Cologne the Smell, Not the City

The other day I was walking to our local college campus when I was attacked. By cologne. It was not an up close and personal confrontation, the offense came from at least 40 feet away. You would think that walking 40+ feet behind a young fellow would dissipate the odor of his Axe body spray to a tolerable level. Not so, dear friends, not so. In fact, I could no longer smell the whole season of spring around me, just cologne. The really scary part is that the odor was dissipated when I smelled it, so if I were talking to him face-to-face, I would have lit-er-ally died from his cologne directly punching my olafactories who would have then taken it out on my brain by punching its death center. Little known fact: all olafactories have a lot of anger and a score to settle with the brain.

I half remember once reading on the ol' reliable internet that a woman's sense of smell is at least twice as sensitive as a man's. (Real research not required.) This most likely means that a man puts on enough cologne so he can smell it, which ends up being an overpowering, stomach-turning smell to many women. In other words it's a giant turnoff. Are you listening men? Sometimes cologne repels rather than attracts women.

I am not against all cologne wearing per se, and I'm certainly all for bathing and deodorant, but if you think about it, it's a little strange how many manufactured odors we apply to ourselves: shampoo, soap, body wash, lotion, deodorant, hair product, perfume, aftershave, cologne. I don't know what this says about us as humans. Maybe it's a carryover from the times when bathing was considered unhealthy, so perfumes were used to cover the stink that would ensue. Maybe it's a way to raise ourselves above the unwashed masses, because we're afraid of being the unwashed masses. But do we really find ourselves so unacceptable that we even have to "improve" the way we smell to the nth degree?

The point is, men, that so many of you wear too much cologne. If you can smell it on yourself, it's probably too much. Do us all a favor and cut back a little. Or a lot. Or all the way. Ask a trusted female friend—probably one who has put you in the Friend Zone because you wear too much cologne—to help you figure out the non-criminal amount of cologne for you. And remember, some of us (and our allergies) don't want you to wear cologne, because we think you smell just great without it.