I look good. I feel good. Hell, I even smell good.

I just had my very first (but not last) facial. I guess I am a metrosexual now.

I can remember the first time I walked into a hair salon, filled with staring women and strange smells. I was just getting a haircut, but it felt like I was doing something wrong and was afraid the police would arrive at any minute. I was afraid someone would see me entering a “beauty parlor.” Now, it’s old hat.

But the old fears resurfaced again when aesthetician (honest) Victoria Mastromarino took me into her lair for the full treatment. Mastromarino had just started plying her mysterious trade at Mahogany Salon in Camden with mostly women clients. She wanted a big oaf to demonstrate that men could benefit from these fine arts as well.

Big oaf? Sign me up.

I was a traditional lunkhead, suffering outrageously dry skin from skiing or sailing or just being out in the sun. I hate to admit it, but I tried some A Perfect World moisturizer (with white tea) at a department store sample counter and was hooked. Naturally, I bought the biggest jar they had for $50. It was only when I put it on that I realized how much I needed it.

Trust me.

Then Blue Eyes gave me a pedicure for my birthday a few years ago. I was seduced by the softer side of life.

At Mahogany, Mastromarino told me to take off my clothes. No one had asked that for quite some time. I emerged from the dressing room with my perfect body swathed in a terry cloth waist wrap.

Talk about metrosexual.

As I lay down on the massage table on my stomach, Mastromarino said there appears to be a natural fear among men that getting facials is somehow less than manly.

“But men are becoming more interested. They want to look professional at their job, or trying to keep up with the woman in their life, to stay younger-looking. Usually women send them in with a gift certificate.

“One man who comes here, I won’t say who, said he didn’t want it getting all over town that he came in. I told him what happens at Mahogany stays at Mahogany.”

Despite the changes among the male persuasion, the ratio remains about 10-to-1 for the fairer sex.

“If you don’t try it, you will never know how it feels,” she said to the reluctant males among us.

She performed the amazing back purification treatment, which consists of sort of a facial for the back. My back has always featured little crusty things in these hard-to-reach places. First she exfoliated the skin with a “tangerine salt scrub” solution, followed by deep cleansing of the pores. As I lay moaning, she finished the treatment with a hot stone massage with body butter, then added steam treatment.

For those with no poetry in their souls, the cost is $70. The stones are another $20, cheapskate.

My grandfather was a Boston Steel worker. My father ran the South Boston railroad freight yards. I can imagine what they would think about my tangerine scrub, body butter and hot stone massage.

My eyes rolled back into my head as she explained this was just the beginning. I think I proposed marriage before I almost lost consciousness.

“It started for me when I had this incredible experience with a facial last summer at a Waterville spa. I thought that it would be wonderful to make people feel like she made me feel,” she said. She attended an Augusta school to learn the techniques.

Once I rolled onto my back, Mastromarino heated up paraffin gloves and put one on each of my hands. These “man handlers” are filled with a medical paraffin that “provides deep heat hydration, leaving your joints feeling soothed and your skin smoother and more youthful.”

Actually, it felt like sticking your hands in a pile of warm dog leavings. Anything for my art. Another $20.

When she finished that, she massaged my hands and covered my sandpaper elbows with more and more lotion. Nothing would work here.

Working on my ruggedly handsome face, she performed “The Gentleman’s Facial” using a cleaner, then the tangerine salt scrub to remove the 67 years of accumulated dead skin. Yuck.

She cleansed the face again, then covered the face with lotion before she massaged the face electrically with a special machine with 28,000 vibrations per second, first using a flat blade like a small pancake flipper, then with a finer blade in the “eye wand” for around the eyes. The electronic massage pushed the vitamin C serum more deeply into the skin, she explained.

Mmmmmmm.

The technique is so good at tightening the skin around the eyes that she swears it could replace Botox. “It’s much better for men because it is noninvasive and it would take too much Botox to work on men because they have bigger facial muscles,” she said.

The Gentleman’s Facial would cost you $60. I was a guinea pig and got it for nothing.

Most of her products are from Italy, including stones and sand from Mount Etna. She finished the facial operation with hot towels. Some 90 minutes earlier, I really didn’t want to start. Now, I didn’t want it to stop.

“That’s it?” I asked, only half sarcastically.

I passed on the more exotic “Manscaping” techniques to remove hair from the chest ($40), back ($40) or even armpits ($20). Some men, she explained, are endowed with much too much hair in these areas.

I must admit that I cast a longing glance at the “body-slimming masque.” I figured it would take about $1,000 of those to do any good.

But, I must admit, as a metrosexual, I felt great. The skin on my face felt tight without the traditional sandy, gritty feel. It felt like a new face.

My hands get so dry sometimes they actually crack and bleed. Not now. They felt like new hands. It was those paraffin bags that felt like warm dog leavings. They actually work.

I left, happy with samples of Spaziouomo anti-stress contour cream and Nuovapelle age repair formula. Can you believe it?

I snuck out the back door at Mahogany, hoping no one would see me. But I am moist. I am purified. I am beautiful. At least compared to the way I was when I walked in 90 minutes earlier. That’s all I need. A new $150 addiction.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.