LAST NOVEMBER, my female co-workers at The Wall Street Journal discovered that the sole product I used on my face was soap. Their reaction to this mundane revelation wasn't all that nice. They began calling me 'the man who doesn't moisturize.' As in, 'Would you ask the man who doesn't moisturize if I can borrow his stapler?'
去年11月，我在《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)的女同事发现了我用在脸上的唯一产品是香皂。对于这个平淡无奇的发现，她们的反应并不那么友好。她们开始叫我“不用保湿霜的男人”。比如她们会说，“你能问问那个不用保湿霜的男人，我能借他的订书机用一下吗？”
One of our style editors took pity. 'You've never moisturized?' she asked gently. 'I don't remember,' I admitted. Judging by her expression, she graciously decided to assume I had amnesia. 'Well, we'll have to do something about that,' she said. And so began my eye-opening, skin-altering, brain-addling, four-month adventure in the world of male beauty regimens.
我们的一个时尚编辑表示同情。她轻声问道：“你从没做过保湿吗？”我承认：“我不记得了。”从表情来看，她优雅地断定我有健忘症。她说：“好吧，我们得做点儿什么。”于是我开始了历时四个月在男士美容世界里大开眼界和脱胎换骨的脑补探险旅程。
First, a little background. It isn't that I am unaware of the guy-beauty industrial complex. I know, for instance, that Clinique basically started it all with its pioneering men's skin-care line in 1976--a program it's relaunching this month. According to Jenny Belknap, vice president of global treatment marketing, the relaunch was triggered by the company's discovery that, while women traditionally bought the men's products for their husbands and sons, 'we firmly understand that now men are buying for themselves.' To make the line more male-friendly and less boggling, Clinique is cutting back from 25 products to 19 and shortening product names. Not that men seem all that intimidated by skin care: According to Mintel, a Chicago-based market research group, 63% of guys 25-34 report that they use moisturizer.
首先介绍一点背景。我并非不知道男士美容的产业联盟。比如我知道倩碧(Clinique)基本上是靠它1976年首创的男士护肤系列发展起来的――本月又即将重新推出。其全球护肤业务营销副总裁珍妮・贝尔纳普(Jenny Belknap)表示，这次重新推出是因为公司发现，虽然过去都是女性为丈夫和儿子购买男士产品，但“我们坚信，现在男士们都是自己购买”。为了让这个系列对男性更加友好而且更容易让人接受，倩碧把产品数量从25件减到了19件，并且缩短了产品的名字。并不是所有男士都对护肤感到畏惧：据芝加哥市场研究机构英敏特(Mintel)调查，25岁至34岁的男士中，有63%的人称自己使用保湿霜。
Though I am legitimately hazy regarding my own historic moistness levels, I did go through an exceptionally vain phase in my mid-to-late 20s, a couple of decades ago. I had a Manhattan stylist renowned as the 'King of Blondes' highlight my hair, whose natural color suggests a particularly lackluster mouse. I visited a Mexican spa where a bored local woman rolled me in seaweed as if fashioning a giant joint. I spent wads of money on stress-relieving massages, including one that concluded abruptly when the theretofore silent, aged Asian masseur stopped kneading my right shoulder and shrieked, 'The wing is broken! The wing is broken! It cannot carry the child!'
尽管我对自己脸部的湿度情况一直不清不楚，但几十年前，在我25到30岁之间那几年，我的确经历过花时间 饬的阶段。当时被誉为“金发之王”(King of Blondes)的一位曼哈顿造型师给我做了头发挑染，我本身的自然发色就像一只毫无生气的老鼠。我去了一家墨西哥水疗中心，一个百无聊赖的当地女人用海草把我卷起来，就像卷一支巨大的大麻烟。我花了大把钱在缓解压力的按摩上，包括那次遇见一个上了年纪的亚洲男按摩师。他默默揉捏着我的右肩，突然停下来尖叫道：“翅膀断了！翅膀断了！它没法带幼仔了！”那次按摩就意外结束了。
I remember at one point growing convinced that my boss was monitoring my under-eye puffiness, but, soon after, I regained my equilibrium. My grooming routine was gradually reduced to: unscented Dove soap, Barbasol shaving foam, interchangeable drugstore shampoos and some despised hair gel that made me feel like one of those oil-coated ducks blinking in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez disaster.
我记得有段时间我坚信老板在观察我浮肿的眼袋，但不久后我重新找到了平衡。我的日常梳洗用品逐渐缩减成：无香型多芬(Dove)香皂，Barbasol剃须泡沫，各个牌子的超市洗发水，还有被人鄙视的发胶，这款发胶让我觉得自己是埃克森・瓦尔迪兹号(Exxon Valdez)漏油事件发生后，满身油光闪闪的鸭群里的一员。
So, naturally, I was wary when the aforementioned style editor dumped a box of skin-care and grooming product samples on my desk: 'We'll start with these,' she said. 'You'll use four products at night and eight in the morning.' I nervously mentioned that I didn't live in an alternate universe where mornings last 107 hours. 'Just get up earlier,' she said.
所以很自然的，在上文中提到的时尚编辑把一盒护肤和梳洗产品小样扔到我桌上时，我非常谨慎。她说：“我们先从这些开始。晚上你要用四种产品，早晨用八种。”我紧张地提到我并不是生活在早晨有107小时的另一个宇宙。她说：“那就起早点。”
In the shower the next day, I washed my hair with my new Davines Love Smoothing Shampoo, a pricey Italian product designed to rehabilitate messed-up hair, and immediately felt like some dapper Milanese guy who eats oddly shaped pizzas and whose apartment is full of strange, half-size appliances. Next, I used Clark's Botanicals Face Wash (a soothing, mild, herbal goop) and shaved my face with what appeared to be pink icing, but was really a premium rose-scented cream from the storied British company Geo. F. Trumper. Next came a spray toner, an antiaging serum and the pivotal moisturizer (mine came from the Jack Black brand). Then I did a few jumping jacks to maintain my stamina and applied an age-combatting smidge of La Mer Eye Concentrate under each peeper using the complementary wand. (Wands? Arguably manly in wake of Harry Potter phenomenon? Discuss.)
第二天早晨洗澡时，我用新的Davines Love Smoothing洗发水洗了头发，这是一款价格昂贵的意大利产品，专门修复受损头发。洗了以后我立刻觉得自己像是一个衣冠楚楚的米兰人，吃着奇形怪状的披萨，公寓里全是奇怪的小型家电。接着我用Clark's植物洁面乳（一种舒缓温和的草药黏液）洗脸， 然后用一种看似像粉色糖霜但实际上来自知名英国公司Geo. F. Trumper的高级玫瑰香剃须膏刮胡子。接下来是爽肤水喷雾和抗衰老乳液，还有关键的保湿霜（我用的牌子是Jack Black）。接着我做了几组开合跳保持活力，然后用附送的魔法棒在每只眼睛的下眼睑涂了点 La Mer抗衰老眼霜精华。（魔法棒？哈利・波特(Harry Potter)现象后应该算是男子气的装备了吧？可以讨论一下。）
Finally, I groomed my hair with Baxter of California Soft Water Pomade, which gave my hair the texture of a mink pelt, but was still a bit greasy for my taste.
最后，我在头发上抹了点Baxter of California软水发膏，让我的头发有了光华毛皮的质地，但对我来说还是有点油。
I walked to the subway feeling fresh and tingly and evangelical about the value of taking time to value oneself. I also felt a little like Patrick Bateman, the murderous skin care devotee from 'American Psycho,' but was too busy caressing my curiously soft face to brood on that. Upon reaching the subway 15 minutes later, I realized that, in my heady self-absorption, I'd forgotten my wallet. I felt less evangelical running home again.
我走到地铁站，觉得很清爽，对于花时间珍惜自己的价值也感到很兴奋。我还觉得自己有点像帕特里克・贝特曼(Patrick Bateman)，就是《美国精神病人》(American Psycho)里热衷护肤的杀人狂，但我忙着抚摸我那异常柔软的脸，无暇去思考这些。15分钟后到达地铁站时，我意识到，自我陶醉让我忘记了拿钱包。再折回家时我的热情就没那么高涨了。
By day three, the tingliness had given way to a burning sensation around my jaw. Was this my choice: To feel youthful but on fire versus old and content? The culprit turned out to be the rose shaving cream, which the style editor replaced with Proraso Shaving Foam for 'pelli sensibili' (sensitive skin). After carefully testing this amazing product, I can honestly tell you that it's fun to say 'pelli sensibili' repeatedly in a heavy Italian accent.
到第三天，那种兴奋感消失了，取而代之的是下巴周围的灼烧感。我需要做出选择：是觉得年轻但有刺痛感还是觉得老而满足？罪魁祸首原来是那支玫瑰剃须膏，时尚编辑把它换成了敏感肌肤(pelli sensibili)适用的Proraso剃须膏。小心翼翼地对这款不可思议的产品进行试用后，我可以老实告诉你，用浓重的意大利口音重复说“pelli sensibili”很有意思。
And so it went. As I continued my regimen, either my skin improved visibly or my colleagues formed a vast conspiracy that required them to gush about my face. I asked non-coworker friends if they noticed anything different about me, but they were stumped and resistant to broad hints. Still I could swear that, in a certain group photo taken at a steakhouse about seven weeks into my program, I look like a cast member of a teen drama on the CW Network: weirdly lineless, buoyant, possibly a vampire.
于是我继续用这些东西。随着护肤的持续，要么我的皮肤有了明显改善，要么就是我的同事串通好了对我的脸进行议论。我问非同事的朋友有没有注意到我有什么异样，但他们都很为难，不愿意给出提示。不过我仍然可以断定，护肤计划进行七周左右，在某家牛排餐厅所拍的某张合照里，我看起来肯定像是哥伦比亚及华纳兄弟联合电视网(CW network)某部青春偶像剧里的演员：皱纹出奇的少，光彩照人，像极了吸血鬼。
By week 12, long after my co-workers had acclimatized to the undocumented miracle that was my face, I was bored by my regimen's demands and losing my motivation. I decided to tempt fate by subbing out my original, conventional moisturizer for Clinique's new Oil-Control Mattifying Moisturizer. Life so seldom offers opportunities to be 'mattified' that it seemed worth the risk. But, although the product left my skin powder-dry and Botox-taut, I was still feeling restless.
到第12周，在同事们早就习惯我脸上潜移默化的奇迹后，我对护肤计划的要求产生了厌倦，失去了动力。我决定冒险把倩碧新型控油保湿霜换成原来的传统保湿霜。生活提供“被控油”的机会太少了，所以我似乎值得冒这个险。不过，虽然这款产品让我的皮肤干爽紧绷，但我仍然觉得不安。
The style editor decided we needed to seriously up the ante and helped me book a facial with celebrity youthifier Tracie Martyn, who's rejuvenated Brad Pitt, Alan Rickman and Madonna. When I arrived at Ms. Martyn's Fifth Avenue penthouse studio, I was taken aback by the estrogen-y décor, which is entirely lavender and white with gauzy curtains that should properly be billowing in a strong breeze. A Borzoi would not be out of place. I was told that I'd been squeezed in between Diane von Furstenberg and a businessman who'd just run a marathon.
时尚编辑认为我们需要下更大的血本，她帮我预定了明星焕肤专家特蕾西・马丁(Tracie Martyn)的面部护理。马丁为布拉德・皮特(Brad Pitt)、艾伦・里克曼(Alan Rickman)和麦当娜(Madonna)做过青春焕肤。到达马丁在第五大道的顶层公寓工作室时，我因为其充满女性气质的装潢而吃了一惊，里面全是淡紫色和白色，薄纱窗 在微风袭来时应该会摇曳生姿。再养一只波索犬(Borzoi)也不会显得突兀。我得知自己被安排在黛安・冯・芙丝汀宝（Diane von Furstenberg）和一位刚跑过马拉松的商人之间。
'About 20% of my clientele is male,' Ms. Martyn, a hypnotically placid Brit, told me once she had me on her table. As she applied potions with darting little swipes, tightened my jawline with a tool that emits electricity, and exposed me to red light that she said once healed astronaut wounds, she mentioned a male 60-something lawyer who visits her every week. She started cooing excitedly as my face responded--brilliantly, it seemed--to the electricity: 'Oh, it's looking very good.'
马丁是一个异常平和的英国人。我一躺上化妆台就听她告诉我说：“约有20%的客户是男性。” 她迅速地给我擦上药水，用释放电流的一个工具紧实我的下巴轮廓，然后让我照射她声称曾经用于修复宇航员伤口的红光。她提到一位60多岁、每周都来的男律师。随着我的脸对电流有了反应――看上去很亮泽――她开始兴奋地嚷道：“噢，看起来非常棒。”
Back at the office, I stared at my face in the bathroom mirror, searching for evidence that it was more chiseled. One cheekbone looked pointier, but I couldn't be sure.
回到办公室，我在卫生间的镜子前观察自己的脸，寻找轮廓更分明的证据。一边的颧骨更尖了，但我不能确定。
Confession: In the end, I abandoned all the products in my regime, except for the Italian shampoo, the 'pelli sensibili' shave foam and a truly addictive cleanser from Tracie Martyn that I added post-facial. Turns out that I'm just not vain enough to fuss with wands in the pursuit of advanced male beauty. I still moisturize occasionally--if only to ward off ridicule.
告白：最后我放弃了护肤计划中的所有产品，除了那款意大利洗发水、敏感肌肤适用的剃须泡沫和特雷西・马丁的一款我在做面部护理前用过的洁面乳，这款洁面乳让我用了还想用。事实上我只是没有足够的闲工夫费那么多讲究去追求高级男性美。我仍旧还是会偶尔做做保湿――即使只是为了避免别人的嘲笑。