So now it turns into a spirited discussion about Dorothy’s brand of shower gel, where she gets it, whether the store brand is just as good, should you pick a scent that compliments your shampoo, and so on.
Man, women get to smell like real things. Coconut, lavender, honey, strawberry. What the fuck is [i]”cool sports rush”[/i] and why y’all assume I wanna smell like it?
Tequila Mockingbird
godammit, i was using different syntax again…
Taffy
Thankfully, there’s been a push for Guy Stuff™ that doesn’t just smell like antibacterial engine oil. It’s not at complete global saturation yet, but that’s to be expected in Prisonland.
As a person who looks like a dude in public, I’ve just given up on the usual bullshit and started buying Dove or Natural, gravitating toward whatever makes me smell most like baked goods. Nobody’s complained about it so far, despite my excellent beard and hyper-masculine voice.
Tequila Mockingbird
Okay, “antibacterial engine oil” is a description that is absolutely sublime. It’s both colorful and fairly accurate. You are a wordsmith. If I had a hat on, aforementioned hat would be off to you.
Biblioholic93
A true monarch among wordsmiths, glorious human.
(You didn’t quite say there, just inferred… something that makes me assume NB? I’m bad at it admittedly. On the spectrum, I am skilled with English but prefer directness: I use he/him.)
Antimicrobial engine oil friggin seems like what some of these genuinely go for and it’s just so weird! It COULD be a weird hormone chasing thing but I’m PRETTY sure sandlewood has that covered, and Old spice is just the fact that alcoholism has never been as gendered as they want it to be, so what that is all about is just… patriarchy nonsense, Stockholm syndroming all our damn noses.
I had enough Axe body spray and soap in the first three DAYS of middle school gym that should have been an entire lifetime’s supply. And certainly it emptied my patience for it. I swore then that I would smell fruity if I darn well wanted to, just went and bought the feminine brand that smelled like apples, and it only took exactly two stiff sentences and one slap across the face for everyone to accept that. As a (then assuming) completely straight guy.
Wish that was exaggeration of necessity, but the 90s were a weird transition time between bigotry overrule and well established kids of hippies who were kids of rebellious and or liberal leaning boomers. Establish don’t start none won’t be none and no one blinks.
These days I work in a welder shop and actually argue these points with wrinkled manbabies who have their heads in the sand on political lines, showed em it just don’t gotta be that way, and I have successfully started a war with expensive feminine perfumes that I am extremely satisfied with.
Slightly less satisfied that someone found ahmm, REALLY GENUINE spray on feminine scents somewhere, damn the internet’s infinite potential for stupid, and has started to intrude on the pleasant aromas again. (The joke about diseases from organically sourced scents was made and seriously tested before he resumed hostilities.) But oh well. I own damn near 38 different scents of candles, scheming on how to successfully sneak a playful seance/exorcism onto the man in question. That’s gonna take some doing and probably some help to sneak in 38 ball canning jar pints of homemade candles… I think I know my guy to help…
This current storyline has genuinely frustrated me enough to nearly want to get the patreon, so that marketing is 1000% working. I dislike needless cheating storylines but this isn’t… deep in yet… so I’m still in the “young and stupid and b’gods it’s entertaining” camp.
Taffy
You didn’t quite say there, just inferred… something that makes me assume NB?
Pretty much. The specific term I use for myself is “agender”, which I say to mean I’m not particularly fussed about gender role stuff and don’t feel inclined toward any gender in particular. In private and online, I go with they/them, but in physical public I don’t correct anyone who says “he/him”, because it’s kind of a chore.
Frankly, my gender identity tends to feel closer to “Whatever video game or creative activity I’m engaging in right now.”
Marianne
But what about your olfactory identity? Do you smell of baked goods because you’re currently doing a playthrough of Breadslaughter 2155 AD – Muffin Wars (Special Baker’s Edition)? I mean it sounds like a great scent to go for in general, but the recent release of Breadslaughter had me wondering.
Taffy
I’ve never heard of that, no. I just enjoy smelling like pie.
eh, whatever
IN A.D. 2101
WAR WAS BEGINNING.
tim Rowledge
I haven’t bothered with computer games since 1990 but I’d play that.
Combat Scones! Fairy Cakes of Death! Actual Devils food cake!
Dave the Inverted
I know it’s three weeks later so basically nobody is going to see this, but I will note that A Wizard’s Guide To Defensive Baking is a pretty damn good read.
FaerwenOfValenwood
ayyyy always nice to see fellow agenders, virtual hi five
Taffy
✋?
Biblioholic93
Yay I DID get it (almost) right! 😀 good luck to you, will try and remember in future.
ary
Old Spice makes one that smells like citrus, I used to use it religiously until I had to switch to one that stops staining all my black shirts white haha
I think it’s called wolfthorn?
Miri
Ooh, I was wondering last night why I was smelling like Custard Creams, then realised it was most likely because I’d braided my hair after using my Lush Super Milk conditioning hair primer stuff (I use it as a leave-in conditioner/detangler), so my hands, shoulders and hair were smelling like vanilla cookie custard sandwiches…
Hilzabub
When I was using Irish Spring soap and Speed Stick deodorant, several people told me that I smelled like Froot Loops. I still managed to get married.
jubs
… Could I get some antibacterial engine oil shampoo? That’d be a massive upgrade on the usual garbage. =/
Oh god the cool sports rush and the fresh irish spring smells, I feel bad for guys when it comes to that. Whenever I’ve gone shopping for my dad or for my dude best friend and tried to look at stuff meant for men it’s always such strong musky smells.
Tequila Mockingbird
Maybe I wanna smell like a snack too, sometimes! You ever think about that, you filth corpos?
Tequila Mockingbird
*filthy corpos
Doopyboop
My current gel of choice is a vanilla cafe smell and I love smelling like coffee! I think everyone should have the right to smell like a fresh baked snack or a freshly ground cup of coffee! Market these things to everyone, silly corpos!
Sirksome
In the last few years Old Spice has added Lavender to their scent catalog. There was a whole ad campaign to all about how men want to smell nice and it’s totally not feminine to want that. That was their big innovation! That was groundbreaking! ?
Tequila Mockingbird
See, I couldn’t smell like lavender. There’s a local donut shop that sells this flavor called “lavender-lemon donuts”, and if I smelled like that all day… I would not be able to focus on account of unceasing ravenous hunger.
Doctor_Who
Lavender is severely underrated as a baking ingredient.
I got a bottle of lavender extract I use to make cupcakes for parties and things. A teaspoon in a batch of white cake mix, and a half teaspoon in a can of cream cheese frosting (plus some food coloring because what’s the point in making things lavender flavored if you can’t tell because they’re light purple?) and you have a dessert that people will inhale.
Big Z
In this vein, when my partner and I have our Mother’s Day party in the spring, we usually put a huge handful of fresh lavender in the lemonade. SO good.
jubs
It’s basically either that, or just INFINITY MENTHOL.
Some of that stuff is ludicrously strong too. I had one bottle of bodywash that made my eyes sting in the shower (without any actually getting on my eyes), and made the unfortunate mistake of washing downstairs with it. Significant amount of pain was had for hours.
Priv. Priv.
Mountain Mist Moose Musk Bear Breath and whatever the heck axe body spray smells like.
Sirksome
I don’t understand the how men’s hygiene and fragrance industry got to the point of such insane naming conventions. Why is my deodorant choice between smelling like a werewolf, dragon, or kraken?! Why does my body wash need to say “Eaglefangs” instead of “with aloe”? You can just say it smells like pine needles. You don’t have to put a grizzly bear or an anaconda on it and name it “Nightpanther” or “Avalanche”.
Taffy
If your soap doesn’t involve a violent predator, a mythical monster, or a natural disaster, how will men women know you’re sexually available to them? Women love violent predators, lies, and catastrophic destruction of their lives.
deliverything
They’ve got two of the three in this strip alone!
Steamweed
My favorite underarm antiperspirant is Gillette Clearshield Velociraptor Blitzrush. Sure, it’s a little bitey at times, but it gets the job done.
Tequila Mockingbird
Okay, but unironically, if they started naming a fragrance after a dinosaur, I would be hard-pressed to not at least try it out. Even as an adult, I’m still a “dinosaur kid” at heart… that would totally work on me.
Big Z
Look, I NEED that Glacier Rush — it gives me a 30′ charge attack that’s immune to interrupts. Plus I smell vaguely like fir trees!
Whirlakitty
Surely it also inflicts ice damage?
Big Z
I haven’t hit anything that’s survived the initial hit for the cold damage to proc, I camp the newbie zones to feel powerful you see.
Big Z
Also, I’ve started giving Old Spice a pass on this, but only because it’s increasingly seemed like they’ve been taking the piss about it rather than seriously being very “SMELL NAEM MUST BE MACHO”.
Never gonna forgive them for discontinuing the aluminum-free Hawksridge, though, my partner loved that scent and now I can’t wear it.
Sirksome
I will admit I still use Old Spice. When I was younger I thought it was really cool that my deodorant had a dragon on it…..and it still is! Yeah! It’s just harder not to see the ridiculousness in it. I do like some of the art on the packaging. Maybe that’s all it is really. Just cool graphic designs to attract the eye at a glance and not some deeper misogynistic cope advertising where they must make even smelling good and being clean seem tough and masculine.
Big Z
At least in terms of the language of their advertising, they’ve been, at least in the last decade, seemingly trying to split the difference between “extreme masculinity is inherently ridiculous” and “masculinity means being a romantic dude who is interested in things women stereotypically like and being a pleasant guy who is chill (and really obsessed with Fiji for some reason)”.
Like, it’s hard to parse, say, the commercials where Terry Crews screams his way into a Snuggle commercial on a jet ski as an endorsement of “tough masculinity rules” as opposed to “we’re all taking the piss here a bit, but it does smell good even if you’re macho jackass”.
Taffy
I wish more commercials would interrupt each other. If they’re gonna scream and babble for my attention anyway, they could at least be entertaining.
pig
See, as a gender queer afab type, I secretly want to smell like a dragon or a kraken or a manly night panther. Not a real one, which would probably smell meaty and rotten and musty, but a mythical one.
Tequila Mockingbird
Honestly, I always assumed it was tongue-in-cheek because I truly cannot imagine anyone taking such nomenclature seriously. I just assumed it was a corporate marketing strategy like “how do you do, fellow kids! We can do quasi-satirical hyperbole humour too!”
Big Z
Especially when the first spokespeople for it were Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa performing wild parodies of specific masculinity performances. The whole thing is clearly a relic of a particular era of advertising that just happened to work out for Old Spice.
(it helps that both stars were willing to play their overacting completely straight-faced, and that the writing approached “not bad” several times, which is high praise for an advertisement)
Doctor_Who
The scent of every Axe body spray is “Mistake”.
Skater Girl
As a masc of center lesbian, i actually like “men’s” bodywash/deodorant for myself. But, i agree that more options should be available. Honestly, the gendering of products is just silly.
Anna
I used to love Eau de Rochas pour homme! It was one of those bergamot-citric- pine needly- resiny perfumes. But nowadays I’m allergic to fragrances (contact allergy, I get a rash) so everything I use is unperfumed.
Tequila Mockingbird
Really all they should do is say “Hey, this scent smells like wild strawberries, coconut, and leather. We ain’t gonna apply stereotypes or conventions on it. We just gonna tell you what it smells like and let you decide for yourself whether or not that’s something you’re interested in. Guys, gals, nonbinary pals? What do we look like, cops? Pour this stuff on your french fries for all I care.”
Embe13
as a human allergic to perfume with asthma and other enviromental alergies, FUCK THE PERFUME INDUSTRY OUTLAW IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(seriously i’ve had asthma attacks triggered by coworkers who microwaved fish (she can rot for it))
Anna
I’m inclined to agree, as although the smells don’t bother me, I can’t use any perfumed stuff without developing a rash, and well over 99% of even the most basic cosmetics are perfumed…and it’s an extremely common allergy, just underdiagnosed! Add to that a couple of more allergies and it becomes very, very hard to find even the most basic cosmetics. Also, it tends to happen that when I find something I’m neither allergic to, nor it’s so harsh on skin that I might as well be, after a couple of years they stop manufacturing or selling it.
Embe13
mens scents are supposed to invoke a “feeling or experience” hence why they are named such, they used to make it clear in the 90S ads where the cool rush aftershave ad would have the guys cheek turn blue and frosty while he’s doing some “Totally Radical!” stunt or something
Furie
Bring back Fudge products. I used to smell like tutti fruttis. Women floated down the street to me like a cartoon hobo to a pie. Now I can smell like leather and ballsack OR gunmetal and ballsack. I’m not trying to attract Alex frigging Jones over here.
Thing 2
Can people not just smell of themself? I mean possibly not unwashed sick-in-bed for a week self, but normal healthy person self?
deliverything
What, and not monetize every aspect of the human experience? Are you a commie or something?
In other words, I agree completely.
Big Z
I don’t WANT to smell like myself, though. I want to smell like something I like better than “normal human”.
Nymph
People totally can. I choose to smell like vanilla and coconut because I like those smells.
Embe13
the majority of women i have met(who swing that way) prefer a mans natural musk
Nymph
I highly recommend choosing scents (or a lack of scents) that you personally enjoy rather than worrying about what women want to smell. It sounds exhausting to be constantly trying to make yourself attractive to a group of people with widely varied interests and opinions. Better off enjoying the smell of the person you have to spend the most time around: you!
Big Z
As an AMAB, hyper-masc presenting dude, I’ll piggyback on this advice to say that in addition to “choose to smell a way you like”, the other great pieces of advice are “choose to add a scent that compliments what you already have going on, smell-wise” and “choose the scent that your partner(s) prefer”.
Often those latter two are the same thing if you’re any good at figuring out what scents compliment your own.
I just remembered I’m also annoyed at Lush for discontinuing Smuggler’s Soul, which also smells great and smells great on me.
At least I still have Grave Before Shave vanilla bourbon beard oil. Because having your mustache smell like a high-end whiskey all day is delightful, if you’re me.
Li
Also:
it’s SO much better, in the long run, to find a partner who likes you smelling the same way you like to smell.
You didn’t actually say you prefer smelling a certain way, but whether what you like is “natural musk”, “strawberries and cream”, or anything in-between… much better to do things you like, and find a partner who shares your interests, than to spend your life trying to tailor your interests to what you think the highest proportion of hypothetical future partners will like.
Taffy
I smell like Chex Mix if I don’t wear at least some deodorant.
Taffy
Who said they couldn’t? Where’s any level of prevention occurring? If you want soap that doesn’t smell like anything, use some on yourself. Nobody’s stopping you.
Vulcanodon
Absolutely. and how a person smells depends on their diet, genetics, lots of things.
My wife tells me that many of her friends, widows, keep an item from their departed husbands, and lament the fading of their smell as months go by.
Big Z
This is why my beard oil smells like vanilla with bourbon notes.
Heavensrun
Honestly guy stuff is usually just some kind of mint they just don’t call it that because of marketing.
Big Z
Don’t forget “bay rum” and “sandalwood/cedarwood”, the other legs of the “generic male scents” tripod.
Biblioholic93
They shouldn’t be allowed to call a thing sandalwood without having even a speck of sandlewood sawdust or oil in it… I’m so over the marketing these days, idgaf I just want to smell like a snack of any sort. Been preferring fruity, particularly pommegranite, but might swap to pie or baked goods soon too.
DoA chat talking about the IMPORTANT things in life!
zepangolynn
Meanwhile I get jealous that the male branded ones get all the wonderful wood smells, but they keep putting them in combinations with other scents I hate and hilariously deeply dye the soap a dark “manly” blue.
One of them firmly disagrees with the other two. All three immediately trek off to the shower for scientific testing. Dina learns of this, and she and Becky join in to provide proper experiment structuring.
308 thoughts on “The truth”
Doctor_Who
So now it turns into a spirited discussion about Dorothy’s brand of shower gel, where she gets it, whether the store brand is just as good, should you pick a scent that compliments your shampoo, and so on.
Proxiehunter
It’s got nothing to do with her shower gel, the back of her neck just smells like that.
Doopyboop
Maybe the smell comes from her shampoo!
Tequila Mockingbird
Man, women get to smell like real things. Coconut, lavender, honey, strawberry. What the fuck is [i]”cool sports rush”[/i] and why y’all assume I wanna smell like it?
Tequila Mockingbird
godammit, i was using different syntax again…
Taffy
Thankfully, there’s been a push for Guy Stuff™ that doesn’t just smell like antibacterial engine oil. It’s not at complete global saturation yet, but that’s to be expected in Prisonland.
As a person who looks like a dude in public, I’ve just given up on the usual bullshit and started buying Dove or Natural, gravitating toward whatever makes me smell most like baked goods. Nobody’s complained about it so far, despite my excellent beard and hyper-masculine voice.
Tequila Mockingbird
Okay, “antibacterial engine oil” is a description that is absolutely sublime. It’s both colorful and fairly accurate. You are a wordsmith. If I had a hat on, aforementioned hat would be off to you.
Biblioholic93
A true monarch among wordsmiths, glorious human.
(You didn’t quite say there, just inferred… something that makes me assume NB? I’m bad at it admittedly. On the spectrum, I am skilled with English but prefer directness: I use he/him.)
Antimicrobial engine oil friggin seems like what some of these genuinely go for and it’s just so weird! It COULD be a weird hormone chasing thing but I’m PRETTY sure sandlewood has that covered, and Old spice is just the fact that alcoholism has never been as gendered as they want it to be, so what that is all about is just… patriarchy nonsense, Stockholm syndroming all our damn noses.
I had enough Axe body spray and soap in the first three DAYS of middle school gym that should have been an entire lifetime’s supply. And certainly it emptied my patience for it. I swore then that I would smell fruity if I darn well wanted to, just went and bought the feminine brand that smelled like apples, and it only took exactly two stiff sentences and one slap across the face for everyone to accept that. As a (then assuming) completely straight guy.
Wish that was exaggeration of necessity, but the 90s were a weird transition time between bigotry overrule and well established kids of hippies who were kids of rebellious and or liberal leaning boomers. Establish don’t start none won’t be none and no one blinks.
These days I work in a welder shop and actually argue these points with wrinkled manbabies who have their heads in the sand on political lines, showed em it just don’t gotta be that way, and I have successfully started a war with expensive feminine perfumes that I am extremely satisfied with.
Slightly less satisfied that someone found ahmm, REALLY GENUINE spray on feminine scents somewhere, damn the internet’s infinite potential for stupid, and has started to intrude on the pleasant aromas again. (The joke about diseases from organically sourced scents was made and seriously tested before he resumed hostilities.) But oh well. I own damn near 38 different scents of candles, scheming on how to successfully sneak a playful seance/exorcism onto the man in question. That’s gonna take some doing and probably some help to sneak in 38 ball canning jar pints of homemade candles… I think I know my guy to help…
This current storyline has genuinely frustrated me enough to nearly want to get the patreon, so that marketing is 1000% working. I dislike needless cheating storylines but this isn’t… deep in yet… so I’m still in the “young and stupid and b’gods it’s entertaining” camp.
Taffy
You didn’t quite say there, just inferred… something that makes me assume NB?
Pretty much. The specific term I use for myself is “agender”, which I say to mean I’m not particularly fussed about gender role stuff and don’t feel inclined toward any gender in particular. In private and online, I go with they/them, but in physical public I don’t correct anyone who says “he/him”, because it’s kind of a chore.
Frankly, my gender identity tends to feel closer to “Whatever video game or creative activity I’m engaging in right now.”
Marianne
But what about your olfactory identity? Do you smell of baked goods because you’re currently doing a playthrough of Breadslaughter 2155 AD – Muffin Wars (Special Baker’s Edition)? I mean it sounds like a great scent to go for in general, but the recent release of Breadslaughter had me wondering.
Taffy
I’ve never heard of that, no. I just enjoy smelling like pie.
eh, whatever
IN A.D. 2101
WAR WAS BEGINNING.
tim Rowledge
I haven’t bothered with computer games since 1990 but I’d play that.
Combat Scones! Fairy Cakes of Death! Actual Devils food cake!
Dave the Inverted
I know it’s three weeks later so basically nobody is going to see this, but I will note that A Wizard’s Guide To Defensive Baking is a pretty damn good read.
FaerwenOfValenwood
ayyyy always nice to see fellow agenders, virtual hi five
Taffy
✋?
Biblioholic93
Yay I DID get it (almost) right! 😀 good luck to you, will try and remember in future.
ary
Old Spice makes one that smells like citrus, I used to use it religiously until I had to switch to one that stops staining all my black shirts white haha
I think it’s called wolfthorn?
Miri
Ooh, I was wondering last night why I was smelling like Custard Creams, then realised it was most likely because I’d braided my hair after using my Lush Super Milk conditioning hair primer stuff (I use it as a leave-in conditioner/detangler), so my hands, shoulders and hair were smelling like vanilla cookie custard sandwiches…
Hilzabub
When I was using Irish Spring soap and Speed Stick deodorant, several people told me that I smelled like Froot Loops. I still managed to get married.
jubs
… Could I get some antibacterial engine oil shampoo? That’d be a massive upgrade on the usual garbage. =/
Tequila Mockingbird
Multi-purpose body-wash/shampoo/conditioner/lighter fluid/toothpaste/wood polish/engine oil/rubbing alcohol/bear repellent! 😀
Doopyboop
Oh god the cool sports rush and the fresh irish spring smells, I feel bad for guys when it comes to that. Whenever I’ve gone shopping for my dad or for my dude best friend and tried to look at stuff meant for men it’s always such strong musky smells.
Tequila Mockingbird
Maybe I wanna smell like a snack too, sometimes! You ever think about that, you filth corpos?
Tequila Mockingbird
*filthy corpos
Doopyboop
My current gel of choice is a vanilla cafe smell and I love smelling like coffee! I think everyone should have the right to smell like a fresh baked snack or a freshly ground cup of coffee! Market these things to everyone, silly corpos!
Sirksome
In the last few years Old Spice has added Lavender to their scent catalog. There was a whole ad campaign to all about how men want to smell nice and it’s totally not feminine to want that. That was their big innovation! That was groundbreaking! ?
Tequila Mockingbird
See, I couldn’t smell like lavender. There’s a local donut shop that sells this flavor called “lavender-lemon donuts”, and if I smelled like that all day… I would not be able to focus on account of unceasing ravenous hunger.
Doctor_Who
Lavender is severely underrated as a baking ingredient.
I got a bottle of lavender extract I use to make cupcakes for parties and things. A teaspoon in a batch of white cake mix, and a half teaspoon in a can of cream cheese frosting (plus some food coloring because what’s the point in making things lavender flavored if you can’t tell because they’re light purple?) and you have a dessert that people will inhale.
Big Z
In this vein, when my partner and I have our Mother’s Day party in the spring, we usually put a huge handful of fresh lavender in the lemonade. SO good.
jubs
It’s basically either that, or just INFINITY MENTHOL.
Some of that stuff is ludicrously strong too. I had one bottle of bodywash that made my eyes sting in the shower (without any actually getting on my eyes), and made the unfortunate mistake of washing downstairs with it. Significant amount of pain was had for hours.
Priv. Priv.
Mountain Mist Moose Musk Bear Breath and whatever the heck axe body spray smells like.
Sirksome
I don’t understand the how men’s hygiene and fragrance industry got to the point of such insane naming conventions. Why is my deodorant choice between smelling like a werewolf, dragon, or kraken?! Why does my body wash need to say “Eaglefangs” instead of “with aloe”? You can just say it smells like pine needles. You don’t have to put a grizzly bear or an anaconda on it and name it “Nightpanther” or “Avalanche”.
Taffy
If your soap doesn’t involve a violent predator, a mythical monster, or a natural disaster, how will
menwomen know you’re sexually available to them? Women love violent predators, lies, and catastrophic destruction of their lives.deliverything
They’ve got two of the three in this strip alone!
Steamweed
My favorite underarm antiperspirant is Gillette Clearshield Velociraptor Blitzrush. Sure, it’s a little bitey at times, but it gets the job done.
Tequila Mockingbird
Okay, but unironically, if they started naming a fragrance after a dinosaur, I would be hard-pressed to not at least try it out. Even as an adult, I’m still a “dinosaur kid” at heart… that would totally work on me.
Big Z
Look, I NEED that Glacier Rush — it gives me a 30′ charge attack that’s immune to interrupts. Plus I smell vaguely like fir trees!
Whirlakitty
Surely it also inflicts ice damage?
Big Z
I haven’t hit anything that’s survived the initial hit for the cold damage to proc, I camp the newbie zones to feel powerful you see.
Big Z
Also, I’ve started giving Old Spice a pass on this, but only because it’s increasingly seemed like they’ve been taking the piss about it rather than seriously being very “SMELL NAEM MUST BE MACHO”.
Never gonna forgive them for discontinuing the aluminum-free Hawksridge, though, my partner loved that scent and now I can’t wear it.
Sirksome
I will admit I still use Old Spice. When I was younger I thought it was really cool that my deodorant had a dragon on it…..and it still is! Yeah! It’s just harder not to see the ridiculousness in it. I do like some of the art on the packaging. Maybe that’s all it is really. Just cool graphic designs to attract the eye at a glance and not some deeper misogynistic cope advertising where they must make even smelling good and being clean seem tough and masculine.
Big Z
At least in terms of the language of their advertising, they’ve been, at least in the last decade, seemingly trying to split the difference between “extreme masculinity is inherently ridiculous” and “masculinity means being a romantic dude who is interested in things women stereotypically like and being a pleasant guy who is chill (and really obsessed with Fiji for some reason)”.
Like, it’s hard to parse, say, the commercials where Terry Crews screams his way into a Snuggle commercial on a jet ski as an endorsement of “tough masculinity rules” as opposed to “we’re all taking the piss here a bit, but it does smell good even if you’re macho jackass”.
Taffy
I wish more commercials would interrupt each other. If they’re gonna scream and babble for my attention anyway, they could at least be entertaining.
pig
See, as a gender queer afab type, I secretly want to smell like a dragon or a kraken or a manly night panther. Not a real one, which would probably smell meaty and rotten and musty, but a mythical one.
Tequila Mockingbird
Honestly, I always assumed it was tongue-in-cheek because I truly cannot imagine anyone taking such nomenclature seriously. I just assumed it was a corporate marketing strategy like “how do you do, fellow kids! We can do quasi-satirical hyperbole humour too!”
Big Z
Especially when the first spokespeople for it were Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa performing wild parodies of specific masculinity performances. The whole thing is clearly a relic of a particular era of advertising that just happened to work out for Old Spice.
(it helps that both stars were willing to play their overacting completely straight-faced, and that the writing approached “not bad” several times, which is high praise for an advertisement)
Doctor_Who
The scent of every Axe body spray is “Mistake”.
Skater Girl
As a masc of center lesbian, i actually like “men’s” bodywash/deodorant for myself. But, i agree that more options should be available. Honestly, the gendering of products is just silly.
Anna
I used to love Eau de Rochas pour homme! It was one of those bergamot-citric- pine needly- resiny perfumes. But nowadays I’m allergic to fragrances (contact allergy, I get a rash) so everything I use is unperfumed.
Tequila Mockingbird
Really all they should do is say “Hey, this scent smells like wild strawberries, coconut, and leather. We ain’t gonna apply stereotypes or conventions on it. We just gonna tell you what it smells like and let you decide for yourself whether or not that’s something you’re interested in. Guys, gals, nonbinary pals? What do we look like, cops? Pour this stuff on your french fries for all I care.”
Embe13
as a human allergic to perfume with asthma and other enviromental alergies, FUCK THE PERFUME INDUSTRY OUTLAW IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(seriously i’ve had asthma attacks triggered by coworkers who microwaved fish (she can rot for it))
Anna
I’m inclined to agree, as although the smells don’t bother me, I can’t use any perfumed stuff without developing a rash, and well over 99% of even the most basic cosmetics are perfumed…and it’s an extremely common allergy, just underdiagnosed! Add to that a couple of more allergies and it becomes very, very hard to find even the most basic cosmetics. Also, it tends to happen that when I find something I’m neither allergic to, nor it’s so harsh on skin that I might as well be, after a couple of years they stop manufacturing or selling it.
Embe13
mens scents are supposed to invoke a “feeling or experience” hence why they are named such, they used to make it clear in the 90S ads where the cool rush aftershave ad would have the guys cheek turn blue and frosty while he’s doing some “Totally Radical!” stunt or something
Furie
Bring back Fudge products. I used to smell like tutti fruttis. Women floated down the street to me like a cartoon hobo to a pie. Now I can smell like leather and ballsack OR gunmetal and ballsack. I’m not trying to attract Alex frigging Jones over here.
Thing 2
Can people not just smell of themself? I mean possibly not unwashed sick-in-bed for a week self, but normal healthy person self?
deliverything
What, and not monetize every aspect of the human experience? Are you a commie or something?
In other words, I agree completely.
Big Z
I don’t WANT to smell like myself, though. I want to smell like something I like better than “normal human”.
Nymph
People totally can. I choose to smell like vanilla and coconut because I like those smells.
Embe13
the majority of women i have met(who swing that way) prefer a mans natural musk
Nymph
I highly recommend choosing scents (or a lack of scents) that you personally enjoy rather than worrying about what women want to smell. It sounds exhausting to be constantly trying to make yourself attractive to a group of people with widely varied interests and opinions. Better off enjoying the smell of the person you have to spend the most time around: you!
Big Z
As an AMAB, hyper-masc presenting dude, I’ll piggyback on this advice to say that in addition to “choose to smell a way you like”, the other great pieces of advice are “choose to add a scent that compliments what you already have going on, smell-wise” and “choose the scent that your partner(s) prefer”.
Often those latter two are the same thing if you’re any good at figuring out what scents compliment your own.
I just remembered I’m also annoyed at Lush for discontinuing Smuggler’s Soul, which also smells great and smells great on me.
At least I still have Grave Before Shave vanilla bourbon beard oil. Because having your mustache smell like a high-end whiskey all day is delightful, if you’re me.
Li
Also:
it’s SO much better, in the long run, to find a partner who likes you smelling the same way you like to smell.
You didn’t actually say you prefer smelling a certain way, but whether what you like is “natural musk”, “strawberries and cream”, or anything in-between… much better to do things you like, and find a partner who shares your interests, than to spend your life trying to tailor your interests to what you think the highest proportion of hypothetical future partners will like.
Taffy
I smell like Chex Mix if I don’t wear at least some deodorant.
Taffy
Who said they couldn’t? Where’s any level of prevention occurring? If you want soap that doesn’t smell like anything, use some on yourself. Nobody’s stopping you.
Vulcanodon
Absolutely. and how a person smells depends on their diet, genetics, lots of things.
My wife tells me that many of her friends, widows, keep an item from their departed husbands, and lament the fading of their smell as months go by.
Big Z
This is why my beard oil smells like vanilla with bourbon notes.
Heavensrun
Honestly guy stuff is usually just some kind of mint they just don’t call it that because of marketing.
Big Z
Don’t forget “bay rum” and “sandalwood/cedarwood”, the other legs of the “generic male scents” tripod.
Biblioholic93
They shouldn’t be allowed to call a thing sandalwood without having even a speck of sandlewood sawdust or oil in it… I’m so over the marketing these days, idgaf I just want to smell like a snack of any sort. Been preferring fruity, particularly pommegranite, but might swap to pie or baked goods soon too.
DoA chat talking about the IMPORTANT things in life!
zepangolynn
Meanwhile I get jealous that the male branded ones get all the wonderful wood smells, but they keep putting them in combinations with other scents I hate and hilariously deeply dye the soap a dark “manly” blue.
Clif
“So now it turns into a spirited discussion about Dorothy’s brand of shower gel”
You know us too well.
Steamweed
One of them firmly disagrees with the other two. All three immediately trek off to the shower for scientific testing. Dina learns of this, and she and Becky join in to provide proper experiment structuring.
Tessea
Love bed-head Dorothy!
Effie
her job is just bed-head
Kim
10 comedy points =)
John Campbell
I don’t think Dorothy got as far as bed head last night.
Leorale
Her hair is really cute. More mussed-up hairstyles for the main cast.
Tequila Mockingbird