the Axe bath

Whatever the evil geniuses in the Unilever marketing department are doing to get men (not just frat boys but bonafide men who don’t live with their parents or “bros”) hooked on Axe Body Spray, it’s working. I can’t figure out if it’s the racy, arguably sexist advertising (although one Axe-addicted acquaintance was a women’s studies minor) or the tricked-out new container reminiscent of a can of spray paint. Maybe men find comfort in shopping for fragrance at 7-Eleven; Sephora isn’t exactly home territory for the male species. Regardless, they seem to find joy in liberally spraying Axe across their bodies even when it’s not in place of a shower or actual deoderant. Whenever we leave the house my boyfriend will inevitably say, “Wait, I forgot something,“ and spray Axe, often while walking towards me as I asphyxiate in the cloud of fragrance and propellant. He thinks it’s funny, and to be fair it kind of is.

Thankfully, the makers of Axe have developed some tolerable scents. Kilo, a favorite among Axe collectors with five or six scents in their medicine cabinets, is a generic masculine woody vanilla which thankfully dies down to practically nothing after 10 minutes. If you happen to get up close, it smells like poor man’s Armani Code. It could be better, but it could be a lot, lot worse. Photo from walgreens.com