Are Men and Women So Different?

JD and I have been talking recently about the ranges of toiletries available for men and women. We were going to do a challenge (Ooh we do love a good challenge!) where we each used the others toiletries for a month to see how it was. Except I often use JD's deoderant anyway and we use non-gender specific shower gel etc. It wouldn't produce any interesting results so we decided I'd just make a post complaining about the silly differences in men and women's products instead. :D

America seems to have the best names for men's shower gels. They're so manly and rugged sounding. BEARGLOVE! WOLFTHORN! LIONPRIDE! Everyone knows you're a man by the shower gel you use.

A lot of men's shower gels have grips on the side too so they can be used while jumping out of a plane or during a high speed car chase. Here's a picture of JD being overcome by manliness while gripping some manly shower gel in Asda.

Luckily women only do delicate activities so their toiletries can be smooth and curvy, no gripping needed here.

I don't understand why there are such differences in the appearance of different gender deoderants. Do women really only want products that have curves and men only want deoderants that resemble R2D2?

Toiletries are always clearly marked For Men or Women on them too like we can't differentiate between them even though they're so glaringly different in style.

Razors might be the worst example of how marketing makes us feel we have to have gender-specific products. The actual blades in men's and women's razors are the same but just housed in different coloured plastic to sell to each gender. Men's are adorned with footballs or racing cars (are they selling to grown men here or little boys?) and women's are usually pink (same as before, women or little girls??) with flowers or something girly on the packaging. This kind of marketing is a bit insulting really especially when what we're buying is the same product.

You can see here in these pictures the inconsistency in the pricing. Men's razors are twice the price of women's even though they're technically the same. Men's usually have metal handles and women's have pink plastic handles. If I was a man I'd save money by using a pink razor :D

The amount of blades in a razor is an actual joke I've heard many comedians talk about. When will it end. The sad thing is that with each blade addition the price goes up and the ads tell us that the razor performs better when really just shaving with one blade is good enough.

Whilst investigating toiletries in our local Asda the weirdest difference was with Tena incontinence products. The men's on the right are in a box with all kinds of scientific looking information that makes it seem more medical and informative. The women's on the left are in plastic and have a flower and pretty moisture droplets.

I don't think men and women need different toiletries at all but that marketing people want us to think we do because it means more sales. JD and I already use the same shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste, handwash and maybe we should go a step further and use the same deoderant. There's no reason not too, they're the same products packaged differently to make us feel that men and women aren't the same. In some ways we aren't the same but in more ways than we think, we are.

Would you use toiletries meant for the opposite sex?