The Bathing Beauty’s Babylon Soap (£3.95 from bathing-beauty.co.uk is certainly one of the best soaps to have landed on my desk of late. Infused with hemp oil, fragranced with patchouli and studded with exfoliating poppy seeds it’s fantastically earthy and polishes skin a treat, without drying it out. Plus, it’s British (it’s handmade by ex-Burberry and Emporio Armani model/osteopath/natural skincare entrepreneur George Jones) and I’m always keen to support home-grown businesses.

So if you’re a guy looking for something a little bit more adventurous than a bar of supermarket soap give it a go. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.

The Micro Pedi Man is essentially a mini-sander for your feet and is the perfect tool for getting your trotters ship shape for sandals. To be honest, I haven’t enjoyed using a grooming gadget this much since I first manscaped myself using the original Philips Bodygroom back in 2006. In fact, I’m worried I may be addicted to it (I’m eyeing it up lovingly as I type).

I don’t actually have the hugest amount of dry skin on my feet but what I do have has now vanished thanks to this nifty little summer essential. I swear to you, using is it just joyous! And the stuff that comes off! Oh!

Grooming Guru Essentials are the products I genuinely love and have used as part of my own routine.

Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 Noir

Another gourmand-style fragrance (when will this trend be over?) the latest addition to the Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 fragrance collection is warm, creamy and edible (look out for a hint of dark chocolate). A complimentary fragrance to the Blanc version it’s great for nighttime but I’m not sure the special time-release technology it touts as a special feature really lives up to expectations. It disappeared on my skin as quickly as dusk turns into night.

Diesel Fuel For Life Spirit

Diesel’s latest fragrance looks for all the world like a bottle of brandy which was the intention I think. Delightfully warming, it’s blended with grapefruit, cinnamon, iris and amber-wood and is the most striking of the bunch though to me there’s something faintly medicinal about it. In fact, I get a distinct whiff of Germolene, which is fine because I happen to like Germolene but if you’ve bad memories of being treated for a nasty cut as a child you may not be quite so enamoured.

Loewe Solo Platinum

“Life is full of small details” says the blurb on the box and the latest fragrance from the Spanish luxury goods company certainly delivers on that – with the bottle at least, which is full of little surprises – from the quirky, hollowed-out lid to the wrap-around metal name plate. The fragrance itself is leathery with a hint of black tea and improves the longer it’s on the skin. It’s not going to change the world but is perfectly wearable.

Ermenegildo Zegna Uomo

Elegant, sleek, slim and multi-textued the bottle for the latest Zegna fragrance is a lovely thing to hold. The fragrance inside mixes staples like bergamot, vetiver and cedarwood and throws in one of my favourite notes – violet – to create something that’s fresh and arresting but but the overall effect is disappointingly generic, a bit like when you mix lots of vibrant interesting colours with Plasticine and end up with…brown.

John Varvatos Artisan

Beautifully light, fresh and summery, this new fragrance by John Varvatos has a real sense of joy about it.  A delightfully uplifting mix of Mexican tangerine, mediterranean herbs, orange blossom and three kinds of ginger it has an irresistible, playful bounciness  I love.  What’s more, its bottle – clothed as it is in hand-woven rattan - is a real attempt to do something a bit different and if I had to recommend one of these five new fragrances it would be this.

So it should come as no surprise that Nivea Men has returned (after a brief stint as Nivea For Men and some rather non-descript logos) to the fuss-free design of the 1920s blue roundel logo, as seen on the Deep Cleansing Face Wash above.

By way of flagging up the change they’ve had to add the word “originals” (presumably in case some customers thought they’d stumbled  across some dodgy old stock) but other than that I think it looks great. Please Lord, let’s hope this isn’t a faddish nod to The Great Gatsby and current twenties-mania though. Nivea, old sport, do stick with the new look – even if it is your old one.

That fragrance, of course, was Paco Rabanne Pour Homme which, remarkably, is celebrating its 40th birthday this year. Again, whatever you think of it, it’s undisputedly iconic. I came across it as a teenager in the mid eighties. Although over a decade old by then, this big, bombastic scent – aromatic, green and smoky, with a slightly soapy edge – still chimed with the times.

Given that it launched in the 70s when men’s fragrances were all about hyper-masculinity it’s big (and I mean big) on tobacco and oakmoss but the whole thing is tempered by a delightful floral heart of lavender and geranium and there’s a hint of honey in there too which works beautifully with the smokiness of the tobacco. And whilst it might open big, the dry down is lovely.

Smelling it now I’m taken back to a different time and place – not to mention a different me. So is it worth a go? Well, personally, I think it’s a little like rediscovering vinyl after years of clean, crisp, slightly soulless CDs – if you remember it back in the day you can’t help but love it –  nor resist the temptation to give it another whirl.

But anyway, whilst the Telegraph article is very informative about the possible memory-boosting properties of the bubbly beverage it fails to mention the big downside – the infamous champagne breath. Standing next to someone who’s had a few glasses always reminds me of that moment in Alien where the monster first bares its silvery teeth to a terrified Ripley. Trust me, judging by Sigourney’s face that Alien mother was a big champagne drinker.

The solution (apart from chewing on cardamon pods which my dentist Uchenna Okoye always recommends) is to rinse with a mouthwash when you get back home and this one, from Marvis, is my current favourite. Free of mouth-drying alcohol and flavoured with peppermint and aromatic herbs it’s not as harsh as many cheaper mouthwashes you buy in supermarkets and tastes better too.

That’s something I’ll raise a glass to anytime, though not a glass of bubbly obviously.

The world’s first hair clipper for men with touch-screen technology it allows you to adjust the length of blades in at the touch of a button and by the tiniest of increments (from 0.4mm to 42mm) meaning you don’t just get a good cut you get a truly bespoke one.

Its versatility means you can buzz cut, trim, blend, taper or create the perfect cut for you. It’s perfect for people like me who simply whizz over their heads to keep their hair at a manageable length but is also great for guys with longer hair who want to maintain their style between visits to the barber or, for that matter, for ones who want to create their own unique styles.

It also features self-sharpening Titanium coated blades, USB charging and a Pro-Power Motor to speed the whole process up and can be used on wet or dry hair. And unlike some clippers, you can lock the length setting so you don’t have any cutting accidents mid trim (something I must confess I’ve been a victim of in the past).

A couple of tips to get the most out of your clipper:

1. Keep it charged (sounds obvious but helps!).

2. Dispense with the guard altogether to remove annoying neck hair and to tidy up the nape of the neck.

3. For a professional-looking blended finish begin cutting with the comb guard flat against the head, move it upwards against the grain and flick it outwards aways from the hair as you do so.

The Remington HC5950 Touch Control Titanium Hair Clipper is available from Boots with a RRP of £69.99. You can also buy it from the Remington site where you can get a third off the normal price if you enter the voucher code  TCSAVE. Happy clipping!

A Remington/Grooming Guru Promotion