Gen Z is a generation of reversals. They’ve flipped nearly every category on its head — turning wellness into indulgence, irony into sincerity, debauchery into control, and consumption into identity. Things once considered category no-nos now comfortably coexist. 

Gen Z is the Remix Generation: a generation that reflects culture back differently than expected. They don’t reject categories outright; they distort, remix, and rebuild them into something entirely their own. For brands, this creates both tension and opportunity – the brands winning with Gen Z are the ones willing to embrace contradiction and break previous assumptions rather than just resolve it.

This piece is the third in an ongoing series exploring the behaviors, tensions, and category inversions shaping Gen Z and The Remix Generation today — and what they signal for the future of innovation.

The Gen Z Masculinity Makeover

You've probably seen the TikToks. A 22-year-old breaking down his mewing routine. Another tracking his jawline progress over 90 days. Comment sections debating clavicle definition and bone structure like they're analyzing game film.

This is looksmaxxing: the practice of systematically optimizing your physical appearance. A term originated in fringe internet corners about a decade ago, but made mainstream on TikTok by Gen Z influencers in the last year. Mogging (the act of physically outclassing someone by your presence alone; yes, this is unfortunately a real term), clavicular training, "softmaxxing" skincare routines, preventative Botox at 23: what started as niche online behavior is now a defining cultural phenomenon for Gen Z men.

I'll be honest: I spend a lot of time on TikTok, and I've never mewed a day in my life. But when I turned 30 earlier this year and noticed my hairline doing something I didn't love, I quietly found myself researching DHT-blocking shampoos and biotin supplements at 11pm. I didn’t think I was looksmaxxing, I thought I was just... optimizing. Which, it turns out, is exactly the point.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Men's beauty and grooming is no longer a women's category with a men's aisle. It’s a booming market that topped $7B in 2025 in the US, up nearly 7% YOY. 

And Gen Z men are the engine powering this growth: 68% of Gen Z men used facial skincare products in 2024, versus 42% in 2022. Gen Z men are also outpacing older generations’ spending: 42% of Gen Z men are devoting a larger share of their income to grooming each year, 13 percentage points ahead of millennials. 

For Gen Z men, beauty and grooming is about optimization and self-investment, and the brands paying attention are building serious businesses.

Lessons Learned from 3 Brands That Got There First

Lesson 1: Remove the friction.

Stryx, a functional men's cosmetics brand, launched in the shaving section of Target and CVS rather than the beauty aisle. The strategic insight underneath that decision is worth unpacking: Gen Z men are interested in beauty products, but they're rejecting the context those products typically exist in.

Most Gen Z men don't see themselves as stereotypical beauty consumers: while they're interested in the outcomes (clearer skin, more even tone, fewer dark circles), they don't currently identify with the category dynamics that deliver beauty benefits. So placing a concealer next to a razor didn't just add convenience, it granted men permission to pick it up without needing to decide whether or not they're someone who buys makeup.

When Stryx launched, roughly 70% of its customers had never purchased cosmetics before. The product itself was nothing new to the beauty world, but the context in which it was sold was the unlock. Stryx reported a 250% sales increase in 2021, and is now sold in CVS stores nationwide.

It's a move the broader industry is now scrambling to replicate: Ulta and Sephora have started integrating men's complexion products into gender-neutral, skincare-first displays for exactly the same reason.

A provocation: what if a men's grooming powerhouse like Gillette added a tinted SPF moisturizer to its core line, positioned as the next logical step in any man's morning routine? No beauty aisle required.

Lesson 2: Anonymize the Purchase

For a lot of Gen Z men, the biggest barrier to buying a concealer is actually being seen buying it… standing in a beauty aisle, deliberating over shade options. That moment of visibility is enough to kill the purchase entirely. 

The data makes this tension stranger: up to 70% of Gen Z men currently follow beauty or grooming influencers online, conduct research, watch tutorials, and build out routines, proving their interest in the category exists behind closed doors and phone screens. But that digital fluency doesn’t automatically translate to comfort at a physical shelf.

Hims cracked this by building a model that removed the transaction from public view entirely. Products with clinical framing, DTC delivery, and packaging indistinguishable from any other subscription box. 

And Gen Z men responded: 78% of Gen Z men say they are a customer of at least one telehealth company, compared to 58% of Millennials and 54% of respondents overall, likely making them a disproportionate engine behind Hims' growth.

The company generated $1.5B in revenue in 2024, up 69% YOY, with now over 2M subscribers. For Hims, the category was hair loss and ED, not concealer. But the behavioral unlock for beauty and grooming is identical: if you remove the social exposure from a stigmatized purchase, men will spend freely.

A provocation: what if Sephora launched a men's skincare subscription that arrived in packaging indistinguishable from a weekly Amazon delivery? They already carry the products. All they'd need to remove is the logo on the outside of the box.

Lesson 3: Reframe the Product

For years, men's beauty meant taking a women's product, swapping the packaging for something black and angular, and calling it masculine. Most men saw through it immediately. Gen Z men in particular are more skeptical of marketing that frames products as inherently masculine or feminine; a foundation in a matte charcoal tube stopped fooling people a long time ago.

War Paint understood this dynamic and launched with a more honest argument: male skin is physiologically different (thicker, oilier, with different tonal and textural needs), so men deserve products built for them from the ground up, not repurposed formulas in darker packaging. 

War Paint's value proposition is strong. But what made the brand land was the framing around it. War Paint positioned men's makeup as a confidence tool, not a beauty statement. The content is instructional, practical, matter of fact: here's what this does, here's how to use it, here's why it helps. For Gen Z men who've grown up framing grooming as maintenance and optimization, that's a lane they can step into without having to re-examine who they are. The brand has since secured over £1M in investment and built an extensive retail presence at John Lewis, Harvey Nichols, and Mr Porter.

A provocation: what if Under Armour launched a recovery skincare line framed entirely around performance?  Something organically aligned to their brand’s mission while also delivering customers a benefit that matters.

What This Means for Brands

The looksmaxxing trend is an enduring signal. Gen Z men have grown up in a world where their appearance is constantly photographed, filtered, posted, and critiqued. Investing in how you look is maintenance, confidence, and optimization; the same behavior that drives supplement stacking and wearable tracking, just applied to skin and face. I recognized it in myself at 30, researching shampoos at 11pm. I just didn't have a name for it.

The brands winning here have figured out that the barrier is rarely the product itself: Stryx moved the shelf, Hims removed the transaction from public view, War Paint reframed what the product was for. Each found a different way to let men opt in without asking them to adopt a new identity.

Brands that are still waiting for a clear signal are leaving a $7 billion market on the table.