The other day, I was lounging over at Delhi Designer Friend's Bandra home, and I peeked into his loo. Reappeared a second later with a grin on my face and remarked, "Do you think that every gay man in Bombay uses apricot face scrub?"
Now, DDF has seen it all, done most of it, and taught a little bit of it, and so he says, grinning back, "Every gay man in India, yes."
CT, shutting loo door: "Every gay man in the world?"
DDF, stretching and yawning like the lazy Delhi faggot that he is: "Possibly, probably, hopefully."
CT, puzzled grin on his face now: "But why on earth, apricot? Why nothing else?"
DDF: "Don't you like apricot? What have you got against apricot now?"
CT, rolling over in laughter: "Nothing, actually. I use the stuff myself."
DDF, feeling vindicated in a lovely gay bitch sort of way: "There you go! It's... nice! And it feels so lovely to use apricot as a base. Something decidedly... faggoty about it."
At this point, CT glances over the room they're in - the blood red crimson linen curtains over the French windows, the overhanging mini-chandeliers, the six foot mirror against the wall, the kitschy cushion covers sprawled over his bed with Marylin Monroe grinning out of them - and decide that he's right about the 'faggoty' part. Not even a combination of Gujju and Shetty would be able to cover this one! So CT nods, and: "And strawberry too. I think there's something very gay about strawberry."
DDF frowns, pats his Marylin cushion: "Didn't your straight ex flattie use strawberry flavoured face cream?"
CT grins happily at the memory of discovering ex-crush's cream in the loo a long, long time ago, and proclaims: "i'm soooooo sure that he was a confused little boy!"
DDF, in the lovely sarcastic manner that Delhi bitches have mastered: "Yes, yes, and waiting for a good little boy like you to deliver him from a fate worse than death!"
At this point, CT being the calm, dignified, poised, elegant and non-bitchy creature that he likes to believe he is, deigns to not reply, and the conversation shifts to other topics. But earlier today, while chatting with the Wicked Witch of the West, I wondered whether there are any so-called Favourite Cosmetics that men - straight, gay, trannies, what-have-you - use. A background check is necessary at this point: WWW works for one of the country's foremost girly mags, and CT was enquiring as to whether the aforesaid girly mag might want some freelance stuff from the closet. That's when WWW crooned, "It's a shame you can't write anything about beauty products and all", and thereupon I remembered my earlier conversation with DDF. "Well," I responded, "You never know: I could just do that!"
Think about it. What do men use and what do they don't?
From my experience of rummaging through the bathroom shelves of Indian men, a large number of whom were of the... ahem ahem... 'faggoty kind', here are my findings:
a) Everybody loves a large and ugly hunk of herby or some-such ayurvedic soap. Usually concocted from the weeds found in and around Pondicherry, and usually a deep forest green or muddy brown in colour, the soaps are ugly to behold, and smell like a bunch of tulips. Can be procured from those Fabindia or Khadi Udyog-like places. And yes, they usually cost a bomb. The days of Pears are long gone.
b) Shampoos must always be ayurvedic as well. Same principles as the soap apply here, again. Usually the bottles are very dowdy looking, but the users swear to the glossy effects of the muddy brown liquid contained therein. Dr Batra's usually packages the same stuff in smarter looking bottles.
c) The much-discussed apricot face scrub. A must have and you're a social nincompoop if you don't agree.
d) Conditioner for the hair. Usually only for gay men. Haven't seen on too many straight men's shelves, myself.
e) Face wash or face mask. Generally speaking, men tend to go for the former, though a minority of the 'faggoty kind' go for the mask/pack as well. My mum used to favour the cucumber mask, but I'm not sure whether people still go for that these days. Rose water concoctions are also popular. Sweet smelling and all that. Orange peels are supposedly hep, but personally, I think they look ghastly.
f) Does hair gel actually count as a cosmetic? I mean, hey, even the poodle uses it these days! And no, the really sexy guys don't use Brylcream.
And inspite of all that brouhaha last year about that new 'fairness cream for men', I haven't seen it on any guy's bathroom shelf. Or maybe they're hiding it, like the company that markets the cream claims/claimed they do. Honestly speaking, I don't think too many men would care. I mean: most of the guys I've met are those that hanker after darker toned ('wheatish' in gay chat room lingo) guys. I mean, that's one of the reasons I've met them! So, that's one cream that doesn't seem to be too much in high demand.
Just called up DDF and informed him that I told a friend about our apricot face scrub conversation, and darling boy responds with: "Aren't lubes also considered 'cosmetics'? What have you recommended in that category?"
Well... I don't really kiss and tell...
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