In 2024, a famous guy in possession of a strong personal brand must be in want of a grooming line to bolster it—for proof, just ask Dwayne Johnson.
Earlier today, Tinseltown’s smiliest action star sat down with GQ to introduce Papatui, a new range of personal care products available now via the brand’s website, and at Target starting March 10th. (Papatui is a portmanteau that nods to Johnson’s “most important role” as a dad and a nickname given to him as a kid.) The Rock joins a long list of eerily poreless dudes of a certain age capitalizing on surging demand in the grooming space; in the last few years alone, ageless wizards like Pharrell, Jared Leto, and Brad Pitt have enlisted the help of a lecture hall’s worth of MDs to launch their own skin care ventures, to varying degrees of success.
Not to bury the lede here, but Papatui is kind of a big deal. When the first batch of the brand’s goodies arrived for testing at GQ HQ, it inspired the type of gung-ho volunteerism usually reserved for kitchen calls from our floormates at Bon Appétit. In the years leading up to today’s launch, Johnson worked hand-in-hand with a team of trusted skin care Svengalis to develop a mix of products—face wash, body soap, deodorant—with both everyman and The Rock-specific appeal. (The inaugural drop also includes a duo of tattoo-enhancing salves, because of course it does.) The result of all that R&D? Accessibly-priced shower caddy upgrades formulated with no shortage of buzzy ingredients, absent the parabens, sulfates, and PEGs that tend to accompany them.
In typically big-hearted fashion, The Rock chalks up Papatui’s inspiration to sheer altruism—his own most of all. “People have asked me about my skin care for years,” he says in a press release tied to the launch. “I’m certainly no expert, but I’ve been lucky enough to have access to some of the best.” So with their help, he set out to equip guys who avoid the skin care aisle like the plague with premium formulations they’ll actually use—sans the markup and marketing-speak.
Here’s what we liked most from the brand’s inaugural drop, and what you should buy before it sells out.
The entire Papatui assortment is available now via the brand’s website, and at Target starting March 10th.
It’s surprisingly tricky to nail a cleanser with mass appeal straight from the jump, but Papatui’s gentle powerhouse scored top marks across the board. Formulated with a who’s who of skin care panaceas—including hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and a jolt of vitamin b3—it lathers on easy, rinses off clean, and left our mugs slaked and gleaming. Don’t know your toners from your moisturizers? Start here.
When you’re ready to build out your regimen, GQ’s dewiest grooming buffs would point you towards the rest of Papatui’s facial care assortment, which trounced alternatives six times their price. Our only hang-up? We wish the squalene-packed moisturizer came formulated with SPF, too. And if all that jargon still means squat to you, remember this: If it’s good enough to help The Rock crush the red carpet, it’s good enough to help you conquer that early-AM zoom.
It’s tough to say for sure what The Rock smells like, but if we had to hazard a guess, a mix of sandalwood, coconut, and cedar sounds pretty spot-on. Which is excellent news for your sweaty pits (and anyone who gives your cubicle a wide berth at the office): those same notes inform Papatui’s deodorant stick, a fresh upgrade on the anodyne drug-store fare. After a week of consistent application we’re already converts—the aluminum-free formula masked all kinds of stank without staining our shirts the murky shade of subway ooze.
Imagine, if you will, that you’re in the middle of a grueling workout at your palatial home gym when your agent lets you know you’re due at the press junket an hour earlier than expected. You could squeeze out a few more curls, skip the leg press, and hightail it to the bathroom to prep your skin routine. Or you could spend a little extra time in the squat rack, quickly hit the shower, and grab a bottle of Papatui’s body lotion, a nourishing salve that works overtime to soothe your weary bones in a jiffy. The home gym might be a pipe dream, but The Rock’s fast-absorbing formula was another very real GQ favorite.
Ditto the rest of Papatui’s expansive range of hair and body care, which includes one of the few shampoo-conditioner twofers we wouldn’t look askance at, along with a body wash and bar soap conceived with the help of the elite perfumers at Firmenich, the luxury fragrance juggernaut behind some of the best-smelling colognes on the market. (Gucci, Diptyque, and Maison Margiela are clients.) What, you might ask, does Dwayne Johnson—a famous, bald, and famously bad guy—know about shampoo? Quite a bit, it turns out, and your mane is all the better for it.
