Zuberi’s/GLL Guide to Style:

‘Just The Basics’

By: Zuberi (w/ Good Looking Loser)

This covers the very basics of Skincare, Grooming and Dental Hygiene.

Our Message to Guys in Their 20′s

Thank you for reading this guide.

When you are in your 20′s, you don’t think about getting old. I didn’t.

Genetically, I was dealt a good hand. My sister, who is in her 50s- looks like she is in her 30s (NO JOKE). My brother, who is in his 40′s- looks like he is in his 30′s. I have pretty good skin. It’s not dry and doesn’t burn. I never had acne on my face. Besides a prominent forehead line that I had starting in high school, my face is free of fine lines. Considering that my meathead diet in my 20′s was void of fruits and vegetables and the amount of drugs and steroids* I’ve done, I’m in decent shape.

With that said, however, it could be much better. I should probably look at little younger, like my sister and brother. And My parents.

Since I never had skin problems, I never made a huge effort to take care of my skin. It didn’t seem to matter. When I looked at myself on a daily basis, I looked the same. You probably feel the same way. But the truth is- you can’t see aging until it already has happened. Baby steps. It’s like hair loss, you actuallydon’t notice hair loss until it’s 50% gone.

That shouldn’t make you paranoid- but it should encourage you to take care of your skin on a daily basis. The average guy, doesn’t. If you are in your 20′s, just take a look at your friends. You can probably tell which guys take care of their skin and which do not. The difference will become more striking as you approach 30.

Remember- taking care of your skin happens internally and externally. Try to eat clean food and clean your face.

There are some recommendations for specific products that were recommended to me, if you make a purchase, I get a 5-6% commission (~$1.20). Obviously, I’m not promoting these products for the MASSIVE commissions- I feel they are excellent for the value and they are nearly identical to the “high-end” department store products. They will be excellent for guys in their 20s that don’t have bunch of money to spend.

* Steroids don’t necessarily age you, the bloat (temporary), added facial weight (reversible) and strengthened facial muscles that may cease your skin can make you look older however.

Skincare

First things first, if you don’t take care of your skin it will show. Period.

There are a lot of guys, particularly Americans, that still believe that skin care is something purely for women. This is flawed logic. If you want to have a fresh and healthy glow now and not look like a used up leather baseball glove in your 40′s, 50′s and 60′s you better start taking good care of your skin. There is nothing ‘unmanly’ about taking good care of yourself. It has nothing to do with being narcissistic; rather, it should be looked at as basic hygiene, similar like brushing your teeth before you go to bed.

FACT: In Italy, straight men often go to a beauty salon once a month to get facials.

So where do you begin if you don’t know anything about skin care or have a gut feeling you aren’t taking care of your skin as you should be?

First- analyze what type of skin you have.

There are a lot of online tests where you can see which basic skin type you have.

You will probably be a combination of 2 of the following:

NORMAL SKIN TYPE

Ideal. Generally smooth, elastic, strong, balanced, hydrated and free of blemishes.

Treatment: Most cleansers will suit you well. As a rule- the grocery store cleansers are the lowest quality you can find and not recommended.

DRY SKIN TYPE

This skin type needs lots of moisturizing. Hydration imbalances make the skin often look grayish/pale and prone to premature wrinkling and allergic reactions. Needs extra love and affection if you catch my drift.

Treatment: It’s really dry on the West Coast. Whether you are genetically prone to dry skin or not, you will get dry skin in the summer. Extra Virgin Coconut Oil really works wonders and is less expensive than just about every other legit option. Extra Virgin Coconut Oil also has antiviral and antibacterial properties, as well as being just about the best moisturizer. Coconut Oil is supposedly a better option than olive oil because olive oil can penetrate the majority of your pores due to its molecular structure.

OILY SKIN TYPE

The skin produces excess sebum and oil causing the pores to clog resulting in acne, black spots and other imperfections. Most people have oily T-zones (chin, nose and forehead). People with oily skin don’t necessarily all have acne though.

Treatment: If you have oily skin, make sure you only touch your face when your hands are clean because you are more prone to breakouts. It’s a smart idea to AVOID oily products (even Coconut Oil is a no-no) and to buy some oil reducing

Sensitive Skin Type

Someone with a sensitive skin type will often react strongly to factors that don’t have an effect on the normal skin type. An example of this is cold winds causing dryness or blemishes.

Treatment: Sensitive skin generally does better with products that contain NO “chemical” ingredients such as sodium laurel sulfate. Buy the most natural products you can find.

Most people aren’t solely one of these archetypes rather a mixture. I myself for example are a mixture between normal skin and the oily skin-type. Chris is too.

Once you know what skin type is predominant you can start to take care of your skin as you should’ve done a long time ago.

Essentially though, it’s all the same

I’ll walk you through this step-by-step:

Below are affiliate links to the “Billy Jealousy” product line. In 2011, this line was recommended to me by a guy who was 28, but played a 18 year-old in a teenage sitcom.

Clean:

1. Get in the shower and/or with a warm washcloth clean your face in circular motions.

   [This opens up your pores]

2. Apply a DAILY CLEANSER or nothing at all and repeat step #1.

Scrub:

1. After cleaning, apply a FACIAL SCRUB (suitable for your skin type) to remove blemishes and clogged pores.
2. Use as directed.

Make sure you are using a DAILY FACIAL SCRUB and not an exfoliter, there’s a difference-

“There is major difference between scrubs and exfoliators,” says Nico Thirion, national training manager for Johnson & Johnson. He explains that an exfoliator aims at removing dead skin cells to reveal a more youthful skin and should be used twice a week. This prevents your skin from appearing dull and lifeless. Exfoliating from the age of 30 also helps to stimulate cell-renewal in the skin. A scrub, on the other hand, has micro-beads, which are round with no rough edges. Their main function is to soften your skin and open the pores, allowing active ingredients to penetrate into your skin. They can be used daily. (Source)

Exfoliate (2x/Week):

This can be 1 or 2+ step process.

Here are pictures- “How to Exfoliate Your Face (w/ Pictures)”

1. At least once a week you want to REALLY open up your pores again. You can get in the shower, sauna, use a steamer or even hang your head over a pot of boiling water with a towel over your head.
2. Use as directed a high[er]-end exfoliating product or make your own. Some skin types need a ‘peeling’ to really clean the pores.

When you shave, if you put warm water on your face- you automatically exfoliate in those zones.

Hydrate:

1. Use as directed a hydration/moisturizing cream (suitable for your skin type).

   Using Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is amazing too. It’s cheaper than most moisturizers and has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties.

Protect:

1. If you are going out, you should apply basic protection cream that has SPF8 or higher.

An example of this:

I, Zuberi, have a normal/oily skin thus my daily skin-care routine looks like this: first I clean my skin with a warm washcloth, opening up the pores which will allow me to clean my skin more thoroughly. Then I scrub, but only twice, sometimes three times a week (most scrubs aren’t suitable for daily use nor should you so keep that in mind). I exfoliate by hanging over a hot bucket of water once every two weeks which is more than enough of you keep good care of your skin. After the shower I hydrate with a special crème crafted for my skin type, splash ice cold water in my face (causing the pores to shrink again) and then I apply a protection crème for the day. That’s it. It sounds like a lot of work but in total it takes less than 5 minutes and is well worth it.

In short: analyze your skin type, get a good scrub, exfoliating/hydration cream and protection cream and follow the instructions!

Grooming & Shaving

A lot of guys forget how important it is to take care of facial/nose/ear/eyebrow and back hair.

I’m not saying you should be a cleanly shaved teenager but it’s important that you don’t have hairs sticking out your nose or growing a uni-brow. It sounds so trivial yet I see so many guys fuckup here. Just get tweezers and a razor and pluck and shave that shit off.

About a year ago, I went out screening chicks for the first time with this guy I met via a forum (not GLL). He didn’t do very well.

Why?!

Not only was he socially uncalibrated but he lacked any form of style and his grooming was awful. Nasty random hairs all over his face. I wonder why he got rejected a gazillion times. She takes hours each morning to get ready and this guy probably didn’t even change his underwear. That’s why he is jerking off to her and she is enjoying another guy.

I’m telling you, take care of: body hair, eyebrows, ears, nose and neck. Chicks will love you for this. By the way, you can still have a rough, ‘dirty’ look without hairs sticking out from all sort of places.

An example of a ‘rough hairy look’ but with good grooming and hygiene: Prince William

Important: stick close to who you are (e.g. if you like to not shave for weeks on end, keep doing that by all means, but keep an open mind towards grooming things every now and then).

Example of ‘rough hairy look’ but with poor grooming and hygiene: Random Guy

Both Prince William and “Random Guy” have Norwood 2+ hair loss. Prince William looks sharp and “Random Guy” looks like dog shit. It has nothing to do with the what they are wearing.

This applies to any “excess” hair in general. Some guys think that ANY body hair is masculine. It might be if you are in 6th grade, it might be to gay men- but to women, especially the ones that spend so much time on their own grooming, it’s NOT.

Back hair, get rid of it.

Neck hair, get rid of it.

Pubic hair, longer than .25″-.5″, get rid of it.

Chest hair, longer than .5″ or “curls,” get rid of it.

Stray hairs, anywhere, get rid of them.

I had a friend that used to tell these wild stories of having sex with 3+ girls a week, he had so much lower back hair- no one believed him.

Not to overly obsess, but a SINGLE ugly long hair coming out of your nose, ear, neck, back can totally turn off girls.

I used to hook up with super hot a rich girl that had her butt professionally shaved/waxed 2 times a week just so she could sit on my face. She literally had the “customer service” remove any and every butt hair, sometimes with tweezers if the wax didn’t do the job. Her initial appointments took over 2 hours she said. women won’t hold you to that standard- but don’t think the standard isn’t high for hottest girls.

You are are sporting a beard, make sure it is proportional. Since each hair grows at a unique rate, you may need it trimmed every 2 weeks.

Dental Hygiene

Other than “your face,” arguably your teeth are the most important.

There’s not a single guy we know that hooks up with hot girls outside his social circle that has “bad” teeth. Not one.

Teeth are an area that can INSTANTLY make you more attractive or INSTANTLY significantly less attractive.

As rough as Scotty (and sometimes Chris) look, they have WHITE teeth and get compliments on them a lot. You can’t pull off  the “rough” look if you have bad teeth. You can’t pull of ANY look.

You probably know this but most women valuable clean and straight teeth. If you have good teeth and take care of them you’ll make yourself more ‘kissable’ in the process and again, it is a sign of wealth and status. There is a reason those beggars in medieval movies have black rotten teeth and the king has white pearls you know. It communicates status.

Would you rather kiss a girl with nice teeth or fucked up teeth?

Me too. It works both ways.

I’m not gonna go in depth concerning whitening your teeth because that’s just too much for now.

Hint- find a coupon on Groupon or LivingSocial for ZOOM whitening. Google the dentist’s name beforehand to make sure he’s good. ZOOM is great, significantly better, easier and faster overall than whitening strips. (we’ll make more specific suggestions later)

• Chris Gets Zoom Whitening At the Dentist – Before, During and After Pictures

Another tip I can give you is to make an appointment with your dentist and ask whether there is any other way of improving your teeth (not braces though unless it would be very beneficial).

An example of this:

For example, I, Zuberi, had these ‘vampire’ corner teeth for years until I found out he could adjust my teeth a bit with some clay-like structure and that was it. It literally took about 10 minutes and there I was, worrying on how my vampire teeth came across to people when I laughed. Point is, you never know until you ask so start asking and you’ll get the answers your looking for. You’d be surprised on what is possible teeth-wise so to say. Interestingly enough, it’s been mathematically proven that certain shapes are more attractive but more on that some other time.

What I do wanna talk about here is basic dental hygiene.

This is the process

Brush 

Brush your teeth with whitening paste 2-3 times a day for 2+ minutes (yes, 2+ times).

Brush up-and-down, side-to-side and in circular motions. Brush the front and back of your teeth.

I asked my dentist in Beverly Hills (he works on several celebrities with perfect teeth) which specific toothpaste he thought was the very best. He recommended Crest Pro-Health. It’s a “little better” than everything else. Nothing special, most toothpastes are completely the same he said. Crest Pro-Health is the ONLY toothpaste that slightly whitened my teeth, I’ve tried Aquafresh, Colgate, Rembrandt and Crest’s other formulas – they weren’t as good.

He also recommended this specific electric toothbrush.

While I own and use everything I recommend unless noted- I actually do not own this toothbrush.

If, like me, you use a regular toothbrush, get a new one every 2 months or if you get sick. It doesn’t hurt to submerge your toothbrush head in boiling water after 30 days. Burn the hell out of the bacteria that is on your brush.

Floss (Not Optional)

Immediately after brushing, at least once a day, floss between all teeth, ESPECIALLY THE ONES IN THE BACK OF YOUR MOUTH. You’d be surprised how many micro-food remains are rotting back there. It’s even worse if you eat a lot of sugar. It’s often the decaying food between your teeth that causes bad breathe- if you don’t believe me- smell the stuff on the floss after you floss your back teeth. Smells awful if you haven’t been flossing up in there.

Healthy gums DO NOT bleed. AT ALL. If your gums bleed it is a sign that your dental care needs to improve and may be a sign of an early-mid stage of gingivitis.

Scrape 

Buy a tongue scraper and scrape to clean any bacteria. There shouldn’t be a white film on your tongue.

After that- always keep some SUGAR FREE chewing gum with you just in case.