Men’s fashion is always changing – even as it stays the same – but who could have predicted the sudden and massive swing men have created in makeup sales? Women are no longer the undisputed masters of the makeup market, and no one can tell where this new trend will end, or perhaps more frighteningly, where it will go before it gets there.

Move over mantyhose — men’s makeup is the next big gender-bending business.

Though it’s dwarfed by what the female beauty industry rakes in annually, men’s skin-care products are trumping expected sales, according to Alessandra Codinha in The Daily Beast.

She reports that American consumers spent over $5 billion on men’s grooming products in 2012, more than twice what they spent in 1997.

Men aren’t just buying shower gels and shaving cream, either. Men’s makeup is also on the rise.

We can thank savvy marketers, in part. Advertisements rarely describe men’s cosmetics the same way they do women’s: Eyebrow pencils are “brow and beard correctors.” (Read More)