Toilette, Bowlette, Parfum, Barfum...

hen

I usually use something called soap and water and a stick deodorant.

SC1

Was going to a dance in a real club. The year -- 1976, 6th grade. Pubes sprouting and electrical yet vastly not understood feelings blossoming... Debbie Silvas had asked me to slow dance with her the week prior during an in-school dance -- Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street". The week between that dance and the official big time dance had seen me nearly fill up an entire Mead notebook with her first name and my last name.
Jesus christ she smelled amazing during those too few minutes of that song - I was hooked.
The day approached and with my mom's suggestions I showered and put on a corduroy 3-piece suit with a black & silver polyester/rayon shirt with a butterfly collar that would have left John Travolta envious... once downstairs and with mom grabbing her purse, car keys and a Kent cigarette to smoke during the long 12 minute drive downtown to the YMCA she suddenly announced, "Hey, did you put on cologne?" Holy shit, no I had not.
She then said, "Run upstairs while I warm up the car and splash on some of your dad's Jovan Musk!"
She went her way, me mine.
I shook some out into the palm of my hand and dabbled it onto my chubby, whiskerless, face and then added a few dibbles behind my ears -- Debbie might like that after all.
And then in a moment of brilliance and foresight I quickly unbuckled my pleather belt, threw down my grey corduroy pants along with my white Fruit O' The Looms and absolutely marinated my Schwanson and Manions in Musk. The searing agony only took as long to arrive as it took me to hoist everything back up and buckle the belt. Sweet mother of fυck was I on fire. I sucked it up and ran downstairs and straight to mom's idling Monte Carlo. Off we went.

Debbie never showed up. Bitch.
I watched everyone dance but me. It was a drag. I would have actually been sad and maybe even gone off to the restroom and cried but thanks to dad's Jovan I couldn't really concentrate on my romantic plight because my genitals were melting.
After Mom picked me up and I bullshitted her the whole way home about what a great night it had been I hauled ass up to the bathroom and doused the musky fire out with tap water... had a rash on my entire groin for a week.

fυck Jovan and Debbie too.

STANDY

Yep, spot on. Used to work as a cigarette sales rep (Rothmans) and got to work with the 6 Rothmans girls at an Australian Grand Prix and at several other do,s in the 90s
Chatting to them about aftershave one night and they said.. pick a aftershave and stick to it.

Next time I worked with them one of the girls worked as a Channel model and she gave me a bottle of above. Said wear this it will work….it worked several times 😗

JwRosenthal

I think alot of people don’t really understand how fragrances work. They are oils suspended in alcohol as the vehicle to get them on to your skin. The alcohol evaporates almost immediately leaving the oils to work with your skin’s heat and ph to off-gas a scent. As these oils start to evaporate slowly, they begin to reveal their layers and complexity.
The brightest scents are the ones you smell right out of the bottle usually
citrus or delicate florals and grasses- they tend to fade out in the first hour or so. If a fragrance were simply these oils it wouldn’t last long and would smell like sprayed lemon pledge. Next come woods and tonka- they tend to be more subtle so stay back at first but as the top notes die off they come forward. Last are the bass notes which imo are the most vital, leathers, dark woods and moss. They are the foundation of the fragrance and are the longest lasting.
A well blended fragrance has a progression through the day and dies down to a subtle skin scent- ideally the whole progression should happen over the course of abojt 8-10 hours and not be done in 2.
Many of the vintage fragrances are very much a product of their time and tell a story about the fashions and wonder of the period. The exotic spices of Bay rum speaking to travel and far away places.
The clean baber shop smell of Brut speaking to desire modernity and cleanliness, the aldehydes in Chanel #5 that speak to the future is now- a sharp contrast to the almost Victorian florals of Guerline at the time.
Some can even mimic the smell of something else. Eau de Hermes (1951) was a great example of mimicking smells. The goal was to emulate the smell of an inside of leather Hermes handbag. Think of the notes that would come out in a well loved purse from the 40’s- candy, cosmetics, tobacco, hygiene products etc. it’s not just leather- it’s all the things that come together to make that particular smell (I remember what my mothers purses smelled like inside- very distinctive).
Here is the list of ingredients in Eau de Hermes:

Top notes are Bergamot, Lavender, Lemon, Petitgrain and Sage; middle notes are Cardamom, Cinnamon, Cumin, Bourbon Geranium, Jasmine, Coriander and Cloves; base notes are Leather, Birch, Sandalwood, Tonka Bean, Cedar, Vanilla, Moss and Labdanum.

When you smell it- it smells like the inside of a purse from the mid-20th century…pretty fυcking amazing.

JwRosenthal

I think alot of people don’t really understand how fragrances work. They are oils suspended in alcohol as the vehicle to get them on to your skin. The alcohol evaporates almost immediately leaving the oils to work with your skin’s heat and ph to off-gas a scent. As these oils start to evaporate slowly, they begin to reveal their layers and complexity.
The brightest scents are the ones you smell right out of the bottle usually
citrus or delicate florals and grasses- they tend to fade out in the first hour or so. If a fragrance were simply these oils it wouldn’t last long and would smell like sprayed lemon pledge. Next come woods and tonka- they tend to be more subtle so stay back at first but as the top notes die off they come forward. Last are the bass notes which imo are the most vital, leathers, dark woods and moss. They are the foundation of the fragrance and are the longest lasting.
A well blended fragrance has a progression through the day and dies down to a subtle skin scent- ideally the whole progression should happen over the course of abojt 8-10 hours and not be done in 2.
Many of the vintage fragrances are very much a product of their time and tell a story about the fashions and wonder of the period. The exotic spices of Bay rum speaking to travel and far away places.
The clean baber shop smell of Brut speaking to desire modernity and cleanliness, the aldehydes in Chanel #5 that speak to the future is now- a sharp contrast to the almost Victorian florals of Guerline at the time.
Some can even mimic the smell of something else. Eau de Hermes (1951) was a great example of mimicking smells. The goal was to emulate the smell of an inside of leather Hermes handbag. Think of the notes that would come out in a well loved purse from the 40’s- candy, cosmetics, tobacco, hygiene products etc. it’s not just leather- it’s all the things that come together to make that particular smell (I remember what my mothers purses smelled like inside- very distinctive).
Here is the list of ingredients in Eau de Hermes:

Top notes are Bergamot, Lavender, Lemon, Petitgrain and Sage; middle notes are Cardamom, Cinnamon, Cumin, Bourbon Geranium, Jasmine, Coriander and Cloves; base notes are Leather, Birch, Sandalwood, Tonka Bean, Cedar, Vanilla, Moss and Labdanum.

When you smell it- it smells like the inside of a purse from the mid-20th century…pretty fυcking amazing.

Gav1967

@SC1 your story reminded me of a review in a newspaper I read regarding a hair removal cream available in the UK called "Veet" below for your amusement

Waltesefalcon

I use soap.

STANDY

Yep, spot on. Used to work as a cigarette sales rep (Rothmans) and got to work with the 6 Rothmans girls at an Australian Grand Prix and at several other do,s in the 90s
Chatting to them about aftershave one night and they said.. pick a aftershave and stick to it.

Next time I worked with them one of the girls worked as a Channel model and she gave me a bottle of above. Said wear this it will work….it worked several times 😗

JwRosenthal

I think all beer tastes like shit, I can’t tell a Merlot from a Malbec, and all scotch tastes like burnt antiseptic to me. We all have our olfactory pleasures- some more than others.