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I’ve known men who will remove nasal hair with tweezers and pluck heavy stubble if it grows above the jaw-line. Make sure you’ve got a bullet to bite on if this is one of your beauty tricks. Personally, most men find heavy stubble sexy. Not so the ‘one big eyebrow’ look. Get ‘em tweezered at home regularly or save yourself the pain and have eyebrows tidied permanently with electrolysis - but never too tidy unless, “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Joan Crawford”. An eyelash tint is always cool as long as it’s black (£20 @ Charles Worthington).
A word on leg hair. Hairy legs are sexy when the skin is taut and tanned. If leg hair is growing out of control then get it clippered. Wahl’s 100 Series is only £16.95. Attach the Grade 2 comb and shave at leisure. Don’t, however, go too far. Nobody finds the pubic moustache pretty. Be careful if you’re shaving any hair around your butt crack. Take off all attachments but take care.
Keep it simple with skincare. Even Hypo-allergenic soaps are harsher on your skin than shower gel. Garnier Neutralia (Sainsbury’s £2.49) is one of the best body wash products on the market. Life is too short for cleanse, tone and moisturize. Basically, if you wash your face twice daily you aren’t going to need to cleanse and tone. A good moisturizer will do it and you can’t get much better than Creme de la Mer (£115 @ Harrods). Only kidding. Go for bog standard moisturizer like Johnson’s Baby Lotion (Boots £2.99).
Massage it into your face, neck and shoulders daily. Avoid eye gel and go instead for cream. Nivea is the winner with Anti-Wrinkle Eye Zone (Superdrug £9.99). A high maintenance man will always carry a lip balm because you never know whose tongue is going to be down your throat. Keep it cheap, easy and portable. Body Shop’s Passion Berry lip balm pot (£3) is great for the bathroom. Superdrug’s vanilla lip balm (£1.99) works on the road.

The First Wives Club star Breakover discovery is a bottle of Jerome Russell Blonding shampoo (Superdrug £2.99). This genie in a bottle will lighten mouse to gold and blonde to platinum if you completely ignore the instructions on the bottle. Massage into wet hair, comb through and leave for 15 minutes before washing off. Results are almost immediate but you need to kick it in for at least two weeks before you start looking sun-kissed and natural. Blondes don’t have more fun. They just have more sex.
When the face and hair is fixed, you’re going to want a cracking good atomizer fake tan. Laboratoire Garnier Ambre Solaire Duo Tan Self-tanning Legs Bronzer (Boots £5.99) is nice and easy. And, yes, you can use leg bronzer on your face. The bottle says repeat every three days. Don’t. Once a week is quite enough to maintain a healthy glow. You don’t wanna look like George Harrison. Forget the full body fake tan. If you spray where the sun would shine then nobody will be any the wiser.
So what else have we got in the box, Pandora? Make-up. The best-selling make-up range worldwide is Yves Saint Laurent. The miracle product in the range is YSL Touche Eclat concealer (Harvey Nichols £19.99). Touche Eclat is your spot check concealer (which comes in a paintbrush tube) and I promise you won’t look like Mr Pancake face if used sparingly. It’s great under the eyes if you’ve got excess baggage. As a rule, make-up for men is not a look. But we all have those cold sore or spot mornings when it’s either Touche Eclat or self-imposed Purdah.
Sounds like a lot of effort, no? Well, yes. And that’s only your homework. No Breakover is complete without my personal beauty Queen, Louise at Charles Worthington: a short, sharp and unpolished manicure every two weeks (£25), a pedicure once a quarter (£26.50), a full body massage (£40) and Galvanic Facial (£50) per month. Why bother? Because you’re worth it, baby. Nobody wants to look like W.H. Auden at 30. The only way to avoid it is high maintenance grooming. Now who’s a pretty boy then?
James Sherwood is a weekly columnist for The Independent