From Brad Pitt to Harry Styles: Why are male celebrities trying to be the next Gwyneth Paltrow?

Brad Pitt is the latest male celebrity to attach his name to a skincare line. Photo / Maria Moratti / Getty Images

OPINION:

Oh good. Just when my bathroom cabinet was looking a little sparse, along comes a Hollywood-celeb-turned-shaman to pep it up. The latest entrant into an already crowded – if well-scented – arena is Jared Leto, who launches Twentynine Palms next week, named after the town in the Joshua Tree National Park, the botanics of which inspire the range (of course they do).

Strict vegan and yogi Leto (still petal-fine of features and line-free at 50) has worked with respected beauty experts to evolve the range of eye creams, cleansers, moisturisers, hand creams, body washes and shampoos. Although you might not have realised that you needed an £84 ($165) clay mask during this winter of discontent, dear reader, your epidermis will be aglow even if your radiators are not.

The Goopification of celebrity culture is complete. Where Gwyneth Paltrow’s manicured feet first tread, hordes of celebs have followed in an attempt to “pivot” into lucrative lifestyle brands (Goop’s worth is around $250m). Like Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina-scented candle, it’s surely a matter of time before we men are presented with a Jared Leto’s scrotal aftershave.

Full disclosure: Leto remains one of the more “eccentric” celebrities I’ve ever interviewed – part Anne Rice’s Lestat, part Gucci-clad Jesus – so perhaps I’m not as objective as one should be about this otherworldly being’s foray into skincare. Throughout our chat (pre-Covid) he insisted we didn’t shake hands, nor move from my allotted position on the sofa. The packaging, designed to mimic the dusk of the Mojave desert, is certainly very nice, and he’s a great advert for how good the fifty-something man can look.

Ditto Brad Pitt, who also launched a debut skincare brand this year. Entitled Le Domaine, it’s a collaboration between an organic wine company that employs recycled glass from wine barrels and features creams, serums and cleansers from £60-£290 ($118-$570). Not to forget Idris Elba, who set up S’able with his wife Sabrina in 2020 and has a genderless skincare range featuring toner, moisturiser and various bathroom kits. Or Harry Styles, who last year debuted the rather cloyingly titled Pleasing to peddle not just the obscene-sounding Pleasing Pen but a whole range of clothes too.

Perhaps I’m an old cynic but you can’t imagine Cary Grant hawking an eye cream, can you? You didn’t see Charles Dance – devastatingly stylish still at 76 – showcasing the latest serum pour homme, or Robert Redford offering tips to make his strawberry blond locks luminate just so. Those guys held a certain mystery, a sense of masculine elegance. Even Paul Newman kept it to a range of salad dressings.

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While we’re past the dinosaur attitudes that skincare is effeminate and applaud the importance of men using moisturiser, it’s a path that’s run aground before. In 2018 David Beckham launched a (very nice, as it happens) grooming brand called House 99, presumably based on the fact that most British men want to look like him. Skip forward to 2022 and it’s nowhere to be seen.

That said there are a wealth of men’s grooming products in this booming (now worth £50bn - $98b) industry worth exploring. Labels such as Thomas Clipper, Baxter of California and Dr Jackson create excellent men’s products. But while most men want to look like Brad Pitt, I’m not sure how many want to emulate the elfin Mr Leto – who famously didn’t know Covid had hit in 2020 because he was on a silent meditation in the desert.

Or perhaps Gen Z will devour it in the name of Brand Celeb? Whatever outcome, namaste. I’ll stick to my Clarins for now.