Thaindian News

Beijing, Nov 20 (IANS) Metrosexuals — heterosexual urban males who pay attention to their personal appearance and lifestyle — are slowly taking Chinese cities by storm. People say China has entered the “gender-neutral era” where men can now reveal their emotional side.

In college, now 28-year-old Ge Candong’s classmates mocked him for being “unfashionable”.

Since then, he has transformed into a metrosexual, a man who is sensitive, caring and not embarrassed about enjoying a stylish life. He takes care to coordinate his outfits and follows a rigorous skin-care regimen, reported Xinhua.

“Dressing well and using make-up is good for me and I’m happy to be a handsome gentleman,” he said.

He was plagued by dark circles around his eyes while in college, and it was at that time he began to worry about his “facial issues”.

A woman friend suggested he try eye-cream. Since then, he spends a lot of his free time flipping through fashion magazines and browsing websites focused on male beauty.

He spent $2,000 on skin-care products in Los Angeles, $1,575 on ties and suits in Hong Kong and used up his limit on two credits card in Dubai.

Cheng Gong, another of China’s increasingly stylish young men, said he prefers an “appropriate” look rather than high fashion. He, however, believes men should be “masculine” and dress according to the occasion.

An art director Xiao Yaohui agrees. “A woman should dress like a woman, and a man like a man,” he said, even though he agrees that “the mainland has entered the so-called ‘gender-neutral era’ in which men and women are interdependent and treated more equally”.

“Two decades ago, no man would dare walk down the street in pink, but now one in every 10 men has a pink shirt or coat in his wardrobe,” he said.

For a global skin-care product company, the year 2011 saw a 40 percent jump in the men’s skin-care market in China — five times that of the women’s market.

The China Cosmetics Association says the L’Oreal company earned at least one billion yuan (around $157.5 million) from its men’s skin-care products in China in 2010.