At a certain point, most guys have to give up on the idea of ever playing soccer as well as David Beckham once did. Achieving his level of personal hygiene, however, is one goal that’s still within reach.
Last week Beckham and L’Oreal launched House 99, a line of grooming products that includes beard scrub, beard balm, beard oil . . . and even some stuff that has nothing do with beards, like tattoo moisturizers, shampoos and deodorant.
The “99” refers to the year Beckham married his former Spice Girl/fashion designer wife Victoria, the year his son Brooklyn was born and the year he won three major football awards with Manchester United. It’s the word “House,” however, that’s more interesting here. In the publicity materials announcing the launch, Beckham describes a desire to create an “inclusive community,” rather than simply calling it Beauty By Beckham or something even more cringe-inducing.
“I like to switch things up and know other guys do, too,” he said in a statement. “I created House 99 to give people the inspiration as well as the right products to experiment and feel completely at home doing so. House 99 is here to support men, to give them the tools they need to create whatever look they are going for.”
This is an savvy move from someone whose athletic career involved a lot of carefully-chosen plays. Even if they wanted to look like David Beckham, no guy is going to want to by skin care products with his picture on it.
By making House 99 seem like a movement to embrace a certain standard of grooming — and enlisting Instagram influencers who exemplify that standard — Beckham’s products achieve the power of a celebrity endorsement that makes the products more personal than, say, Kiehl’s, without suggesting you need to act like a wannabe. Like this guy!
Or this guy!
Or even this guy!
None of these men look like David Beckham, exactly, but from a hair and beard perspective, you could make the case that they’re in the same league. It’s about being fit enough to look good in a suit but relaxed enough that you’d look almost as stand-out in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, with stubble that conveys sexiness rather than laziness. In other words, if David Beckham wasn’t an internationally renowned style icon but just another pulled-together guy on Instagram, he would fit in comfortably alongside those who have been hand-picked to join his “house.”
Of course, these influencers have all been paid. If you check their feeds, though, they also looked just as good before joining House 99 — you can’t exactly tell which of the hair, beard or skin products they used (if they did). It would be great if, as these products hit the US & Canadian markets over the next few months, starting March 1, 2018, we could see a few “before” and “after” stories — a few great examples of how a below-average schlub got welcomed into House 99, and came out grooming it like Beckham.