I have learned a lot about grooming as a result of my career. The first time we were on TV, when I was 21 (I think it might have been on [Late Show With David] Letterman), I didn’t want to have any make-up on. This was also pre-HD, but I saw the performance back that night and I looked horrible. This was also a time when I looked dirty in general – I was living in a van and we were dirty young kids. I didn’t have make-up on, because I thought it was stupid to wear make-up. I quickly learned that lesson because I looked like a beast and so I thought, "Oh, I better throw on a bit of powder next time."
I think if you’re living in the public eye or if you’re constantly visible then you should probably address the issue of how you present yourself. For me, I’m a pretty casual person, so I think it was kind of a good thing; my profession was a good thing for me because it forced me to think about it a little bit and I think that’s healthy. Of course, you can overdo it if you think of it too much and that’s never good.
Choosing one style mishap that men make is difficult. For me, it’s probably when your jeans are too tight. There’s a really fine line. Sometimes they’ll feel too tight and not look too tight. Then if you wear stretchy jeans, you’ll feel like you’re looking good and it’s comfortable, but in reality you look like a crazy person. That said, if you’ve got super-skinny legs then power to you, maybe you could pull it off. I think when it looks like your butt is unhappy, take 'em off. Take 'em off, put something else on.
When it comes to grooming, from my own experience, there’s such a thing as too fussy. I think a part of what it is to be male in general is that there’s something that’s raw, something that's rugged or something that’s masculine about you that you don’t want to mask too much with over-preparation. You’ve just got to kind of be careful to not go over the top. The way you take care of yourself I think reflects who you are as a person with regards to grooming in general – you want to try to make it look as though you did as little as possible.
I don’t think anyone has ever looked as cool as Bruce Springsteen in the late Seventies. He was just effortless. I mean, just look at the cover of Born To Run – kids just dress like that today. If you go to Brooklyn, you see a bunch of little Bruce Springsteen wannabes running around. He was the coolest-looking person on the planet at that moment in time. He’s still the coolest motherf**ker ever, but in the late Seventies there was nothing better than the way Bruce Springsteen looked. As far as I’m concerned, if I could look like that, I would look like that every day, but I don’t, I look different. I’m me, is what I am.
When it comes to attending a formal event I go for a tuxedo. No tie and a buttoned-up shirt all the way to the top but super-pressed out finishes it off. You've got to keep it really simple. Personally, a three-piece suit is a little over the top for me – I like to go really sleek and simple.
When it comes to choosing a fragrance I always go for simplicity. If it’s not simple it forces its way onto the people around you, and for those nostrils it’s not always good. Always simple and unpretentious. Unpretentious is a word that you wouldn’t always associate with a fragrance, but I think it should be. I don’t want to wear someone else's fragrance, I just want to receive an essence of it and I think that’s enough. I don’t need it to be imposing; I don’t like an imposing fragrance.
The lightness of Yves Saint Laurent Y and the simplicity of it is what makes it great because, honestly, in a way, the heaviness and the dankness of fragrances, that this particular fragrance is competing with, I have no interest in. It's a cut above all of the others and it doesn’t impose itself on you, if that makes sense? Instead it gently lets you know it’s there, which I love when I walk into a room and I’m wearing a fragrance, but you can’t smell it. When I’m giving you a hug – a very intimate, simple, rare moment – it comes out and that’s what you want. You don’t want to throw it at everybody.
My grooming regime has changed dramatically. My wife has definitely upped my game when it comes to the moisturisation process, because I’m a man – guys don’t do that kind of stuff. At least not me, and you know what? It’s been a mistake. I’m almost 40 and I’ve started taking care of my skin. Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise: isn’t that the secret? You have to keep yourself hydrated.
I work so much and I guess that my glam squad put me together. I would say it’s the extreme opposite when I don’t have to be camera- or stage-ready because it’s what keeps me sane. If I had to wake up in the morning and put myself together in the same way to go and hang out with my wife and kids like I do to go on The Voice, life would be a miserable place. So, I like remaining casual and throwing on a pair of jeans. When you can't be bothered with it, throw on a pair of incredible sunglasses and call it a day.
Y by YSL, £53 for 60ml or £72 for 100ml. Available now at yslbeauty.co.uk
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