ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — The facialist at a popular salon here couldn't help being a bit nervous. Her client that afternoon was a particularly demanding one, certain to quiz her unrelentingly about the latest anti-wrinkle creams and pore-reduction potions.
But such exactitude, she said, is typical of her male customers.
Pakistan may be a macho, tradition-bound society with conservative Muslim mores, but the male-beauty trade is booming here. Urban professional men, following a trail blazed by their counterparts abroad, are waxing and highlighting and plucking and primping like never before.
The trend appears to be a durable one, even in tough economic times. Banker Nauman Zafr said that although things were little tight these days, he had no intention of relinquishing his monthly manicure- pedicure.
"I like to look good and feel good," he said languidly, relaxing in a "nail bar" while his nails were buffed to a pearly pink sheen. "I'd definitely give up other things before this."
Attention to male glamour is apparent in the public sphere, where the country's new political leaders have demonstrated an affinity for looking their best.
Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the senior party in the coalition government, has stopped dyeing his mustache a harsh black, letting it grow in silver-gray.
"Mustache-dyeing is seen now as a little passe -- a natural look is more subtle and sophisticated," said Nadia Furqan, who manages Nirvana, a popular day spa and salon in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
Nawaz Sharif, head of the governing coalition's other main party, returned last year after nearly a decade in exile to lead his party in parliamentary elections. He and his politician brother, Shahbaz, had receding hairlines when they left; on their return, both had luxuriant locks, leading to reports of hair transplants.
"They used to be called 'the Bald Brothers,' " said a journalist in Lahore, the eastern city that is the Sharifs' power base. "They're looking different these days. Better."
Not content with raiding their wives' cosmetics cases, Pakistani men are spending more on beauty products of their own, shopkeepers say.
"They buy everything -- hair products, skin products -- and they want to talk and talk and talk about which one is the best," pharmacist Riaz Assam said. "They take it all very seriously."
