I still remember my first experience with cologne: epic failure. Standing before my bedroom mirror at age 14, gearing up for my middle school dance with the precision and delicacy of a bomb squad expert removing dynamite from a hostage while blindfolded, I sprayed my first-ever splash of my father’s Polo Sport onto my chest. Dad had told me to “remember not to use too much,” which translated from teenage boy logic meant that I applied three to five dramatic spritzes directly onto my skin.
Upon entering the high school gymnasium, I single-handedly forced groups of teenagers to part like the freaking Red Sea just so they wouldn’t have to breathe the same air I was. My crush Melissa sniffed me once and grimaced like she’d swallowed a lime wedge. Then she slow danced with Tyler Henderson all night.
Men’s fragrance has had a complex relationship with me ever since that dance floor debacle. Negative feelings about perfume dominated for the next several years.
Who wants to smell like that?
Smelling good is better than smelling like shit, sure, but don’t brand yourself as That Guy. You know, the one whose fragrance greets you before he walks into the room and assaults your nostrils long after he’s left? For most of my teenage years and early twenties I fell into this latter category.
It wasn’t until college that my aversion to fragrance was challenged. My roommate Marcus, noticing my continued evolution as a non-smelly person, staged an intervention one morning after he caught me dumping a bottle of liquid soap over my head in the shower. “Jackson,” he said sternly, setting his Dunkin’ Doughnuts coffee down on the counter so he could make eye contact with me, “everyone should have a signature scent. Adults should smell like adults.” Heavy-handed French existentialist life coaching?
Yes. But he had a point. I cautiously dipped my toe back into fragrance experimentation (but with far less volume this time around).
When I say experimentation, I don’t mean testing out different brands – I mean quickly spraying each brand on myself in the store and running out so I didn’t have to smell like it for more than two seconds. To my surprise I discovered that guys’ fragrance has changed radically since my Polo Sport adolescence. Gone were the days where men’s cologne was purely about screaming “FUНK ME!” across the room and attracting attention to yourself like a bonfire signals firefighters.
New brands, categories, and ideologies had entered the market, many of which challenged preconceived notions of what fragrance can be. Today I consider myself something of an aficionado. Between trying too many scents as a hapless teen and subsequently discovering the world of niche fragrance later in life, I’ve dropped way too much money on tiny bottles of fragrance over the years than I’m willing to admit to my accountant.
Once again, sprayed thoughtlessly like my teenage self. Today I view fragrance not as an alternative to showering or proclaiming my presence across a football field, but rather as one of the most personal and overlooked elements of style. Clothes and accessories can be seen and analysed from afar, but your scent touches everyone you come into intimate contact with.
It can be the secret weapon that completes your look. As with all things style, men are sorely outdated in their approach to fragrance. I’ve seen guys spritzing their wrists like Kenny from South Park, openly brag about buying perfume made for women (“Smells like a lady…”), and proudly toss around words like “manscript” and “fougere” as if Frankincense and Myrrh were top-secret stylish guy codewords.
Time to wipe the slate clean. Spray Away the Past Step away from the fragrance counter, patriarch. Everything you think you know about men’s fragrance is about to be turned on its head.
Quick note before we dive in: I know I just told you to step away from the fragrance counter. Wear your ignorance like a Seahawks hat and let’s begin. Rule #1: It’s not Cologne, Dummy.
We’ll get technical to start: stop calling everything “cologne.” Cologne (or eau de cologne) is just one concentration of fragrance, generally made with 2-4% aromatic compounds and lasting around 2-3 hours. The majority of men’s fragrances on the market are now made in either eau de toilette (5-15% concentration) or eau de parfum (15-20%). Sure, pay more attention to the marketing words on the bottle if you want, but understanding how fragrances are actually classified will help you apply the correct amount (more on that later) and set expectations for longevity.
Bonus vocabulary lesson: Mittelspiel, or the dry-down of a fragrance. That fancy German word describes how your fragrance smells after it’s fully settled on your skin. Applying enough fragrance that both the top notes and mittelspiel interact with your skin is key to forming a scent you’ll love.
More on application in a minute. Apply Less Turtle Wax Men applying fragrance will never happen. “Splash it on, dudes!” If your fragrance doesn’t come in an actual splash bottle (which is rare these days) please stop using the word “splash” in association with fragrance. Yes, even when referring to eau de cologne.
The new standard when applying spray fragrances: 1-2 sprays, tops. ONE ON YOUR CHEST, UNDER YOUR SHIRT. Maybe one on the back of your neck if you’re feeling frisky.
That’s it. Apply enough that you and your collar can feel it, but not so much that you’re drinking from your wrist every time you bend your elbow. I can’t tell you how many times men come up to me and say, “Man, I love how you smell!” Only to have me respond with, “Thanks.
You smell great too. Wait, where are you standing right now?” It sounds crazy, but this is the gold standard of applying fragrance: someone shouldn’t smell you until they’re close enough to read your Tinder bio. Look no further than my friend David as a positive example.
David is a furniture designer in Brooklyn, and has maybe the best nose-level scent game of any person I know. If there’s one criticism I’ve ever heard anyone say about how David smells, it’s that you notice it when he passes by – a whiff of something pleasant when he grabs a drink from the tray behind the bar, or as you lean in to hear him talk at a crowded dinner party. It’s not on-going, it’s not overwhelming.
It’s there to enhance moments when you’re within personal distance of him. He told me once that his philosophy is that “I just don’t want to be remembered by how I smell.” And yet, that’s literally all I remember about him. Sample Like It’s 1999 Ah, the dreaded fragrance section.
Nothing screams browse-heavy analysis paralysis quite like that portion of Nordstrom where every product on the shelves makes some ridiculous promise about capturing the “essence of masculinity” or whatever other bro-ish nonsense the marketing department decided would appeal to fragile, scent-phobic men. The big easy tip? Ignore the marketing language on the bottles. “For Men” and “For Women” are not absolutes.
Fragrance is genderless. Before gendered marketing took hold in the middle of the twentieth century, men and women wore the same fragrances (White Shoulders, anyone?). Hell, certain ingredients are still considered so perfumatically sexy that they’re only sold to perfume brands, not directly to consumers.
If you want to find some of the most interesting masculine scents, try sampling fragrance marketed towards women. My day-time staple fragrance is actually marketed towards women, but boasts a clean, simple blend of cypress and incense – nothing flashy, just smells great on me. Side note: if you’re at the fragrance counter feeling lost and intimidated, ask to speak with someone who knows about fragrance.
Good perfume shops will have staffers trained to educate clientele on the intricacies of fragrance. They’re calledperfume consultants for a reason. Next important concept to understand: skin chemistry.
Everybody’s skin processes and interacts with fragrance differently, which means the same perfume can smell completely different depending on who’s wearing it. I was rudely introduced to this concept when I gifted myself the exact same bottle of niche fragrance that my boss had sent me as a sample. On him: fresh pine trees mingled with a luxurious musk that I can only describe as straight-up “sexy” Hisengerous.” It sat unused for years until I finally threw it out.
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Moral of the story: buy samples. If your local Sephora doesn’t offer samples or lets you return used samples for full refunds, find another retailer. Something as personal as fragrance should always be tested on your skin first.
You should plan to try on 1-2 fragrances per day. Any more and your nose gets overwhelmed. Apply them to your wrist (remember how to put on cologne we learned earlier? ), and go about your day.
Does it give you a headache after lunch? Does it fade off completely after an hour? Do you smell yourself hours later and it pleasantly reminds you that you’re wearing it?
You cannot know these answers by smelling it on a strip of paper, or giving it a once-over at the store. Trust me, I sampled for THREE WEEKS before deciding on what I now proudly call my signature scent. Wore each fragrance to death, spending a full day wearing each one to gauge how it reacted to my skin and my daily routine.
The winner wasn’t necessarily what smelled “the best” when I first applied it, but what smelled great at the end of a long day. What didn’t overpower my coworkers when we sat shoulder-to-shoulder in conference meetings. What made me smell like myself, not someone trying too hard to smell like something else. (Edit: since writing this original article I’ve cycled through about 8 different signature scents.
That doesn’t mean my current staples aren’t my signature – I rotate between day and night fragrances based on season and activity level. A heavy woodsy scent isn’t ideal for running errands on a hot summer day. But I digress.) Let’s ditch another old cologne chestnut, shall we?
Your Signature, Bro? A signature scent is fantastic. Personal routines to discover what smells amazing on you and consistently take you back to certain moments in time are something worth celebrating.
My issue with telling someone to go out and find “the one” is that it puts undue pressure on fragrance. Plus, humans have ridiculous aromaprojectile ranges. “Your fragrance is your background music. You’ll never know anyone’s playlist, so let them enjoy their damn songs.” One bottle isn’t enough for me to classify as a signature scent.
Just like how you have leggings and jumpers for winter, t-shirts and sandals for summer, heavy boots for autumn and light jackets for spring; rotate your fragrance to match your activities, the weather, and your mood. Trust me, as someone who’s discovered new favourite scents both richer and lighter than my supposed signature, your nose will notice you skipped a bottle. Not everyone has to know you’re wearing BoozyDansClothes tonight.
Save Waterports… Spend Money on Fragrance Instead Look, quality fragrance is expensive. For brands that aren’t manufactured in China (looking at you THE BIG BOX STORE BRANDS), most niche fragrance starts at $150 for a damn good smelling bottle. That $150, proper hygiene be damned.
And yet, even at $150 a bottle, it’s less expensive than you think. Here’s how my typical fragrance purchase breaks down: Obviously this will differ per person, but taking into account every fragrance bottle I currently own, I average about 4 sprays/day. That means the 50ml bottle I just bought today (1oz) will last me just over ten months.
This doesn’t even factor in that I rotate between at least 2-3 scents on any given day. For the sake of argument, we’ll say $150 / 12 months / 3 frags I regularly use = $3.70 per month. Still pricey!
Except when you factor in that minimum price for a new Kurt or Jerry watch last year was around $300. And please tell me you own multiple watches, becauseFace Open Dial Up Yours truly does. But what if I told you there was a way to buy even cheaper?
If you’re really looking to save money in the short term, sign up for fragrance houses that offer sample sets. Sephora, SSENSE, and even Macy’s offer discounted bundles of their smaller-sized fragrances. Most indie brands offer samples ranging from 5-10ml, which lasts you anywhere from 1-2 months of continuous wear.
Instead of spending $150 on one fragrance you know damn well you won’t finish before the next trend comes along, you can pay around $30-60 and get a variety of smaller sizes to rotate through! Each brand varies how many samples they offer in their discovery sets, but they all range from around four to eight different scents. Pro-tip: most department stores discount their fragrance collections just as often as they would clothing.
Macy’s, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, even Dillard’s have offered premium fragrance brands for up to 30% off during seasonal sales. Stock up when you see a good deal, but beware of heavy discounts from rogue websites. The fragrance grey market is riddled with convincing counterfeit perfume bottles from illicit online sellers.
Full disclosure: you will never find me owning any Body Spray/Shower Gel nonsense. I know there’s a fine line here between judging someone’s perfume choices and completely gatekeeping the olfactory arts, but pouring sunscreen mixed with neon citrus vodka into your hair does not a “signature scent” make. Spray tan for your pits, dude.
Save Waterports… Don’t Spray Sunscreen Up Those Fragrance Assholes While we’re discussing things I will never understand about fragrance: when did fragrance become a status symbol? Go to Nordstrom’s fragrance department and almost every ad you’ll see features some Hollywood nobody pumping bubbly spritzer into his groins. Like, what do you think people are spraying on?! “Look at me!
I smell like capitalist screams!” Please leave Kristen and Vin’s BCBGMaxAZria memoir on the shelf. That all being said: my biggest pet peeve with fragrance is when others comment on how I smell. The best compliment anyone can give my fragrance is no compliment at all.
Please don’t smell like rubbish, but I don’t want people to know I’m wearing fragrance. Think of your fragrance as background music. You’ll never know what song your neighbour was listening to when they walked by you, but damn if “Luck Be A Lady” didn’t just make my dayThat’s right, I’ve been trained to sniffBut your fragrance should be the same way.
Enough to keep others comfortable around you, but subtle enough that they don’t realise it’s there until after they’ve left. You smell like yourself, only better. Wrapping it all Up in a Fancy French Scented Ribbon Ten years ago I would have never imagined my relationship with fragrance would be where it is today.
Gone are the blindly enthusiastic scent-splashing days of my youth, upgraded to a curated list of scents that I know work with my personal brand. Literally. I have fragrance to match my casual and dress workplace wardrobes.
There’s a specific incense-y Woody I wear for autumn and winter, and a lighter citrus scent for spring and summer.
Ones reserved strictly for nights out on the town. The grand total of fragrances I currently own?
Thirty-seven. And yet I couldn’t be happier with how I smell now versus ten years ago. Hell, compared to last year.
As we progress further into our careers and become more “adult”, the things we once thought mattered begin to fade away. How you smell is the last thing anyone will judge you on when you’re scrambling up the corporate ladder, but the subtle effects of having a well-rounded scent arsenal can’t be denied. You’ll notice coworkers and friends give compliments on your “deodorant” when in reality you just smell like a dashing hero who wears vetiver and ambergris after showering.
I still shudder remembering my opening anecdote. Please, please, please learn from my douchebag cologne-using mistakes. Trust me, and Middle School Dance Jackson will thank you with a firm high-five years down the road.
