My Scent

After "The Talk" in fifth grade where the children were separated by gender, I've been wearing deodorant since. But I'm sure that majority of people could say the same (I think?). But can many adults say they've been using the same scent of deodorant for over half their lives or over 12 years? Well, I can; (I was hesitant to reveal my secret to success) I've been using Old Spice Aqua Reef since the sixth grade after a year of trying various of scents and brands after the dreaded boys are different from girls lecture; my voice has lowered and hair has grown in places they never described. Since then, I've seen the price of the stick of deodorant increase and been through many versions of its casings; it seems to be reducing in size in each iteration. It gives me great pride knowing I used Old Spice before all the hilarious commercials. Many assumptions can be made with my deodorant habit in addition to my plain turkey lunch routine, like I refuse to grow up or I hate change, but the truth is that I'm a humble and loyal man. And it doesn't hurt that it smells great and I've gotten many compliments on it. I was frightened and heartbroken that the scent was discontinued when I couldn't find it at a local store; luckily Meijer had it.

But that brings me onto the next phase of scents. Where does the other scent products come into play? Body wash, lotions, shaving cream, after shave, eau de cologne, eau de toilette, eau de parfum, y parfum. What just happened there? The last five are scents with varying percentages of perfume oil; I've listed them in increasing order. But which should you use in combination? This should have been discussed in fifth grade! This is worse than trying to match the colors in what I'm wearing! From what I have read, avoid anything that is a parfum unless you want yo smell as strong as a stunk. The others can be mixed as long as they don't overpower each other (e.g. Scents in body washes, lotions, aftershaves are weak). There are tons of discussions online about mixing scents if you're interested; in a sense, it's about finding your own personal style of scent.

Personally, I don't use much cologne very often. I do get compliments on my scent though with just the use of my deodorant; I guess that it's decently strong. Getting compliments about my scent is amazing (even though it's not all natural); and it eliminates one possible explanation why everyone is avoiding you at the party.

Note: Of all the senses, my sense of smell is the weakest of all (after eye correction). I think much of its sensitivity was lost in college in the overly dense dormitories sometimes filled with unhygienic men. I've been trying to improve my ability to smell by smelling food before I eat it; it seems to be working. It's odd that we basically categorize "cologne" for eau de toilette; maybe it's a pretentious thing like electronic cable quality.