Review: Bulldog skincare

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grooming
Bulldog says its products are natural, hassle-free and great for keeping male skin in tip-top condition. Edward Taylor put their claims to the test
 

I have a confession to make. I might be a red-blooded, rugby playing, meat-eating, beer-drinking, 6ft 4” specimen of alpha British manhood but I’m also (whisper it) a bit partial to a spot of moisturiser. Yes, I’m a user. A user of the kind of lotions, potions, creams and balms commonly found in female bathrooms up and down the country. I could blame this on my sister, mother and girlfriend but since I don’t live with any of them, this would be a lie.

 


Enter for a chance to win a Bulldog Original Moisturiser worth £6.99, click here.


 

Thankfully, I’m not alone. The evidence? Well to start with, the men’s grooming market is growing at a healthy 2.8 percent per year and 70 percent of products sold are toiletries. Moisturiser, cleanser and even toner are flying off shelves and into men’s bathrooms at a serious rate of knots. And yes, I do know what toner is. Perhaps it’s not so surprising when you look at the efforts men’s grooming brands are making to sound butch. Take Clarins’ men’s range for instance. It includes a plant called ‘bison grass’ which sounds like the sort of grass that could take on Sebastien Chabal in a bad mood and win. Then there’s Brave Soldier, which lets you indulge in SAS-style fantasies while washing your face. Could there be a more rugged-sounding moisturiser than Brave Soldier's Code Blue? I'd have said not, but Brave Soldier's macho epithet has just been trumped. After all, what could be more manly than a product called Bulldog?

Conjuring up images of tough types like Winston Churchill, Horatio Nelson and Jonny Wilkinson, Bulldog's name puts the kibosh on any sort of girliness. Can you imagine a woman using a brand called Bulldog? No. Bulldog is, without doubt, the grooming version of John Smith's. Like Brave Soldier, Bulldog products make you feel manly while engaging in a traditionally feminine activity. The packaging is no nonsense: white with a bit of black and green plus a jowly bulldog. The ingredients are no nonsense too. My Original Moisturiser, £6.99, had plenty of good stuff in it, including vitamin E, green algae and the macho sounding konjac mannan. Another plus point is that it’s made with men in mind as opposed to sticking a woman’s product in a black bottle and whacking a blokeish label on it. Thus it takes into account things like the fact men’s skin is thicker and oilier than women’s, but despite this, more fragile thanks to shaving and general neglect. Bulldog has also concluded that most men aren’t going to faff around with 20 different products every morning. This, I think to myself, is definitely good. One and at a push, two, is enough. They do have a scrub along with the face wash and moisturiser but that’s it. While I wasn’t thrilled by the pungently botanical smell of the cleanser, it washed off OK and got rid of all the dirt – job done. The moisturiser seemed to do the trick too. My face didn’t feel tight and it didn’t look greasy; both pluses. Overall, it’s worth buying. The most expensive product in the range costs £10.49 – the anti-ageing moisturiser – so it’s good value considering the large bottles and the length of time it lasts. It’s also natural which is good, and there’s a Fairtrade range, which is better. Everything worked, using it was easy and it’s eco-friendly to boot. Verdict? Good call.

To find out more, go to www.meetthebulldog.com

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