And in 2018 Chanel launched the low-key makeup line Boy de Chanel. “As the technology in men’s makeup advances, so does men’s willingness to experiment with using these products,” says Chanel makeup artist Tasha Reiko Brown, who has touched up Denzel Washington and Michael B. Jordan for various appearances. These products are often first-timer friendly, she notes: an eyebrow pencil that forgives a heavy touch, for example. Her clients’ skin-care routine is often no skin-care routine at all, she says, so the makeup caters to that kind of canvas. Shaving can make skin require a different kind of hydration; Chanel’s moisturizer is lighter, developed for those less accustomed to a multistep regimen. Another dividing line of men’s makeup in 2025: While women may be angling for a dewy complexion, men generally want matte.
In fact, what is of paramount importance is, to borrow a 2024 buzzword, a demure undetectability. The shift among women from angular, contoured sphinx to a softer, cleaner (albeit highly buffed and polished) look has also been reflected in men. Philips argues that this evolution has to do with our camera-ready culture: Filters, for one, have made more people open to makeup to match the image projected online. Wanting to look as good in real life as on social media is a universal affliction.
Thinking about my own routine, much of what I know I picked up from my drag-queen friends and Vogue’s Beauty Secrets video series—Troye Sivan’s and Rihanna’s, in case you were wondering. I don’t wear foundation; I tend to my eyebrows and use concealer sparingly; the main event is blush and highlighter. It’s a routine so inconspicuous that even my editor wasn’t aware I was wearing makeup when we first discussed this story. And while I am, by male standards, a makeup veteran, I recently experimented by taking Philips’s Dior look and Brown’s go-to routine out for a spin.
For my Dior day, I met a group of gay men and women for dinner and was greeted with a round of compliments. The real test, however, came the following evening, when I tried out Boy de Chanel at dinner with a straight, quite masculine college friend I’ve known for over a decade. He said I looked like I had applied the Paris Instagram filter to my skin. I revealed the secret, and he proceeded to order the concealer as we spoke, plus a Glossier skin tint I recommended in lieu of foundation and an Augustinus Bader lip balm. It was a surprising turn, but our conversation ended with a quick and simple affirmation. “I’m down,” he said, shrugging with a smile.
