WELL, what's it to be? Do we want our men rugged or do we want them smooth?

I know what I'd choose: blokes who let the crows' feet and the laughter lines run riot.

Yet some chaps may opt out of the natural way of things now anti-ageing creams have appeared on the market. They may start daily skin care regimes that will have men over 60 looking like Peter Pan.

It can't happen. It shouldn't happen. It's bad enough that there is more than one shower gel targeted at men. In fact, even that is going too far. Blokes shouldn't need shower gel - a bar of soap does the trick. That's all my dad has ever used and he's not a bad-looking 60-something.

Men's shaving products, too, are sending out the wrong message, what with all these bottles and tubes aimed at different skin types. Honestly, it's a minefield - 'sensitive', 'super-sensitive', 'oily', 'combination'.

For pity's sake, all this is encouraging them to spend far too long messing about in the bathroom, deciding whether they've got open pores, closed pores, dry skin, combination skin, and lord knows what else. It makes you wonder how they coped in decades gone by, when a bit of soap and a shaving brush were seen as perfectly adequate.

These days even shampoo goes where no man has gone before, with certain brands made especially for men. Why? Isn't the huge range manufactured for human beings in general good enough? What makes the male scalp so different as to warrant their own 'men's' range?

Since cosmetics companies began persuading males that their epidermis needed special products, men have been involving themselves in rituals previously the realm of women: applying moisturiser, exfoliator and all sorts of other stuff, much of which, to my mind, is unnecessary for the male gender.

It has led to major rows as bathrooms became clogged with male grooming products, pushing women's lotions and potions - which are, after all, vital to our future happiness - to one side.

And now, thanks to L'Oreal, anti-ageing creams for men have arrived. The divorce rate is sure to soar as men begin so-called 'skin care regimes' involving twice-daily routines of two hours-plus, applying all sorts of gunk and grease to their faces in order to hold back the years.

But, more to the point, do we really want the old blokes of the future to have cheeks as soft as babies' bottoms; to have foreheads as smooth as velvet and, overall, to appear as rugged as a sand dune?

No, we don't. It is understandable for women to take pains to look young and beautiful, to have smooth skin, silky hair and not look a day over 30. After all, that is what our menfolk want and we are happy to oblige with our creams.

But we don't want that in men. At least no woman I know does, and I think my friends are pretty representative of the population at large.

We don't want men who spend hours messing about with face creams. We want rough and rugged, we want Clint Eastwood types (he shuns male grooming stuff and nonsense).

And we want the bathroom back. Now.

Updated: 09:06 Tuesday, April 05, 2005