Whoever came up with the rhyme that says little boys are made of “slugs and snails and puppy dog’s tails” would have to swallow those words in this day and age. Planet Boy has changed from what it once was — no more sloppy boys dredging dirt around the house and certainly no more pride in stinking up the house. Today’s tween male wants to be clean, smell nice and look good.

There’s nothing new about the allure that grooming products and colognes have for young men, promising to heighten their sex appeal and overall confidence. It’s the age at which they are starting to do this that has been raising eyebrows — from 10 to 14.

The way you smell is more than just a nice punctuation mark for a tween today, it’s serious business. Not only are you a 10 to 14-year-old boy lost in the ever-changing chaos of your own body, but you have no idea how to get noticed and hardly any idea about what it means to be a man. If somebody told you that a RM10 can of spray deodorant could buy you solutions to those riddles and leave you with confidence in reserve, you would rush out to buy it, or at least get your mother to do so.

“More insecurity equals more product need equals more opportunity for marketers,” Kit Yarrow, professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University, told the New York Times. For Gen Buy — a new book she co-authored about marketing to tweens and teenagers — Yarrow met focus groups. “The 10-year-olds are copying the 14-year-olds, trying to be cool,” she said. “Everything is moving down the spectrum. It’s getting younger and more pronounced.”

As boys try to become men, turning from sandbox to Xbox, they are increasingly self-conscious about their appearance and identity. They are trying to tame their twitching, maturing bodies and establish their identity and personality separate from the men around them. It’s also about positioning themselves against their brand-savvy female peers who are hitting puberty even earlier. As these girls wear lipgloss and experiment with racier, sexier clothes, boys — a bewildered developmental step or three behind — face additional pressure to catch up.

Marketers — and to a great extent, tween girls — have cornered young boys into thinking they need to douse themselves in all kinds of washes, sprays, deodorants, hydrators and exfoliators in order to score points with the opposite sex.

In the US, plenty of brands have responded with products that specifically cater to boys of that age, cleverly linking these to mothers as well since they are doing most of the buying. OT OverTime, which has a licensing agreement with P&G, is America’s first line of grooming products catering for tweens and is “designed by guys for guys, yet products mothers can love”.

In Malaysia, the trend works a little differently, in skincare at least. L’Oreal Malaysia reports that their best-selling men’s skincare range, Biotherm Homme, is most often purchased by female consumers for their sons and younger brothers. A dedicated range for tweens in Malaysia is still missing, so the scent-savvy tween boy has no choice but to use the perfumes and hair gels that are actually meant for his much older brother. It is definitely a niche market waiting wide open for whomever has the gumption to take it on.

With the female grooming market fairly well sewn up, it is certainly time to look elsewhere for inspiration. Think of the cross-selling opportunities — eau de Ben 10, anyone?

Bargainhunt
In response to consumer demand, Boss is bringing back the collector’s edition of its best-selling Boss for men. A lustrous, silvery white sheen makes the elegant flacon look like it has emerged from liquid platinum, a pure and precious metal that’s a fitting metaphor for the timeless, classic and covetable nature of the Boss scent. Over 60 million bottles have been sold since its launch in 1998. Crisp red apples and cinnamon fill out its top notes while its heart is full of dewy florals and crunchy green geraniums. Its base notes provide a masculine feel with olivewood and amber. Available for RM218 (50ml) and RM265 (100ml) at all Boss counters nationwide.

Splurge of the week
Montblanc’s Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 241 recounts the Indian statesman’s 30-year struggle for independence in a stunning piece of craftsmanship befitting the icon of peace and liberty. The 18-carat gold nib bears a depiction of Gandhi on his famous Salt March, and the traditional Indian fabrics Gandhi favoured — raw silk and khadi cotton — are represented with burnished white gold on the barrel and cap and hand-twined gold wire in the middle of the pen. A single saffron opal on the pen’s clip is inspired by the colour on India’s flag. Created in a limited edition of 3,000 pieces, this pen is truly an exceptional work of art. Available exclusively at Montblanc’s Pavilion KL boutique for RM83,400.

Too smart, too fast
The iPhone has become one of those accessories that define 21st century yuppiehood. Even the buzzwords that surround it (apps — short for applications — and skins — the stylised covering that gives it a personalised identity) have been become pop icons of their own.

Apps are key to what brings an iPhone to life — programmes created just for the phone that enhance the user experience with compelling content depending on what the individual user is interested in. iPhones can support several hundreds of apps at once yet research is saying that the majority of people have far less.

The average iPhone or iPod Touch owner uses 5 to 10 apps regularly, according to Flurry, a US-based research firm that studies mobile trends. This despite the surfeit of available apps — some 140,000 and counting.

It is about human behaviour. Even with a million options before us, we are likely to choose what we like, what works, and stick with it. With the iPad coming up in just a few months, several new apps are bound to be launched, but users are sure to be overwhelmed. How future generations of iPhone users will behave is anyone’s guess but for now, it’s quite clear that the iPhone might have become too smart too fast.

But if you feel your iPhone is bare of icons and needs some action, check out TheAppleBlog.com’s list of 2009’s best apps. 

This article appeared in Options, the lifestyle pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 792, Feb 8-14, 2010