The Threat of Soft

Charcoal, steel, and other ways to say you’re a man

Have you ever walked through the men’s aisle of a beauty store? It looks less like skincare and more like a military arsenal. Bottles shaped like grenades. Tubes dressed in black, grey, and navy like they’re reporting for duty. Labels scream words like POWER. FORCE. EXTREME. RUSH. BLAST. ACTION. FIGHT.

Even the ingredients try to sound masculine: Charcoal. Ash. Clay. Steel. Petroleum. Ice. Fire. Alcohol.

There is nothing soft here. No peaches, no vanilla, no honey. God forbid a man smells like a flower.

Because somewhere along the way, someone decided that self-care is only acceptable if it’s disguised as combat. That moisturising is only okay if the lotion comes in a matte-black tube and smells like freshly shaved ego.

You’ll never find a men’s product offering “Soft Glow” or “Dewy Finish.” You will, however, find “Tactical Body Wash.” Yes. Tactical. For those high-risk showers, I guess.

All of this – the branding, the language, the scent profiles – whispers the same thing:

Don’t worry. You’re still a man.

That’s the real product being sold. Not soap. Not scrub. Not shampoo.

REASSURANCE.

Because masculinity, as sold in these aisles, is fragile. It cannot survive the presence of pink. Or the word “hydrating.” Or a bottle with a rounded edge.

So it armours itself in solid black. In harsh fonts. In words that grunt.

Meanwhile, across the aisle, women’s products are in pastel purgatory. Rose golds, soft pinks, cursive promises of radiance, youth, and eternal compliance.

We’re all being sold gender. Bottled, branded, and perfumed.

But at least women are allowed to want beauty. To talk about softness. To name their desire. The toxicity of that desire – the impossible standards, the endless grooming, the violence of “pretty” (stop me) – is a subject for another day.

Men though? They’re just told to exfoliate with grit and shame.

Imagine the freedom of a man buying a lily-scented serum without an apology for being tender. A product that says, “You’re allowed to care for yourself. You’re allowed softness, too.”

But instead, men are sold musk, cigar, beer, leather, gunpowder, and sandalwood. Scents that swagger. Scents that shout. Scents that say, I’m tough, I drink things that burn, I’ve never cried in the shower.

Softness? That’s down the aisle under “feminine hygiene.”

Until softness stops being a threat, men will keep exfoliating with armour. It’s not skincare. It’s damage control.

The war rages on quietly. In a bottle. Scent: Insecurity.