Ultra-Orthodox public joins cosmetic trend
Photo: Visual/Photos
Not your mother’s cosmetician
Trendsetting women and haredi men now have something in common; both groups are well-represented among male cosmeticians’ clients
Their manicured fingers expertly dispense vials of lotions and creams. Skin spots don’t scare them, and clients eagerly await their services. Meet the newest beauty experts: male cosmeticians.
Avi Valencia, 42, is a licensed cosmetician from Bat Yam. “I’ve been breathing cosmetics from age zero,” he declares.
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He claims that although his clients have no problem with his sex, his colleagues seem uncomfortable when he attends professional conferences and symposia. “Men in this field are an object of curiosity and a source of competition,” he explains.
“My entire household works in beauty and esthetics,” Valencia reports. “My mother had a beauty salon. My grandmother dispensed cosmetic products, and it influenced me.”
At his Mercaz Atidim clinic, he deals with anti-aging and post-plastic-surgery therapies. He counts Argentinean telenovela star Gustavo Bermudez, who once visited Israel, among his clients.
“Bermudez has incredible facial skin,” Valencia gushes. “And you can see it clearly see on screen.”
Eliad Levi, 41, from Jerusalem, began his career at catalog photo shoots. He later moved on to bridal makeup, and then, cosmetic companies employed him as a senior beauty consultant.
Today, most of Levi’s clients are Orthodox men, but some women request his services as well.
“Many religious men are interested in removing their beards with wax and straightening their payot (sideburns),” Levi says. “And I am here for them. After all, they’re not going to go to a woman cosmetician.”
'It’s what homosexuals do'
But at least one rabbi has expressed disapproval of Levi’s work.
“After I administered a number of treatments,” Levi notes, “I received a call from a yeshiva head who insisted that these actions are not in accordance with religious and Jewish values.
“He said to me: ‘I am very happy that there is a man who works in cosmetics and is helping the younger guys, but please stop with respect to the payot and the beard.’ of course, I obeyed.”
Shai Shachar, 40, of Bnei Brak, is a four year industry veteran. Previously, he worked as a marketing and tourism manager.
The majority of his clients are also men. Although most of them are haredi, religious or traditional, “there are also some secular.”
Shachar has observed an increase interest in cosmetic treatments among the Orthodox.
“A religious guy came to me,” Shachar recalls. “He wanted to have his eyebrows done like he saw on a model in an advertisement. I told him that the style he had requested was too feminine, and I did his eyebrows in a style which suited him.”
Shachar works out of his home and scrupulously protects his clients’ privacy. “They enter from one door and slip out from another door, a side door, so they never meet each other.”
Yitzchak Emanuel, 30, a former policeman from Afula, changed careers, because he couldn’t take the pressure and stress of his old job.
“My friends and family think that being a cosmetician carries a stigma. It’s what homosexuals do, but I’m completely straight,” he laughs.
Emanuel also has haredi male clients. They request pedicures “so they can immerse in the mikvah (ritual pool).”
According to Emanuel, cosmeticians can make a real difference. For example, he once treated a 12 year old girl who was suffering from excess body hair.
Fed up with her schoolmates’ taunts, the girl requested a total body wax. Immediately afterwards, her social standing improved dramatically.
“That made me very happy,” Emanuel avows.
