Choosing The Best Christmas Stocking Fillers For Your Son
Jeremy Langmead shares his top seasonal picks for choosing great gifts for your son, whether thirteen or thirty
Nov 22, 2022
About Jeremy Langmead
Jeremy Langmead is an editor and writer (a columnist for The Times and author of Vain Glorious: A Shameless Guide For Men Who Want To Look Their Best) and is currently a Senior Advisor to Humanery. Jeremy is the former brand and content director of MR PORTER, the online men's style destination.
There’s a short moment, when your sons turn from children to young men, that you relish sharing the rituals of a men’s grooming regime with them. And that they seem equally keen to learn. They will watch in awe and envy as you demonstrate how to perform a wet shave, or reveal how a bit of hair wax can transform a pedestrian hair cut into a pop star mane. A little later on you can advise them on how best to deal with pimples, how face-cleansing each evening should be looked upon as a skin-saving treat rather than a tiresome task, and that deodorant is a social necessity rather than an occasional luxury. So far, so good.
To Share Or Not To Share
A year or two later and you will face a dilemma. They will have acknowledged the above advice, but not recognised that nicking all your products rather than using their own isn’t gentlemanly behaviour, family or not. There is something rather irksome about discovering your treasured CellMen Eye Serum lying besides the sink, used by one of your sons as an all-over moisturiser, half of its contents emptied the week you bought it; or discovering your Aesop Volumising Shampoo on top of the washing machine, having been used liberally to wash a pair of grubby trainers. So you have to buy them their own grooming products; ones that they will like and use, that will work well with younger skin and a younger lifestyle; and that will cost less. And the lower price bracket isn’t because you don’t want them to have good quality products, but because you recognise that most of the items you buy them will get lost in sports lockers, backpacks and at friends’ houses.
Finally Learning To Understand Men's Skincare
My two sons are both now in their twenties and appreciate effective, easy-to-use grooming products. They know that the right ones will help them look and feel good, but they don’t always have the time or budget to choose or buy them themselves. So each December for the festive holiday I give them a stocking each filled with products that they will like and use. (Despite their advanced ages, they refuse to acknowledge that Santa Claus doesn’t exist purely so that I still have to fill the giant pillowcases they leave out each Christmas Eve.)
Buying grooming products for men in their late teens or twenties isn’t always easy. They change their minds and their looks all the time. And so a few friends of mine always ask for suggestions each year because they know I’m vain enough to know what’s out there. But even I get it wrong sometimes. Last year, I bought my youngest son a really smart hair wax only to discover when he arrived home on Christmas Eve that he’d shaved his hair off.
So here’s the list of 12 products I’m lining up for their stockings, and recommending to other parents to buy this year. Cost-conscious quality products that will appear a treat and do the trick.