He Smells Like Anarchy

I'd rather he smelled like "I've been to therapy."

When I go into Bath and Body Works in search of a lotion or three-wick candle, I go straight for the Men’s Shop.

I don’t go around sniffing trees, so I can’t say if this scent actually smells like Mahogany OR Teakwood, but I do enjoy it!

Because this scent is masculine and the scent makes me feel like I have the strong arms of a man wrapped around me, keeping me safe and cherished.

The scent is spectacular, and so I put it all over my body. I walk around smelling like Mahagony Teakwood because I want to have a visceral reminder that I am strong, safe, and sexy. I want to exude confidence and capability.

You know what I feel like when I’m wearing Gardenia or Warm Vanila Sugar? Like diabetes and bee stings. There is nothing about these scents that fit how I want to present myself to the world or how I want to be perceived. So, the Men’s Shop it is for me.

But why would Mahagony Teakwood convey a concept like confidence more than the scent of Gardenia?

Why does a concept like Gingham Gorgeous smell like strawberries, peach, and peony? Why does Imperfect Beauty (wtf?) smell like rhubarb, “white florals” and “radiant” cashmere? What the hell makes cashmere radiant? That’s a fabric, right?

Because flowers are pretty and wood is hard (It’s okay. You can giggle. I did.). Flowers are delicate and wood is the foundation for structure. Flowers are soft and fragile and wood is sturdy and dependable. Flowers make medicine while wood makes fire. We are thereby relegated to our gendered expectations for expression.

Presumably, the names are suppose to attract those qualities we wish to be associated with and, presumably, women want to smell feminine and men want to smell masculine. I suppose that’s not unreasonable. Presumably.

But why are we not even trying to pretend “masculinity” isn’t being associated with things that are generally bad for us?

If men are picking their deodorant out themselves—which we hope they are because we aren’t their fricken mothers, you know, unless we literally are—they probably will sniff those sticks that are labeled with characteristics they want to be associated with. They might choose names like:

• ANARCHY

• CHAOS

• WAR

• BOURBON ARMPITS

• VIOLENCE SPRING FALLS

No wonder men are so wound up and unhappy. They are preparing for high-octane sympathetic nervous system overload battle first thing in the morning! Then they walk around smelling like it. Thankfully not really.

• ARCTIC BLAST (or Arctic FINGERblast if he’s proud of his temperature play skills).

Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash. Looks manly, doesn’t it? Cold, barren, and emotionally unaware.

• SANDLEWOOD SPIT

• TEAKWOOD TAKEOVER

• LEATHER AND TOBACCO (Like, literally, skinning the hide off a dead animal and lighting a highly addictive cancer-causing plant defines their manliness!)

Thankfully, the tobacco scented products rarely smell like cigarette smoke. That shit’s just gross.

Who knows, if men were given the choice—and told it was a masculine choice—they might prefer to stop and smell the Gardenia and Lavendar. You know, calm the fuck down for a bit.

• SHORT KING (So he can still feel like he’s ruling over a kingdom despite not meeting the supposed expectation of superior height that many women actually don’t care that much about.)

• UNSHAVEN BALLSACK BRUTE

• FAT TONGUE TINCTURE

• DIESEL

• HOOK LINE AND SINKER (It would smell like fish…which means he’ll feel like he just went fishing instead of whatever he was actually having to do).

• RUGGED TIMBER

• VOLCANIC ASH

• SALT SAP

• MAPLE BALLS

Who doesn’t love ripped abs? Some of these names make sense for what women want…but I can’t help but think the process of getting ripped abs just smells like sweat.

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Is it just me, or would women rather men want to smell like:

• GOOD AND SEXY (notes of laundry soap and dishwater)

• HEALTHY MASCULINITY

• I HAVE BEEN TO THERAPY (I swear, I don’t know what that smells like, but we need to capture this scent and spread it all over the hairy sweaty pits of men everywhere!).

• PRESENT FATHER (hints of baby wipes and college applications)

• WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE

• GRILL SWEAT

• LAWNMOWER MUSK

• WEEDWACKER CLIPPINGS

• LITERATE MAN (the scent of a freshly opened hardback)

• WRITTEN BY A WOMAN (notes of competence and sensibility)

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While researching scent names on the internet—mostly to see if we were picking up on a pattern that actually exists—I came across this cute site that had it’s own creative take on the name game: https://orangedip.com/mens-deodorant-names/

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For women, even empowering sounding brands like Megababe have scents that fall into the sugar and spice and everything nice trap:

• COCONUT LIME

• COCONUT VANILLA

• LAVENDER MINT

Personally, I’d rather slather on scents like:

• SHATTERED GLASS CEILING

• EQUAL PAY

• BODILY AUTONOMY

But if I’m thinking about what men want a woman to smell like (though I often get compliments on my girl lotions), he probably wants her to smell like:

• MOMMY

• DINNER

• FORGIVENESS

If there are any gentlemen reading this who’d like to correct me or throw in their own ideas, please, please do.

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What if we flipped the script?

Imagine walking into a department store or the personal hygiene section of your favorite dollar tree and, instead of seeing products labeled ALPINE FROST and SOFT LILLIES, we saw GOOD LISTENER and AUTONOMOUSLY DRIVEN?

It’s not the scents themselves that perpetuate an outdated gendered narrative (unless you think that leather and bourbon scent really smells like the manly back room of a gentleman’s club before the late night show starts), it’s the pinning those scents to names that portray gendered concepts, ideals, or problematic narratives.

Changing outdated gendered narratives isn’t going to happen overnight, but maybe we can start with the deodorant.

And let’s name toothpaste WHITE BRIGHT HONESTY.

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