Dr Wamuwi Mbao: The fine art of surfacing

Aging, as Joan Didion once put it, is life’s most predictable event. What you’re running from gets you in the end, and there are no prizes for crossing the finish line with the least wrinkles. Yet, who among us has not been even slightly dismayed by the ravages of age?

A decade ago, I had little need to be fully conversant with the wonderful world of retinols, acids (hyaluronic or otherwise), serums (day and night), butters (not the edible kind), creams, toners, balms, and milks. My current self is a citizen of Now-I-Know-Better, recoiling in horror at the idea that I ever ventured forth into the midday sun without a healthy lathering of mineral SPF.

My logic is that I’ll need all those bits in later life, so it pays to spend the money where it’ll do the most good. That doesn’t mean lavishing the GDP of post-Brexit England on anti-wrinkle dews and collagen-refurbishing broths (drinking bone water voluntarily won’t be a memory you cherish when the reaper comes a-mowing). But most of us can stand to be a little more intentional about how we present ourselves to the world.

Noticing the small things was previously rather pejoratively associated with a certain kind of person: think Patrick Bateman in American Psycho or Tom Ripley in the eponymous novels (alright, alright, and the film, and the Netflix show). That stereotype reflects the unfortunate social truth that asking men to pay attention to the finer qualities of their self-care was, for many years, a rather gruesome sport. The industry still hasn’t quite shaken off the anxious need to reassure its male customers that moisturising, exfoliating, and scenting aren’t admissions of weakness. It’s why all the bottles for men’s products are assertive browns or matte blacks, and also why they’re designed to look and feel like grenades.

Isn’t it telling that the most popular men’s fragrance in the world (the one endorsed by the habitually wife-beating actor) is Dior’s Sauvage range, a boisterous conqueror’s fantasy you and 500 other men nearby all think expresses your true individual self? It is also telling that we often outsource our olfactory desires to celebrities: Harry Styles or Idris Elba posing moodily in a greyscale room seems to be enough to convince many people to give over their hard-earned in the hope of being able to exude some of that glamour. It’s a forgivable bit of wishful thinking.

The world of self-care products is bewildering: if we’re not being exhorted to be savage, then it’s all that guff about tobacco, leather, musk, and cedar smoke — who decided that we should go forth smelling like a pile of old rifles on fire in the library of the Rand Club? It would be lovely if someone could come up with a range of products that reach beyond the associative and to the affective.

For one thing, I don’t need my beautification products to signal my fantasy of deforesting the planet in the name of ambience. I don’t want to always smell like a satsuma, either. This is especially apposite as the seasons change. I don’t necessarily need my palette of self-care condiments to conjure up views of the Croatian coast, patio doors flung open, lingering lunches and warm cicada-tracked evening conversations, pastel cottons, and the sweet brittleness of rattan. How about a body butter that reminds me of what Botswana smells like just after it rains? Or a serum that takes me back to the unique crayon aroma of the yellow Renault 5 my mother had when I was five?

The niche brands tend to be better at this sort of thing, although they’re by no means infallible. A browse of the anticipated seasonal cosmetic hits suggests that the makers have interpreted the term “salad days” rather too literally: one eau de parfum is enthusiastically described as being redolent of ripe tomatoes and crushed basil leaves. That’s less Positano for the holidays and more “Did you have the Caprese for lunch?” Last summer, I tried out a lovely moisturiser whose loveliness transformed into a cloying sweetness as it warmed on my skin. I spent a week afraid to leave the house during the daytime for fear of attracting bees. Then there was the eau de parfum that promised niche, hitherto unimagined scent travelways, but just smelled like I’d liberally rubbed myself down with pencil shavings. Not a journey to be repeated.

• From the October edition of Wanted, 2024.