beauty

How Zoe Foster Blake solved Hamish Blake's one annoying bathroom habit.

 

The bathroom is a dangerous testing ground for any relationship. Lines are crossed, barriers are broken down and things are seen that cannot be unseen. Or unsmelt.

For Zoe Foster Blake, there was just one habit she didn’t enjoy from husband Hamish, and it involved his constant raiding of her skincare products.

He developed a particular fondness for one in particular — the Properly Clean cleanser from her own skincare line Go-To.

“He always uses it on his entire body now and it annoys me because he applies it too liberally,” Foster Blake told Executive Style.

Sonny passes his audition at the salon. #perfect

A video posted by Hamish Blake (@hamishblakeshotz) on

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Turns out Blake wasn’t alone; plenty of customers were reporting back saying their partners were also helping themselves to the cleanser. So the former beauty director came up with a genius solution: to create a men’s version called Bro-To Properly Clean. You know, a MANLY cleanser.

The grey packaging clearly denotes it’s just for men, and as such has particularly difficult directions for use.

“After wetting your filthy face under an Amazonian waterfall or similar, press the pump of Properly Clean twice and watch the mountains of hard-core, 100 per cent bulletproof mousse spill onto your hand,” the instructions read.

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To create it, Foster-Blake and the Go-To team gave a series of tough ingredients like monster truck grease, bullet shells and panther claws to a “full-bearded, heavily tattooed pirate scientist driving a tank” who came up with the manly product. Did we mention it’s for men’s skin?

 

Designed to appeal to the inner Bear Grylls in any man and prove that taking care of your skin is as just a manly activity as hiking through the wilderness, the hilarious description isn’t even the best part.

 

The truth is the products are exactly the same. Peach or grey bottle, you’ll get the same formula, same ingredients, same price ($31) and same results.

“I really wanted to take the piss. I have been on the other side (as a former beauty editor), and I have seen the faux science and made-up words attached to some of the products,” Foster Blake said. (Post continues after gallery.)

“When products are sold to women it is along the lines of self love and wellness, but men don’t really buy into that. Apart from applying sunscreen to ward off skin cancer they are not really motivated by that desire to look after themselves. So we thought we needed to make it funny.”

At the moment, the product is strictly limited edition (and timed perfectly for Father’s Day).

“The idea is for men to stop stealing their girlfriend’s moisturiser. Women generally buy skincare products for their partners and it would be great if more men started to buy it online themselves,” she said.

So simple. So clever. Just don’t tell him.

Image: Instagram/@zotheysay