Don’t Look Now, but His Mascara Is Smeared

I am here today with great news for all men. OK, not all men. Mostly men who, when they remove their shirts, appear to be wearing raccoon coats.

You know who you are. You go to the beach, peel off the cabana clothes and are immediately surrounded by local Sasquatch Society members, who make a quick study of your back and then walk away muttering, “Ooohhh! We were this close.”

(Footnote: I watched an actual episode of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” just a week ago, and one segment showed a man getting a back rub from his girlfriend. Then he removed his shirt and she gasped. Then she cried. Seems he had shaved “Marry Me” into the hair on his back. It was stunning. Not so much that his back was hairy enough to accommodate a complete sentence, but that his girlfriend--right there on the video--said “yes.”)

The story that triggered my interest in monkeylike back hair appeared recently in the Sacramento Bee. In it we were told that at many beauty salons today, men can have a “back wax” for about $25.

The $25 does not, obviously, include the freight charges for hauling away the wax and the coat of fur stuck to it.

“This is the new era of male vanity,” the story tells us, “and Brian Heath’s regimen is in keeping with the times.”

Mr. Heath, it seems, has a three-level makeup box. “A sponge pad smooths on the foundation. A dark pencil lines the lower eyelid and adds definition to the brow. A curler crimps eyelashes upward, and clear mascara makes them more visible. Rosy goo is painted on the lips.”

There’s nothing unusual about this, of course. Five generations of Tosches men have done this exact thing, going back more than 100 years.

The difference is that Mr. Heath is not trying to get out of the Army.

“Heath does not hesitate to go to the beauty salon for things like eyelash tint or even a lash perm,” the story continues.

He does, however, have the sense to hesitate in returning to the parking lot if he thinks his buddies are lurking nearby. Sometimes he’ll hesitate until well after midnight before making a wild sprint to his car.

But enough about eye liner. Let’s get back to the good stuff.

Laura DePriest, owner of a Sacramento salon, said she does three or four back waxes a day. The process involves laying down a heavy coat of the sticky goo, not unlike repaving your driveway.

Then she rips the goo off, taking with it huge clumps of manly back hair, which is then sold to the Hair Club for Men and held in an escrow account for TV journalist Sam Donaldson. (In case he has to cover a story in a windy place.)

Now I don’t pretend to know what it feels like to have several hundred thousand hairs torn from your back. I am guessing it is somewhat like being audited or attending a John Denver concert.

I do know, however, what it feels like to have even a single nose hair ripped out as you sleep--thanks to my son and his new chemistry-set tweezers. I remember a horrible pain. Then I remember standing in my driveway in my pajamas, making ungodly whooping noises. (A team of psychiatrists doubts that any further memory of the incident will ever resurface.)

Oh, and nail polish for men is big, too. The latest colors include “Dog (purple), Gigolo (black) and Testosterone (a dark gray).”

This, too, caught me off-guard. I would have bet big money that the Testosterone color would have been a pale shade of mauve. Or possibly ecru.

I certainly don’t want to generalize here, as I’m sure many of the men who wear nail polish could kick my behind. Although frankly, this would only take place after a long, long chase.

As for Mr. Heath, “The guys have no idea I’m wearing makeup,” he said. “But the women will look at it and know. They think it’s cool that a guy’s playing their game.”

You betcha they do.

Especially the women who have just had a back wax.