Rafael Mendes
Grooming and style
Grooming · Style and wear · Scent
About
Covers what a barber's chair, a razor, and a well-cut jacket actually deliver, and what they don't. Tracks how a silhouette holds up through a real week of wear, what a fragrance does once heat and humidity take hold, and where a cut or a scent is available locally versus only in claims. No routine is described without having been sat through.
Grounded in sitting through the actual service before describing it: what a barber does with a straight razor versus what the price card promises, how a fabric wears after a month of real use, how a fragrance's opening hour compares to its drydown in heat. Checks reformulation notes and regional release differences before naming a scent, and skips any fit or grooming claim that has not been worn, not just tried on.
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Published work 43 articles since 2026
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How Laurent Voisinet Cuts His Texturised Bob, Step by Step
A step-by-step breakdown of Laurent Voisinet's texturised bob from his Neo-Kawaii collection, showing how full-blade cutting, scissor-over-comb and point cutting combine to soften a graphic shape.
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The Micro Fringe Comeback: What to Ask Before the Cut
A micro fringe delivers a dramatic new silhouette with very little length lost, yet it demands daily styling and regular trims. The consultation matters more than face-shape rules.
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Winter Hair Shedding: What a Salon Can Safely Tell Clients
Winter can leave hair dry and prone to breakage, yet it is a weak explanation for true root-level shedding. Help clients separate fibre damage from hair loss, and know when to refer.
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ASICS just made a very good shoe for very bad weather
ASICS’s Gel-Transcend FJ puts a trail shaped sole under a leather city sneaker, though its perforations set clear limits on rain protection. Grip is the real upgrade.
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Pierre Mahéo Still Loves Flannel. His Office Doesn't.
Officine Générale founder Pierre Mahéo still wears his flannel suit jacket but retired the trousers, too heavy for an office day, revealing how one fabric's weight dictates what actually survives in a wardrobe.
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Wahl Vapor Switch Launches With Two Speeds for Barber Shop Work
Wahl’s Vapor Switch pairs 7,000 and 9,000 rpm settings with an adjustable taper lever, giving barbers more control during fades and bulk removal.
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Inside KOT: What Fischersund's Cottage-Named Fragrance Actually Smells Like
KOT, the new Fischersund x Farmers Market scent, builds hay, suede and woodsmoke into the feeling of an Icelandic cottage gathering that lasts through a sun that never sets.
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Andrew Garfield's Shirts Break the Rules. His Suits Keep Them.
GQ UK says Andrew Garfield's shirts break the rules while his suits stay classic. His stylist Warren Alfie Baker explains why the jacket never gets to be the rebel.
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What Has Jacob Elordi Done to His Hair?
Elordi has grown his undercut into a layered mod mullet for the Wuthering Heights tour, and the texturizing behind it explains why men's grow-outs are trending.
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Amber Orchid Has a Winner. Its Base Note Is the Real Story
The 7 Virtues named a giveaway winner for Amber Orchid, but the fragrance's "Harmony Molecule" base and its Sephora-exclusive launch reveal more about the brand's direction than the contest does.
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What ghd's Two Milan Runway Looks Actually Tell You About Styling Your Own Hair
At Milan Fashion Week, ghd styled two opposite SS27 looks for Missoni and Sportmax: textured, undone waves and curls versus a glass-smooth wet-look bun.
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Behind Les Abstraits' Philosopher's Walk, One Supplier Is Quietly Stamping Niche Perfumery's "Grand Cru" Materials
Philosopher's Walk's "Grand Cru" citrus, florals and cedar moss trace to a single ingredient lab, L'Atelier Français des Matières, that also supplies Les Indémodables, Masque Milano and Rogue Perfumery.
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K-pop's 'two-block' haircut isn't actually a haircut trick, it's a perm trick in disguise
The clipped sides and soft, tousled top K-pop idols wear aren't just a scissor cut. Barbers and stylists rely on specific perms to get hair to sit that way.
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The Half Buzz Is Trending. Barbers Say It's Harder to Get Right Than a Fade
A half buzz looks like the simplest haircut on the menu, but barbers say the hard part is the blend, not the shave, and the upkeep is faster than clients expect.
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A New Nail System Wants Barbershops and Salons to Stop Improvising for Male Clients
MANACARE, a five-step professional nail and hand care line built for nail technicians, launches October 15 betting that male clients need a system, not a men's-only shelf label.
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Sora Dora's Raphael Trades Sweetness for a Base Built Like Stone and Cedar
Sora Dora's extrait Raphael pairs ambroxan, cashmeran and Haitian vetiver under iris and magnolia, a base built to read as coal-dust warmth rather than sweet amber.
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What Etat Libre d'Orange's Uruk Chronicles Is Actually Made Of, and How It Wears in the Heat
Etat Libre d'Orange's new Jordi Fernandez scent, Uruk Chronicles, pairs juicy fruit with oud and amber, but neither material is what the words suggest, and both behave differently once heat and humidity get involved.
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A Nebula's Extreme Temperatures, Rendered in Resin and Amber
Perfumer Andreas Wilhelm built Ylem NGC 6302 around the Butterfly Nebula's real extremes, a star near 220,000°C beside gas near absolute zero, and translated that contrast into resins and heat sensitive amber notes.
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What Salon International's Stage Artists Actually Promise Barbershops
Salon International 2026's Artists on Stage lineup is trade show spectacle, not a preview of what happens in a barber's chair.
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Foin Coupé and the Chemistry Behind the Smell of Cut Hay
Darren Alan Perfumes' September release, Foin Coupé, leans on coumarin, the tonka-derived compound that gives cut hay its sweet, dry smell and anchors the fougère family since 1882.
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Color Analysis Is Becoming a Real Skill Set for Colorists, Not Just a Party Trick
Stylists are training in seasonal color theory to pick dyes that flatter a client's actual coloring, moving beyond guessing at requested shades.
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Nicolaï's Patchouli Spirit Goes Wide, and the Raw Material Gets Its Golden Cut
Patricia de Nicolaï's Harrods exclusive patchouli fragrance is now available beyond one department store, revealing an amber, liqueur-like take on a note she says she has always loved.
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Montale's Cedrat Lova Puts Citrus at the Center, Then Lets Oud Take Over
Montale's new Cedrat Lova opens on Sicilian citron and Calabrian lemon before settling into oud and tobacco, a structure that rewards patience in warm weather.
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A Baby Fragrance Arrives Just Ahead of the EU's New Allergen Deadline
Nicolaï's alcohol-free Petit Ange Eau de Senteur, cleared for newborns, arrives as the EU's expanded fragrance-allergen labeling rule closes in on its July 2026 deadline for products aimed at children.
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Sultan Pasha's Shisha Reveals a Perfumer Switching Mediums Mid-Career
Azman's new Oh My Shisha! extrait marks attar specialist Sultan Pasha's continued move into alcohol-based perfumery, a shift that changes how a fragrance releases on skin, not just how it's packaged.
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Our 8 Favorite Fall Fragrances for Under $100
Esquire's under-$100 fall fragrance picks arrive as tariffs, quiet reformulation and a booming dupe market are redrawing what "affordable" and "designer" even mean this season.
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Cerise de Tlemcen Bottles an Algerian Cherry Harvest, With a Nose Who Knows Heat
Al Fanak's 2026 cherry fragrance, composed by Nathalie Feisthauer, leans on spice and heavy woods to keep its fruit accord from collapsing into syrup once skin heats it up.
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Vintage Weil de Weil (1971): A Chypre Built From Materials Regulation Has Since Outlawed
Weil de Weil, the 1971 green chypre revisited in ÇaFleureBon's vintage series, leans on civet and oakmoss, two materials now restricted enough that its original formula cannot legally be rebuilt today.
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The Different Company's New Tuberose Was Composed by an Outsider to Its Own Family Story
Crazy Tubéreuse, the house's latest extrait, was composed by dsm-firmenich perfumer Alexandra Monet rather than Céline Ellena, breaking a lineage the brand has kept since 2005.
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The Sapphire in Chanel's New Necklace Carries More Than a Lion's Head
Chanel's Imprimé Lion necklace centers on a rare 20.66-carat unheated Sri Lankan sapphire, and it's also the first high-jewelry collection released since creative director Patrice Leguereau's 2024 death.
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This is why menswear guys always leave their collars sticking out
A shirt collar poking above a crewneck has become 2026's defining menswear tic, and getting it right is a matter of fabric, fit, and layering order, not just habit.
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The Nine Brands in GQ's Saudi Roundup All Answer to the Same Backers
A GQ Middle East roundup names nine Saudi labels worth watching, but nearly every one of them threads back to the same state apparatus: Fashion Commission mentorships, PIF-linked retail stakes, and LVMH-adjacent showrooms, that the listicle never names.
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The GRAZIA Guide To Dubai's Best Hair Salons Leaves Out The Building's New Neighbor
GRAZIA Middle East's tour of Dubai's 14 best salons skews toward hotel-affiliated, Western-expat names and misses a major Bollywood celebrity stylist who just opened shop in the same tower as one of its picks.
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The Fine Print Under a Made in USA Sneaker
New Balance's 'Made in USA' retro sneakers meet a 70 percent domestic-value threshold the company set for itself, not the federal government's stricter standard, a gap that has drawn an FTC complaint and two rounds of class-action litigation since the 1990s.
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The Hard Part Isn't Getting a Rare Sneaker, It's Keeping One
The polyurethane midsoles in many sought-after 1990s and 2000s sneakers begin breaking down from the moment they are made, a process collectors call shoe cancer, and the sealed, untouched storage prized by deadstock culture often speeds that decay rather than preventing it.
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The Upkeep Behind Nicole Kidman's 'Simple' Fall Cut
Nicole Kidman's fall layered cut and curtain fringe are being sold as an easy, no-perm no-color change, but the look borrows directly from two older references and comes with a maintenance rhythm the coverage skips.
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The Tote Was Never Built to Hold Its Shape
The word tote predates the current oversized-bag trend by centuries, and L.L. Bean's 1944 canvas Ice Carrier shows why today's big bags slouch: the construction underneath was never meant to hold a shape in the first place.
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The Brown Denim Trend Skips a Detail About How It Fades
This season's push toward brown and other earth toned jeans leaves out a detail of dye chemistry: brown denim is typically dyed in a way that ages more abruptly than indigo, not more gracefully.
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The Assisting Year Is About Cash, Not Confidence
The one concrete line in Ellie Block's career profile, warning new colorists against renting a salon booth too soon, describes a real financial risk, and that risk is scaling fastest in Austin itself, where a national salon suite franchise opened its hundredth U.S. location in March 2025.
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The Bow May Not Be Holding the Hair
A bow can be a visible ornament mounted on a headband, barrette, or clip while the hairstyle is built separately. A still image cannot establish the hidden fastener or how the placement holds through movement and humidity.
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A Slim Straight Is a Name, Not a Measurement
The two-word vocabulary now printed on jean tags, slim straight, straight taper, and the rest, descends from Levi's own internal lot-numbering system, whose origin the company says it can no longer explain, and a 2022 sizing investigation found that even the right name on a label can still leave the actual garment inches off the number stated.
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The Wedge Heel Solved a Materials Problem Before a Comfort One
The modern wedge is often presented as the easier route back into heels. Its defining construction began as a response to material scarcity, while comfort still depends on height, pitch, fit, and the surface underfoot.
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The Bridge This Hotel Borrowed
In October 2024, Four Seasons renamed its Grade II* London hotel after Tower Bridge, a landmark five to ten minutes' walk away, trading a specific address for a recognizable skyline while the building itself, and its documented history, stayed exactly where they were.
