"WATER? Tea? Coffee? Beer?"
At 11 a.m., it's a little early for beer on a workday but I appreciate the offer. It's the first question you'll be asked when you sit down in the massage chair at Man Up in North Vancouver before you get a pedicure.
The salon tailored exclusively for men recently opened on Marine Drive at Lloyd Avenue, just west of Capilano Mall.
This is my first "foot maintenance," as they call it. My usual foot regimen consists of trimming my nails when the lady friend points out that they are starting to resemble hooves.
Even though I'm surrounded by professionals, I'm still a bit sheepish about having someone not just stare at but get intimately close with my feet because, well, they're my feet. I have thousands of years of Western civilization telling me they're ugly and they stink.
"That's the whole point of this place," says Candice Schultz, Man Up esthetician. "We don't do treatments in back rooms. A man can come in here and not be judged."
And it turns out, my feet aren't so bad after all - nothing like the 90-yearold woman she once referred to a podiatrist.
The treatment starts with a footbath using a grapefruit body wash and a spray of callous softener. You then have your nails clipped and filed. Nothing came as a surprise to a first-timer until the scraping back of my cuticles - not because it hurt, I just didn't know that was something you could/ ought do.
"Oh, God. I'm sorry," I blurt out when Candice begins digging under my toenail with a pick, which I was not expecting. I certainly hadn't been doing it.
"Don't be. It's the funnest part," Candice says to my relief. "In this work, you have to be a bit of a foot fetishist."
After she goes to town on the soles of my feet with a pumice paddle, Candice finishes the treatment with an exfoliating massage that goes up to my knees. The scrubbing, scraping and washing has eliminated much of the bacteria that are the source of foot odour, though I'm pleased to say, for all of my faults, that isn't one of them.
When I got up and put my boots back on, I felt like I was walking around in someone else's feet. Callouses I had been working on for 30 years were gone. The full foot maintenance runs $45 and takes about 35 minutes.
Next on the agenda is what I consider to be one of the great indulgences a man can have as far as hygiene and grooming go - the straight razor shave.
Unlike getting a haircut, which is strictly utilitarian, a straight blade shave is the perfect marriage of grooming and experience, and the result isn't like any shave you can get with your regular razor, regardless of how many blades this year's model has.
After having a base of oil worked into your face, you get the hot towel, which damn near relaxes you into sleep and opens up the follicles. This is followed by a high-end shaving cream lathered up with a brush. The shave takes a while as barber and stylist Janelle Pearce methodically scrapes away every last bristle. When it's done, you can't help but touch your face for the rest of the day as you marvel at how smooth it is.
Straight razor shaving is a bit of a dying art as many of the proverbial old Italian or Persian barbers hang up their clippers and razors and no one is stepping up to carry on the practice.
The "smooth operator" shave takes about 40 minutes and will cost $45.
Man Up is the brainchild of Alison Koch and Sandy Gerber, North Shore entrepreneurs looking to fill a growing gap in the market - men who want high-end foot, hair and face care, but don't want to be treated like a lady in the process.
"The light went off and we thought 'This is so what Vancouver needs. There's nothing like this out there. It handles the in-between of a women's salon and Supercuts. Men want the service of a salon, but they don't want to sit scrunched between other women or in a feminine environment," Koch said.
With sports or action movies on the big screen TV, rock music on sound system and nothing pink in sight, they've achieved that.
