Midway through a society dinner party in the Pakistani capital, conversation turned to the recent deportation of Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister, to Saudi Arabia.

“I couldn’t believe it, yah,” a young Pakistani woman said in an exaggerated English accent, as a servant refilled her glass of wine. “I mean, did you see those hair implants? They were so obvious.”

Ever since Mr Sharif reemerged into the political spotlight, Pakistanis have been gossiping about the appearance of a thin covering of black hair on his previously bald scalp. Most were amused. Some were appalled. But hardly anyone was surprised.

Hair implants have become commonplace here in the past few years as wealthier urban males embrace cosmetic treatments that were once regarded as effeminate and even unIslamic. From facials to manicures, back waxes to eyebrow threading, a host of services are now on offer at a growing number of spas, salons and clinics catering to the male market.

“I never bothered with this before,” Humayun, 28, said after a facial at the Islamabad branch of Depilex Men, part of the biggest chain of beauty parlours in Pakistan. “I guess there’s just more pressure on men to look good these days.”

The trend may be confined to the upper and middle classes, estimated at 20-30 million people, but it illustrates how Western-style media, marketing and celebrity culture are changing Pakistani society. Five years ago most Pakistani men wore only the traditional salwar kameez - a loose-fitting cotton pyjama suit. The standard hairstyle was a short back and sides. Deodorant was considered unmanly. Moisturiser? Forget it.

The same is still largely the case in rural Pakistan. The country’s population of 165 million is 97 per cent Muslim and tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan have become even more conservative as the Taleban force men to grow beards and reject Western fashions.

However, in the big cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar, where dozens of television channels are now available, men are becoming ever more conscious about their clothes, coiffures and complexions – so much so that a recent talk show on Dawn News, a new English-language television channel, asked whether Pakistan was going through a “metro-sexual” revolution.

“It has definitely come up in the past five years – and not just in the upper classes,” Tahir Mohammed, a leading cosmetic surgeon, said. “Society is much more competitive because of the media and other things, so executives, politicians and professionals want to look smart.”

He said that 25 per cent of his clients were now men and a growing number asked for surgeries such as nose jobs or liposuction on their bellies. The greatest demand is for hair implants – especially among public figures. Imran Khan, the former cricketer turned politician, has had one. So has the husband of Benazir Bhutto, another exiled former Prime Minister. President Musharraf is thought to still have his original head of hair, although it is dyed dark brown.

“Men who have to face the public are especially conscious about their appearance,” Zulfiqar Tunio, a British-trained plastic surgeon, said. When he returned to Pakistan in 2000, there was not a single hair-implant studio in the country. Now there are a dozen in each of the principal cities, including four branches of his chain.

“There was a lack of awareness initially, but with the passage of time and a lot of marketing, now everyone is convinced,” he said. “They’ve seen the celebrities and the politicians.”

Sales of men’s grooming products rose 15 per cent last year to 3.4 billion rupees (£28 million), according to a recent report by Euromonitor, a market research company. Among the bestselling products is a skin-whitening cream called Fair & Lovely. Depilex, which has run women’s beauty parlours for 25 years, now has four branches for men only.

Last year Pakistan’s first Western-style spa, called Nirvana, opened in Islamabad. It shut down briefly this year when mullahs at the radical Red Mosque began a campaign to cleanse Islamabad of “unIslamic vices” such as beauty parlours and music.

It has reopened with extra security and its male clients now outnumber females and include several top politicians, government officials and celebrities. They also choose a wide range of treatments, from waxing and threading to Balinese massage.

“We’re really surprised,” Nadia Furqan, general manager of Nirvana, said. “I think women don’t just want someone tall and well-built these days. They look for men who take care of themselves – who are metrosexual.”

Beyond the pale

- Eight varieties of facial treatment - including skin whitening – are offered in Pakistan’s latest, exclusively male beauty parlours

- A survey of 25,000 Pakistanis found that just over half the country’s women preferred men with “a metrosexual appearance similar to David Beckham” to those with “a rugged appearance”

- Only one in fifty men in the survey admitted to metrosexual traits such as the regular use of beauty products and trimming eyebrow and chest hair

Sources: depilexonline.com; Remington

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