2017 will be the year of men in mascara!

THE fashion world is often surprising, but this year will be all about one thing — men in make-up!

That’s the prediction of a Canadian company, who reckon 2017 is the year mascara, lippy and blusher for fellas becomes the norm.

The idea began when Andrew Grella was getting ready for his high school prom, and dreading it because of his acne.

Having gone to his mother and told her of his worries, she promptly decided to apply some discreet make-up to see if she could conceal his acne without it being too obvious.

First, Andrew headed to the nearest shopping centre, to find her some male-specific items she could use, and it only dawned on him then that there was absolutely nothing like that for men.

Then it was back home to use Mum’s, and though it really did the trick, he couldn’t stop thinking about why nobody made this stuff for blokes.

When he went to university, he laid the foundation — pardon the pun — for what would become his first company.

Today, he is boss of Formen, a male make-up and skincare firm, and doing very nicely, thank you.

Thorough man that he is, Andrew did plenty market research, to ensure there really were other males out there interested in make-up.

He also decided to focus on ranges that would fix or conceal problems, rather than just go down the beauty route, which didn’t seem to matter so much to men.

Right now, Formen concentrate on four products — a concealer palette, blotting powder, under-eye concealer palette and a colour-correcting cream.

None of them give the obvious appearance of make-up, and one of the most-popular uses is for men with shiny faces, who can dull the glare without it being obvious they have applied some Formen products.

Interestingly, as South Korea is ahead of the world in make-up, Andrew wanted to launch there, rather than Canada.

He figured if it did OK there, it would do well everywhere, so expect to see it here soon!