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Ready for the plucked chicken(cock) look?

shadowcat

Atlanta suburb

“It's not a niche,” said Kristi Crump, Philips Norelco's North American marketing director for personal care products. “Lots of men out there are doing it. We were surprised, but now we know it's a big trend.” Last year, sales of the company's at-home body groomers were up 22 percent, Ms. Crump said, with the highest usage in the bikini area, according to a customer survey.

Danny Ghitis for The New York Times

Pirooz Sarshar, a men's grooming expert and founder of the men's advice Web site PRZman, has been giving himself Brazilians with trimmers and shavers for 12 years. “It's routine for me now,” he said. “I do the whole thing myself. I feel better, it looks better. I feel like I'm cleaner, and its more sanitary.”

As with women's bikini waxing, aftercare is important, since the risk of ingrown hairs, which can get infected, is higher where the hair is especially thick and curly. For the first 24 hours after defuzzing, most aestheticians advise avoiding anything that will get the area overheated, including steam rooms, workouts and (alas) sex.

Keeping the area clean is also important. A unisex calming product, like Malin and Goetz's newly-introduced ingrown hair cream ($34) and FixMySkin healing body balm ($12), which comes in a tube that looks like a child's glue stick, can help soothe any irritation or redness.

Despite the hassles of maintenance, salon owners said, men keep coming back. “Guys try it and look and go, ‘It's better than the mess I had down there,' ” said Mr. Indursky of Bliss. “And it is. You feel more confident. It actually makes you feel more masculine, instead of less masculine, to get waxed. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not.”

Be that as it may, Mr. Padilla of Strip said that many of his male clients are submitting to pressure from their partners. “The vast majority say they're doing it because their wife or their girlfriend told them to do it,” he said. “The wives bring them,” saying “If I'm going to do it, you better do it as well.”