Having a clean and well stocked bathroom is one of the fundamental keys to getting a girl to spend the night at your place. You might even keep a few bottles of her favorite body and hair care products handy. But you also want it to look like you’ve got a pair when she steps into your shower. What’s a guy to do?
While looking over the vast array of shampoo products at my local drug store, I noticed that most of them were geared towards women. I was tempted to ask, “Excuse me, where is the manpoo?” Seriously, since when did women have an exclusive rights on shampoo? Tampons and douches, maybe, but near exclusive claim to something as universal as shampoo? Really?
Women’s hair care products and men’s hair care products are vastly different, but why? Do all women want their hair smelling like flowers or fruit? Do they all need bright neon bottles in girly shapes to proclaim — even when naked — that yes, they are women? I don’t get it. Almost everyone shampoos their hair and yet here were more than 30 shampoos geared towards women and only 2 geared, not exclusively to men, but in more of a unisex fashion. And they were on placed the very bottom shelf.
One was called Mane ‘n Tail, which bills itself as an all-in-one conditioner strong enough for horses. The other was called Flex, and looked like something I would find in my Grandpa’s bathroom.
I was really tempted to go with the horse soap, but due to it’s large size and my fear of long term commitment, I decided to go with the Flex instead.
According to the commercial above, it was owned by Revlon back in the day. Way back in the day. In fact it’s so old and out of fashion that it’s not even listed in Wikipedia. And for good reason. It sucks. It smells like a chemically fueled knock off of eucalyptus. It’s horrible. I’m still using it, though — I would feel guilty throwing it out.
Even if you’re cool enough to keep chick stuff around your bathroom, that doesn’t mean you want to smell like a chick when you go out. Where can you go to purchase some manpoo?
I have recently stumbled across the manly beauty of products from Sharp’s Barber and Shop and our friend Joel Johnson at Boing Boing Gadgets recommends trying out Lush.
As soon as this horrible bottle of Flex is finished I’m going to purchase me some manpoo.
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Comments
I always thought the packaging of the American Crew products had a clean masculinity to them.
But manpoo? Sounds like something you’d find in the toilet.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:20 pmFirst, you could just use anything that is generic ‘clean’ scent, but I’m going to second the Crew stuff. But if even that’s not masculine enough for you go to an outdoors store and buy some camp soap. And if even that isn’t masculine enough for you then you’re just hopelessly insecure in your masculinity and have much larger issues at work that a freudian would relate back to your mother and the washington monument.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:59 pmShort version; it’s shampoo, if you smell like a conservatory after using it then as a man you either used too much or have too much hair.
99% of the guys I know use 2-in-1 Pert Plus. The other 1% are metrosexuals.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pmI still have a dusty bottle of Flex somewhere hidden in the bathroom. It’s awful. So awful.
I just gave up and started buying whichever one is the purple bottle with the kangaroo on it because kangaroos are awesome.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:32 pmFlex! Holy crap, I have not seen a bottle of that stuff in literally more than 20 years. I didn’t think they made it anymore. We used in my house when I was a kid and while, yes, it is ass as shampoo goes, when you finished a bottle it made an awesome squirt weapon for water fights. You just have to make sure you rinse it out three or four times before you go to battle with it, otherwise it will burn the other kids’ eyes.
Of course, if you’re not planning on having a water fight with ten year-olds anytime soon…yeah, Flex sucks.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:39 pmIf you have a Target near you, they carry a men’s brand called Every Man Jack and they have a manpoo. I believe it’s a 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. I personally haven’t tried it, but I have tried their body washes and I like them a lot.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pmManpoo is like The Bro
Richard just be glad you have hair to whine about, maybe all those shaampoos you are missing for guys are equaled or surpassed by hair loss and recovery products.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:54 pmRichard:
I share with you, a revelation in grooming. SHARPS.
http://sharpsusa.stores.yahoo.net/
The shampoo is thick, smells clean and simple. No “AWSUM XTREME RUSH” crapola. Just nice clean hair with a bit of a peppermint tingle. This is a manly mint mind you, like chewing a lifesaver after punching a guy.
May seem pricey for a small bottle (8.5 oz for 12 bucks) but quarter-sized glob of this stuff gets the job done on my big irish head with thick Irish hair.
The soaps are great too. The bar soap lasts forever too.
Everything is packaged in simple brown and dark blue wrappers on white bottles with pictures of astronauts and a geisha.
Nice thing is, all of their products are gentle enough for women to use on their skin and hair. Unisex showering, here we come.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:24 pm“This is a manly mint mind you, like chewing a lifesaver after punching a guy.”
Just wanted to stop and appreciate that awesome line. That’s all.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:37 pmI’m just going to come out and say that I knew about Sharps 4 years ago. So I think I win.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:29 pmLush has a body wash/shampoo called Sonic Death Monkey that’s all man–mix of chocolate, coffee and tobacco. Smells amazing, women love it on a man. Works great on both skin and hair.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:21 pmAveda’s has the ultimate manpoo: a bar of shampoo, stamped MENS, that doubles as soap. real men, you see, are rarely twee enough to spend good money on two products when one will do.
There’s Grandpa’s Pine Tar shampoo too, of course.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:55 pmAh, you obviously did no research on this my friend–you forgot KIEHLS, The most fabulous, effective and stylish unisex hair and skin products on the market. Enviro friendly too–bring in your empty bottles and get free products. I am obsessed with how their plain, type-heavy pretty non-girly bottles look lined up on my shelf and my dude and I can share without either of us experiencing a crisis of feminism or masculinity or gender at all.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:09 pmI think they only sell this at “salons” (I guess the Hair Cuttery I go to qualifies?) but I use Redken for Men stuff a few times a week. Packaged relatively manly-like, but too expensive for everyday use. Most of the time I just use Pert Plus or Head & Shoulders.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:23 am[...]Tampons and douches, maybe[...]
:/ Just *reading* the word ‘douches’ makes he me feel like using flex down there . ..
May 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pmI’m not a scientist so I’m only guessing here but, seeing as male hair and female hair is not that different in fact, not different at all, wouldn’t it make more sense to just find a shampoo that works and chalk up the many female-oriented shampoos sitting on store shelves to be the result of stupidly thought-out marketing?
May 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pmTrin:
I think Richard’s mostly objecting to the girly scents of ladypoos.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:16 pmLUX: Exactly, well that and the girly bottles. I don’t want my hair smelling like roses, hair shouldn’t smell, clothes shouldn’t smell like flowers either. If they’re really clean they should smell like nothing.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:28 pmBlizzakeley:
I should have said this earlier, but I forgot: just get some Pantene. It’s tres neutral.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:33 pmSuave makes a guy’s shampoo/conditioner that is for men. It smells like a man and the bottle is navy. There are a bunch of different formulas. My husband likes it.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:38 pmLeave a reply :