Looking good and feeling powerful: Millennial men are now spending big bucks to stay 'hot.' Here's what's changed
Laura Grace Tarpley
6 min read
Remember when society viewed millennials as young, radical thinkers who were killing the shopping mall and diamond industry? These days, millennials aren't so young anymore. As of 2026, the millennial age ranged from 30 to 45 (1), meaning most fall into the early-middle-age to late-middle-age categories (2).
While the stereotypical example of a middle-aged man going through a mid-life crisis used to be about buying an expensive sports car on a whim so he can appear younger and cooler, this may be shifting.
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That's because there's a growing trend among middle-aged men that's less about buying fancy things and more about spending money on staying hot as they age.
"Most of us may not have the money to buy a Porsche, but we might have $6,000 a year for a good doctor who can work with us on our biomarkers," writes Chris Rovzar, editor of global luxury coverage at Bloomberg (3). "Or $320 a month to spend on peptides from a compound pharmacy (4)."
Talking about men's beauty has gone mainstream
Traditionally, it's been women who've faced intense beauty standards, but now, men are also holding themselves to ever-higher standards of attractiveness.
"What changed is pretty straightforward," Dave Asprey (5), 4-times New York Times-bestselling author, longevity expert and creator of the Biohacking Movement, told Moneywise. "Men figured out that looking good and feeling powerful are the same thing."
"Previous generations treated those as separate," he continued. "Today's guy knows his body is the foundation everything else runs on. He watched his father decline at 55 and decided that wasn't going to be him."
Part of the cultural shift could be the rise of Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight loss drugs. The Federal Drug Administration approved Ozempic to treat type 2 diabetes in 2017, then approved a higher dose in 2022 (6).
That year, celebrities and online influencers shared their weight-loss journeys on social media, not shying away from the fact that GLP-1 drugs were a vital part of their life-changing strategies (6). Suddenly, people everywhere were openly talking about losing weight — not just by exercising and eating right, but by taking medicine prescribed off-label for this purpose.
"Ozempic was a social unlock," Rovzar writes for Bloomberg (4). "You can't hide that you rapidly lost 50 pounds and its common usage led to a new comfort level in discussing medications and procedures."
Ravzar says that as men grow older, they aren't just talking about their "lifespan." They're also discussing their "healthspan," or how to stay healthier as they age. And, last but not least, their "hotspan" … how to stay hot with age (4).
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The term "self-care" often refers to women's interests, like getting mani-pedis at the nail salon with the girls or developing a multistep skin care routine. But the idea of self-care has spread to men, too. The Global Wellness Institute found that in 2024 and 2025, male consumer habits shifted toward self-care, "both in products and lifestyle services (7)."
For a long time, many expected men to keep their grooming products to the basics: shampoo, soap, shaving cream and a razor. In the last few years, men have added serums, targeted moisturizers and cosmetics to this list. Men's personal care has soared to a $90 billion industry globally and it's still growing (7).
This is still short of the much-more-established $289.4 billion women's wellness industry in 2025 (8), but men's wellness products and services are gradually closing the gap.
The leap from men's skincare to peptides and biomarker testing
The men's health and beauty industry is going beyond skin care and weight loss. Many are opting for more expensive, radical strategies for looking and feeling good.
In the Bloomberg article, Rovzar writes that when he asked people how they were looking younger, they told him they were paying to have their biomarkers tested (4). Biomarker tests look at a person's metabolism, hormones, cholesterol, inflammation and more (9). Then, doctors tailor the patient's therapies.
Biomarker testing is useful in detecting and treating diseases such as cancer (10). For anti-aging and fitness, it aims to predict age-related issues so the patient can get a personalized nutrition regimen. Biomarker testing also compares your biological age with your chronological age (how old you are in years versus how old your body and mind act (11)).
Your body naturally produces peptides, which are the building blocks of proteins (12), but synthetic peptides are becoming more popular (13). And synthetic peptides aren't necessarily bad — in fact, insulin was the first peptide drug, becoming widely available in 1923 (14). Peptide is also used in drugs such as Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs (14).
Injectable peptides are said to reduce signs of aging by increasing collagen production, cellular repair and growth hormone release (15). But a lot of types of synthetic peptides have not been scientifically tested, so we don't know all of the risks involved with taking them yet.
Asprey told Moneywise that "the peptide boom" makes perfect sense when we look at it as current millennial men wanting to live longer, healthier lives compared to their fathers.
"BPC-157 and TB-500 are recovery tools that happen to make you look better too," he said. "These guys want to repair their biology at the source. The beauty industry hasn't figured that out yet, but they're going to have to."
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Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see ourethics and guidelines.
Beresford Research (1); National Institutes of Health (2),(11); Bloomberg (3),(4); Dave Asprey (5); Medical University of South Carolina (6); Global Wellness Institute (7); Market.us (8); Fierce Healthcare (9); UofL Health (10); Baptist Health (12); Verified Market Reports (13); Nature (14); Empire Medical Training (15)