"What? You don't wash your face?" I asked my guy pal over dinner last week. He had just finished gym and was looking a bit like a piece of flypaper - sticky.

"Noooooo" he replied in mocked disgust. "Guess what happens to guys who bend over at the sink to wash their faces? Hurhurhur ..."

Funny. Very funny.

"Well," I said, "how hard could it be to soap up your face when you're in the shower?"

Wait a sec! Before you go, "How could a self-confessed beauty junkie like you tell your friend to use soap on his face?" Read on ...

Between a man who takes skincare to the extreme and a man who doesn't give two hoots about his skin, who would you choose?

For me, it's a hard choice. While I find the former's disinterest in skincare "manly" (and therefore attractive), I do appreciate the latter's good grooming habits cos, really, which girl would want to kiss a dirty, oily, grimy face?

I've dated both types of guys before. Strangely enough, the one whose skincare regime consisted only of a tap and the water that flows out of it had flawless, zit-free and radiant skin. The dude whose skincare regime included a weekly whitening sheet mask battled with spots and waged a constant battle with the pits that the acne left behind. Plus, personally, it was very difficult to find a man sexy when he's busy patting skin-plumping serum (with 24K gold-flakes, no less!) into his skin!

So how much damn should a man give about his skin? Not too much, I hope. I'm just not the sort who finds a man working through a 7-step regime attractive.

Skincare for men came about when (1) women started bitching about their boyfriends misusing their expensive face creams (2) men who wanted to take good care of their skins got called many nasty names by their Neanderthal brothers.

But when you look at skin, it's basically the same for both men and women. Yes, men do have thicker, tougher, rougher skins but skin is skin and skin works the same way for both genders. With regular exfoliation, daily moisturising and conscientious use of a sunscreen, man's skin can be good, nice skin. The only reason why men have that tough, chewy hide they call skin is because they generally treat it so damn badly.

Think of it this way: if you were beaten, scratched and exposed to the sun for the first 20 years of your life, you'd be hard, rough and tough too!

Nonetheless, it's one thing to create a skincare range that works well for tough skins and quite another to introduce stuff that "lifts saggy skin", "erases signs of ageing", "injects a radiant glow with a velvety touch". Men don't give a rat-ass about such promises - women do. And these terms only serve to confuse and scare them! I can almost hear my guy friend go, "This collagen-booster-hyaluronic-acid-melano-blocker thing sounds like it could end a world war, yo!"

But you know what? It's fine by me! I don't want a man who says things like, "Honey, you've got anything that will plump up my fine lines and define my facial contours?" YIKES!

I'm all for a cleanser-moisturiser-sunscreen routine. As the editor of a women's magazine that preaches the benefits of a thorough skincare programme, I know I'm supposed to convince all men to be like us and go for a skincare regime that's as complicated as Justin Timberlake's dance steps but the woman in me simply cannot live with a man who'd rather spend his time extracting his blackheads than playing a sport! I still want a manly man who thinks soap for body is soap for face.

For a man, a skincare regime is all about ...

1. Being fuss-free - none of those "gently tap your eye area with your ring finger" instructions

2. Not embarrassing him at the gym. And for that matter, let some guys in the locker-room have wrong ideas about his seuxal preference.

3. Making him look cleaned up.

Which is why I really don't think it's a great idea for any men's skincare product to give too much information. If it's a cleansing product that "removes impurities, unclogs pores and washes away free radicals", it should just say, "Cleans damn well". An anti-ageing moisturiser should just say, "Will not make skin look like croc leather" while a thingy (see, guys don't know a serum from an essence) that "erases pigment spots" should just say, "Out, damn spot!"

Cos after all, guys being guys, have only one thing on their minds when they're slapping on that whitening sunscreen we bought them: "I hope she lets me touch her boobs tonight ..."

Since I don't intend for my guy friend to think he's got a modicum of hope near my pair, I shall leave the cleanser-buying task to his girlfriend. Meanwhile, I will just stick with a pal-hug and not place my face near his.