning from over 13,000 miles away.

Well done Granda, 2,700 RPM

But what makes it odd, is that I also exude oil.

I don't mean that I drip Castrol GTX from any orifice, or even sneeze Shell Multigrade, but the fact remains that I now have an oil problem.

I lost most of my hair at a relatively young age, after getting a fungal infection on my scalp in my Army days. (Try wearing a beret or steel helmet on your noggin for 14 days under field conditions during the height of summer, with no chance of having a proper wash (Grandad would have been proud) Half of my scalp sort of detached itself with the accompanying hair (and large scab) when I returned to base)

And age has slowly caused the rest of my hair to unaccountably disappear, so I'm almost bald.

Now my poor disfigured and hairless scalp is exposed to all environments, and it responds by trying to protect itself by exuding oils.  Lots and lots of oils.

I sometimes imagine that I've got oil hockey matches going on, with little teams of beasties skating around on my follicle-challenged scalp.

After just 2 days

It has reached the point that my Beloved insists that I use a protective cloth, wrapped around my pillow each night.  This cloth has to be washed every week, to try (a vain attempt) and remove the yellowish stain that is left.  Even more peculiar, it smells like ear wax.

I did try an experiment some months ago, when I attempted to store some of the surplus head-oil to use on the dried out skin on my face, but it was not successful.

Too much earwax

Mainly I think, because the stored oil quickly turned rancid, and smelling like rancid ear-wax was not helpful in maintaining my sophisticated appearance. The students even complained.

What they exactly complained about was the supposed presence of a dead/dying rat somewhere under the classroom. I did not even try to explain, but went back to using a store-bought moisturiser instead of the recycled head-oil.

But I digress.

The contents of my section of the bathroom cabinet (1 drawer) can be easily stored in a small toilet-bag.  My Beloved would need a bloody cabin trunk to store hers.  Honestly, how many jars, bottles, tubes, sachets and sprays do you think I found when I tried to do an inventory last week?

I only discovered this when I found some of her stuff in my single drawer, and I wanted to make some room.

I lost count at 138.

I also tried to estimate the total cost of all of her unguents.  It came approximately to $3560.

The total cost of mine was $78


So there is the real reason I'm delighted in being a bloke.

I spend less money, and to a Scot, that is quite important.

Anyway, it's well known that blokes get more good looking with age, so I am content.

I can shtill pull the pusshy