BigPerson mentioned his loss at his girl spending $100 on a haircut and colour. I laughed because I used to pay nearly $200 to have my hair coloured by an amazing colourist. Hell, I charge $50 to do the same in my kitchen and I haven't been to beauty school.(I am awesome with colour, though.) That is just hair. Many women get mani/pedis($30-50), many spend lots of money on fashion(big number here), some go for plastic surgery, on and on. Some will hold off on bills to support their beauty habit, paying for new weaves before rent. Focus:How much is reasonable? How much do you spend? What do you do yourself to save money? Alt Focus: Ever seen an absurd display of vanity? Alt Alt Focus: What would happen if you could not indulge in your most important beauty routine ever again?
MOTHER EFFIN' SAUVE, HOMIES. TWO-IN-ONE UP IN THIS BITCH. WORD. But The Wife recently splurged a little bit when buying me a new bottle of body wash, and bought the Dove Men stuff instead. I think it was like 50 cents more. I feel sparkly.
I work for a plastic surgeon. The most ridiculous display of vanity are the women who get their vaginas worked on. I don't really want to know what exactly does on for this, but it's generally creepy to me.
To cut my hair all I do is pull out my 30 dollar clippers, and set that son of a bitch to one. Ten to fifteen minutes later I have taken care of my personal hair needs for the next couple of weeks. But then again I give all most no attention to my personal appearance so I could be an anomaly even among guys. I got you beat. I just picked up four bottles of off brand body wash for five dollars. It smells good, but is a little thin. But when you only take showers that are long enough for you to wash from head to foot, (About five minutes thank you basic training.) it is more than sufficient.
Focus: I get a $15 haircut every two months (when I'm not lazy) and another 10 a month for my gym membership. Alt Focus:
What the fuck is an essential oil? Why are products labeled with it 3.67 times more expensive than ones without? How essential are they? Will I die without them? Honestly, I'd just really like to know how the fuck they pump up the cost on these "health" products. I have a general sense of the amount girls spend, an insane amount, part of me doesn't want to know the details. I bought a 12 dollar pair of electric clippers so I could no guard buzz my head. With most places running hair cuts at 15-20 bucks, it pays for itself after 1.5 uses. On a serious note, I truly wonder how much men with actual lumber jack beards spend on razors. I have a pathetic amount of facial hair and I prefer to shave it. I can get away with shaving twice a week. For the life of me I have never been able to tell the difference from a brand new out of the box shave and a dull used for 10 months blade shave. Some of those 3-4 blade razor replacements are fucking expensive, I only go through a single box of four in a year and a half time. I couldn't imagine spending 14-15 bucks every few weeks for new razor blades. I too only use body washes. My mom gets a discount on Johnson and Johnson products and their subsidiaries, so she'll buy bulk for most everyone in my immediate family. I also have adopted the philosophy that shampoo and conditioners are a scam. I wash my hair with water every time I shower, but I only use my body wash on it if I've been in a pool or gelled my hair (or say if it is unnaturally dirty from say swimming in a lake or been slimmed on a Nickelodeon game show). Otherwise it is straight water and I just let the natural oils my skin produce take care of my hair's moisturizing needs... NSFW or NSFW
I only recently started using expensive shampoo and conditioner because I have wildwoman hair. It's $6.50 a bottle for each and I buy more every 2.5 months. My body wash is softsoap and costs about $3.50 a bottle and I go through that even more infrequently. And lastly, my haircuts are about $20 (the lady actually does a good job), and I get one 2-3 times a year. I spend more than your average male, but I don't get crazy hair treatments and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
I used to spend a shit-ton of money ($250+) on my hair. Now, I refuse to. I pay $25 for a cut, because I'm seeing a stylist who works out of home. Colour - I'll pay a little more, but I only recently started playing with colour again, and I've been doing a lot of crazy/stupid shit. Shampoo, conditioner, and other product - I buy whatever is on sale. I'm way less picky (and cheap) in my old age.
Focus:How much is reasonable? How much do you spend? What do you do yourself to save money? I used to get $120 haircuts when I lived in LA. Cut. No color. I could only bring myself to get my hair cut two or three times a year because that is so breathtakingly expensive, but that man was a genius with my fine, flat hair. I finally came to my senses when I moved back to SF and found a girl at the salon down the street who will give me a great cut for $60. NEVER AGAIN with the $120 haircuts! I also used to get mani/pedis every week or two, because they were $25 at the place down the street. Then I moved to London. Ho-lee shit. Cheapest mani/pedi I could find in that entire city was £35 - otherwise known as about $55. Right then and there I started buying my own nail polish and getting it done myself. Now that I'm back in the US, I get a mani/pedi once a month and change the color myself in between. (It is worth mentioning here that I basically have to keep my nails perfectly painted at all times otherwise my disgusting compulsion to pick my cuticles takes over and my hands become a raggedy hot mess. It's so bad that my husband offered to buy me unlimited manicures at a fancy salon in town just to stop me from destroying my nail beds. I exercised great restraint and did not take him up on it.) Other than those two things, I buy high quality products but only what I need. I'd be surprised if I spent more than $500 a year on everything including shower/hair stuff, moisturizer, face stuff, makeup, and nail polish. I just don't have multiples of stuff, and you'd be surprised what great things you can get in bulk for cheap at Costco (Neutrogena body wash and sunscreen, Cetaphil face wash, Venus razors, just to name a few). Alt Focus: Ever seen an absurd display of vanity? I lived in LA for two years. Nuff said. Although, my favorite thing about LA is what locals refer to as "20 from the back, 50 from the front." This is a woman who, when viewed from the rear in her teeny tight Juicy track suit with long blonde highlighted hair, appears to be 20, but when she turns around her haggard plastic surgery face reveals that she's at least 50. Alt Alt Focus: What would happen if you could not indulge in your most important beauty routine ever again? I actually don't wear makeup most days, so that's no big, and I have pretty good skin naturally so forgoing my skin regimen would just mean the odd zit every now and again. But my hair would be really flat and mangy if I had to give up my fancy shampoo and conditioner and, like I said, if I couldn't get mani/pedis my hands would be fully gross.
Count me in the group of guys that clips their hair... I do it once a week and five minutes is all it takes. It looks best short anyways, otherwise I'd have Tom Petty hair. I will splurge on the Head and Shoulders shampoo with mint in it. It feels great on my scalp.
Focus: I also laughed. It's usually $200-300 every couple months between cut/colour/products for my hair. Clothes are definitely my biggest indulgence though. I can't even tell you how much I've spent on clothes in the past year, but I recognize that it is a ridiculous amount. Sadly, my measly student budget can't afford this anymore. Alt-Focus: Heidi Montag's face/breasts. She used to be so cute. Alt-Alt-Focus: Lately, I haven't been wearing make-up since I don't really feel like I need it. My hair would probably be wearing a ponytail everyday since my hair looks gross if I don't do anything to it.
Oh Jesus. I used to be a beauty blogger. The sheer amount of shit I have in my bathroom to put on my face in varying layers is nothing short of staggering. The Guy used to shake his head because when we moved, it was a three load process to get all my shit into the bathroom. And he would lament, loudly, "Baby! YOU ONLY HAVE ONE FACE! How much shit do you NEEEED?!" That said, I don't spend a whole lot of money on my hair stuff, I've got a pixie cut. I color my hair myself because never once has anyone I've paid to do my hair colored it correctly. Because of the nature of my cut I will spend close to $60 on that process, but I put it off as long as possible. I actually need to go by there this week and let her shape up the neck line. If I do that, I can go longer. My indulgence is my workout attire. I spend a LOT of money on my workout clothes and my workout shoes. I fucking wear this shit daily, and have to be able to go from sweaty gym to perky trainer in a very short period of time. And, the stuff has to last and NOT stink. What most people spend on their office attire, I spend on my workout gear...because that IS my office gear.
I get my hair cut every two weeks for the cost of gas to get to the barber (my best friend). Without that, I'd just own clippers. My girlfriend's uncle's brother is an extreme couponer and shares all of his bounty with family members. I haven't paid for soap, toothpaste, or deodorant in the past year. The only stuff I buy are the lotion injectors for my electric razor, which comes out to about $5 every two months or so.
Alt-alt focus: This is timely for me. I have really thick curly hair and a lot of it, and for the past two years I've been wearing it pretty long. It's pretty, and I care a lot about it looking good, so I'm far more likely to splurge on leave-in-conditioner than, say, makeup. Recently, I started doing some research for the best natural ingredients I should be looking for in the products I buy, because I've more or less being doing trial by error my whole life. But, when any of the buzzwords (Moroccan oil, argan oil, jojoba, coconut oil, olive oil, shea butter, etc.) popped up on products their prices jumped up a ridiculous amount. Thankfully, my favorite leave-in conditioner (from Garnier) just got reformulated and has argan oil in it, but I decided I wanted to experiment with making my own stuff. Most people go straight to the health food store to buy those type of ingredients, but since they now have a buzzword AND they're in a health food store it gets ridiculously expensive. It dawned on me that they were pretty much all Middle Eastern ingredients, so I went to the random stretch of Islamic stores in downtown Brooklyn and found everything I could ever need there for really cheap next to the halal food counters and hijabs. It was awesome.
In terms of personal grooming and dressing, I think men really have an advantage over women. Give a guy a $20 haircut, a decent shirt and jeans and he can look pretty good wherever he goes. I don't spend anything excessive on grooming, just the normal body wash, 2in1 shampoo. There is one thing I am particular about however, I absolutely despise bar soap. I don't understand how anyone can sufficiently clean their body using that little brick of fat.
I'm pretty low maintenance. I use bar soap and cheap shampoo, and my girlfriend cuts my hair with a pair of clippers. The only thing I spend a comparatively small amount of money on is my razor. I have pretty coarse facial hair and very sensitive skin on my neck, so most razors leave my neck looking like I just threw boiling water on it. I bought a double-edged safety razor and started shaving with some nice shaving cream, which worked and was cheap, but was a time consuming process. Now, I buy expensive wet/dry electric razors - my last two have been from Panasonic. They cost about $100, but the one I just replaced was 5 years old, so it's not that costly. Add some high quality shaving cream, and I can shave comfortably. So basically, my one expensive grooming indulgence is spending, once every five years, what some of you ladies spend once every couple months. If all financial obligations are being met, I see nothing particularly wrong with spending some money to look nice or to indulge yourself. For me, though, in a relationship, part of those "financial obligations" are contributing to things like vacations or what-have-you. If I'm making more money, I have zero problem shouldering the financial burden - but if the reason that I'm paying for every nickel of a vacation is because you spent all of your extra money on manicures, hair coloring and frivolous clothes, then we're going to have a problem.
I don't use the body wash + loofa combo because I can't imagine how a loofa can possibly be clean. It's so curly and tangled how can it not be a cesspool of bacterial growth.
There's bacteria on EVERYTHING. Wanna have a fun little experiment? Get a petri dish with your standard agar, wave it around the air for a few seconds, and then put the lid on. Tell me what happens in a week. The primary function of soap is that it breaks up the oils and fat based dirt on your body. The loofah, sponge, washcloth, etc physically scrubs away dirt. Most body wash type soaps are NOT antibacterial, but as long as you're scrubbing, most of it's going to end up in the drain. Besides, like my momma always said: "Dirt don't hurt." It's ok, you won't get ebola from your loofah.
I drive a boss bimmer. It is tite. FOCUS: I've just given up on caring what my girl spends. Every time I ask, I cringe, so now I just don't ask. As long as she's happy, I'm happy. The only "vanity" purchases I've made is the occasional Art of Shaving shave soap ($40, but it lasts like 2 years), or Kiehl's face wash (because it is awesome and lasts forever too). I have a really nice shaving brush, but it will outlast me AND my kids. As an aside, gentlemen: if you aren't wetshaving (that is, with a good brush, soap, and double edged safety razor or straight razor), you are missing out BIG TIME. Single biggest revolution in my life, hygiene-wise. Paying 10 cents for blades, using manly feeling instruments, and products that actually smell good instead of clinical (like that shit Edge gel) is awesome.
$70 for a Brazilian every three weeks. I've mentioned it before, but I've since downgraded to a regular bikini wax ($45) because I just can't afford that. Other than that, I am pretty low maintenance.