FlyOver Country

Rather than sticking with the more difficult themes my dearest Friend contemplated, and largely because I am only recently returned from vacation and lack the proper motivation to tackle the mentally weighty, I have decided to make this post about something a bit more ... playful.  Or at least a whole lot less serious.

Today we're talking odor.

[whispering] "j'Hodor HODOR" (source)

Well, fragrances, at any rate.  And how it is that the major personal hygiene companies (coughProctor&Gamblecough) can't seem to leave well enough alone.  I suspect that this may be a bit more prevalent problem among the males, but we all probably experience some version of this.

Have you ever found a particular fragrance - especially of cologne, antiperspirant/deodorant, soap, etc. - that you especially enjoyed, only to have your hopes for a pleasant-smelling future dashed before your eyes like so many well-staved barrels by Saxon marauders?

I have.

From time immemorial, the adult men in my lives wore a very specific scent of deodorant and aftershave; Old Spice is literally the reason that many of us exist.  (Well, okay, so not literally, but without it, our far-more-musky forefathers wouldn't have been so alluring in the eyes of our still-powdery-fresh fore...mothers (is that a thing? I'm making it a thing.).)  For the last several years Old Spice has even described their "Original Classic Round-Stick Formula" deodorant, as well as other antiperspirants, colognes, aftershaves, and sprays containing the well-known fragrance, this way: "If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."

Our grandfathers and fathers knew what they were getting, how it smelled, and how it would perform.  And best of all, they had no reason to expect that they would ever have to go without.  It was precisely this sort of predictable, quality, satisfactory excellence they sought.

So it was, needing to resupply myself with a classically-scented antiperspirant (unlike my father who prefers the original formula deodorant, I require something a bit more potent) and with a determined gait, I strolled into my local Target, down to aisle A-28 to make a right-hand turn, prepared to make my selection of whichever strength antiperspirant they had in the "classic" scent.

Wait, whoa, hold on.

"Lois, this is not my Batman glass." (source)

First, a brief word about the "revisionist" history of the "Original Classic" nomenclature.  There was a time - not really even all that long ago, since I was a still a kid - when it was simply just Old Spice's deodorant or antiperspirant; no other additional modifiers or descriptors were needed since that fragrance was synonymous with Old Spice.  You bought Old Spice, you knew what you'd get.  That they've had to label it as the "Original Classic" seems indicative that they're trying to distance their current product offerings from their past, as if they're ashamed of it but have had to bow to the overwhelming demand of virtually all males aged 40+ and continue to produce it.  Or, because the current marketing gurus think that they'll get more of today's young men/flies with flashy ad campaigns/honey.  Heaven forbid these kids accidentally buy something that their fathers and grandfathers wore!

Anyway, returning to the conversation at hand regarding the sheer volume of choices I encountered, have you tried walking through your local drug- or bigbox-stores' hygiene aisles recently?  There are more choices there than in a Crayola box.  (Speaking of which, holy crap guys! Did you know there's a box with 152 crayons?!  I can't recall anything larger than 64, but I'm off-topic again.)

In addition to the now-ubiquitous Axe selections, there are also a plethora of Old Spice's newest offerings like "Bearglove", "Lionpride", "Wolfthorn", "Hawksbush", "Amberlair", and "Goldlamp"...some of which I've made up; can you spot the real ones?  Way down at the bottom, as if trying to hide, are the typical, somewhat standard, scents and styles.  And yet, absolutely NO original scent antiperspirant, of any strength; only the round-stick formula of their "heritage" deodorant.

I suppose that when you're attempting to market your product to the "under 24" and probably even to most of the "25-34" demographic while battling The Axe Effect (in 2012, Axe literally promised to "help you with the girls" as shown in the linked video), you've gotta try some new stuff.  But what the hell do these scents even mean?

I can't really tell you what a bear smells like (uh...the woods, rotting berries, stale cave-air, fresh dirt, and fetid, stinking, raw fish?), let alone what a Bearglove smells like (probably exactly like a bear, but with the added funk of bear-sweat...yumm?).  How am I supposed to choose which of these I'll prefer in the absence of my cherished-but-now-apparently-abandoned classic scents?

I could go to the Old Spice website for a definition.  Here's how they describe the scent of Bearglove:

Can you imagine a powerful, fearsome grizzly bear who can repair military helicopters and also speak confidently about important world affairs? If not, you may not be ready for this Antiperspirant deodorant.

Sheesh. (source)

My Friend had this to say on the subject of ambiguous scents, and specifically on borrowing "Eucalyptus and Harmony"-scented Febreeze:

My first reaction: What does "Harmony" smell like?

Just because it's a noun doesn't mean it smells like anything. It's not like "meatloaf", or "fresh baked cookies", or..."eucalyptus". Harmony is not a scent. Some genius in the marketing department over at Febreze decided that if they put the word 'harmony' on their packaging, it would draw stressed-out Americans in. What perhaps they didn't realize, though, was that they might sell more Febreze with the scent 'harmony' just because curious minds want to know what in God's name 'harmony' actually smells like.

While I am fairly curious - I could stand there and open all of them, sniffing each in turn, and let's be honest guys, we've pretty much all had to do this at some point - it seems that the far better choice would be for P&G and the other manufacturers to give their fragrances more informative names.

So there I stand, thinking about all these damn kids loitering about in the deodorant aisle/lawn, blaring some new-fangled, hip-shaking music, and cutting off the traditional customer base from the classic fragrances due to their incessant need to apply some chemical that supposedly makes women find them attractive, before they themselves ever make it to what I'll called The Age of Old Spice.


Pulling up your damn pants is a big start to being attractive to the opposite sex. I once read somewhere that most women - and I mean actual women, who, in the words of the preeminent philosopher Big Sean "tend to own shit on their own" - actually detest the various Axe smells.  They don't view the wearer as some sexual icon they need to chase, paw at, or devour, but rather as some crooked-hat wearing dude-bro who has too high an opinion of himself without much in the way of actual accomplishments.

It's a beautiful irony.

But regardless of the demographic they target with their ads, men of all ages living in polite society use their products.  Shouldn't it make sense to retain at least a few of the traditional choices to satisfy and keep your longest-tenured customers?

I don't have all day to stand here and sniff different sticks of gel/cream/spray/paste to determine which smells the most like a man and the least like some abstract concept, a bouquet of roses, or some sugar-coated cake.  That will take too long!

And besides, the Lawrence Welk Show rerun will be on air soon!