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Cosmetic transparency among famous women is still new. Celebrity women’s appearances have pretty much always been picked apart in the court of public opinion, but additional speculation about cosmetic procedures is inescapable in the social media era. The pressure for them to admit to surgically enhancing their looks is at an all-time high, and some have leaned into that. The Kardashian-Jenner family has recently made cosmetic disclosure a new part of their brand, revealing the details of the surgeries and treatments they’ve undergone. This year alone, Tisha Campell, Stassie Karanikolaou, and Barabra Corcoran have done the same, and more will undoubtedly follow. Transparency is becoming its own currency.

The story for men, however, has historically been much simpler. Any significant changes to a famous man’s appearance could be chalked up to a haircut or the natural result of aging or weight they’ve gained or lost for a role—no mass speculation necessary. In reality, it’s likely that plenty of men have been booking procedures and “tweakments” since the dawn of Hollywood, but admitting it publicly would risk coming off as vain and therefore less masculine—until now, apparently. When it comes to aesthetic transparency, famous men are following their female counterparts’ lead.

In late 2024, John Cena opened up about his “life-changing” hair transplant, which he says he maintains with red light therapy, minoxidil, and other supplements. This summer, Joel McHale similarly copped to having undergone four different hair transplants. Many of reality TV’s biggest male stars have made headlines for their cosmetic transparency this year, including Andy Cohen, Summer House star Carl Radke, and Tom Sandoval, who’ve all divulged details of their Botox and/or veneers.

Tom Sandoval has had his teeth done, gets regular Botox, and isn't shy about the details of his beauty routine.

Photo: Getty Images

John Cena got a hair transplant a couple years ago, which he credits for changing his life and self-image for the better.

Photo: Getty Images

At the same time, skin care routines for men are being rebranded as an act of ambition and self-discipline. That’s thanks in part to brands launched by A-listers like Brad Pitt, Pharrell Williams, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and LeBron James, all of whom have promoted their products by giving interviews about their skin care philosophies. And although women still account for the overwhelming majority of the aesthetics and beauty market, men are starting to eat bigger slices of that pie.

Data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons shows that men received just over 965,000 invasive and non-invasive procedures in 2014; by 2023 that figure had passed 1.3 million (accounting for 7-8 percent of all cosmetic procedures). The ASPS also reported that in 2024 alone, neuromodulator treatments (Botox, Xeomin, Dysport) among men grew 4.3 percent. The same report found that the number of skin resurfacing treatments performed on men rose 6.1 percent from 2023 to 2024. The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery reports that nearly 9 out of 10 surgical hair restoration procedures worldwide are performed on men, and that the number of men surveyed who received beard and body hair transplants jumped from 13 percent to 18 percent from 2021 to 2024. In the U.K., men under 30 now account for nearly a fifth of all non-invasive and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures, according to a 2024 report by the British College of Medicine. Meanwhile, the global men’s skin care market is worth over $17 billion today. It’s just a fraction of what the women’s market is worth (more than $100 billion), but it’s projected to double in the next decade, according to Future Market Insights.

What’s remarkable isn’t just the scale of change but the shift in attitude. Whereas early-2000s “metrosexuals” were lobbed homophobic and sexist taunts for using moisturizer and tweezing their eyebrows, the 2025 version is praised for a 10-step beauty routine and unashamed regular “tweakments.” Famous men’s openness about their appearances—and the fact that they care deeply about them—is redefining masculinity’s relationship with beauty. Celebrity skin care brands and treatment endorsements don’t just monetize, they normalize.

“Transparency here isn’t rebellion; it's branding.”

On the surface, this looks like liberation; men—straight, cisgender men, for the sake of this discussion—can finally care about their appearances without ridicule. But every time the stigma of aesthetic upkeep lifts, the bar gets higher. At first, doing all that work and spending all that money on good looks feels optional, but then it turns into an obligation. What starts as permission hardens into expectation. The applause for “finally caring” comes with a catch: You can’t stop.

This is a cycle women have long been sold under capitalism: shame, then empowerment, then escalation, then back to shame. It’s a manufactured loop that keeps us spending, always chasing a version of ourselves the media and the market insist could still be improved upon—and it’s starting to play out in real time for men. Body image struggles among men are rising fast. A 2025 study done by Eating Behaviors reported that 1 in 5 American and Canadian men aged 15 to 35 meet the criteria for a probable eating disorder. And we have yet to see any studies observing how men feel about their faces and hair among this rise in cosmetic procedures.

Plenty of women are saying, “Welcome to the club,” which is understandable. In some ways, it feels vindicating to watch men succumb to the same pressure we’ve all been under since birth. But unfortunately, this “progress” won’t close the beauty standard gender gap. If men’s aesthetic standards rise, women’s will just climb even higher.

With his brand The Shop, Lebron James is one of a big handful of celebrity men leaning into the beauty and skin care markets.

Photo: Courtesy of The Shop

The irony is that famous men’s honesty about their aesthetic upkeep only arrived once the culture reframed caring about one’s appearance as a flex. Transparency here isn’t rebellion; it's branding. Deep underneath that shift, I have to wonder why everyday men are buying into beauty so quickly beyond the guise of self-respect and an admiration for The Rock. Is it the so-called “male loneliness” epidemic—straight men reshaping themselves to attract partners? Scroll through a dating app and you’ll see how quickly attraction boils down to a first impression. Filters, smoothed faces, full body mirror shots, and heights written in Tinder bios like stats on a trading card. In that context, it isn’t hard to see why many men would turn towards cosmetic work—not to show off, but to keep up (without working on the non-physical traits women desire, like emotional acuity). Still, the double standard remains.

So what happens next? Do we move toward a world where both men and women can opt in or out of cosmetic work without stigma—or do we double the market, drafting men into the same endless loop of optimization women have endured for generations? For now, one thing is clear: famous men want you to know what work they've done—but while their procedure denial era has ended, the disclosure era is no freer. It just ties masculinity to another set of performance metrics.

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