Posted on 06/28/2006 11:10:04 AM PDT by presidio9
Spray, delay, and walk away." "Grooming Guru" Kyan Douglas can be overheard dishing this advice to the (formerly) clueless men on TV's makeover show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." He knows a little cologne goes a long way.
Mike Church wishes his directions were more widely heeded. "People my age, they'll drench it on," the 19-year-old Express Men employee says recently during his shift at Mishawaka's University Park Mall. "It'll just give you a headache."
Church doesn't let the poor choices of his peers prevent him from doing it right.
He and all three of his brothers, ages 14, 13 and 12, wear Axe brand body sprays, he says. Mike Church likes "Touch."
"I'm not really into the Old Spice thing," he says. "That's more my dad's generation." I think my grandpa wore that."
Church and his brothers are part of a new generation of masculine primping, ushered in in part by shows like "Queer Eye." Although Douglas doesn't suggest his clients try "Tsunami" body spray, or any of the other eight scents by Axe, the company won't be needing his help. Unilever's Axe is now the best-selling body spray. According to Yahoo! Finance, the British-based company had sales of nearly $74.7 billion in 2005, cosmetics and hygiene earning the most at 27 percent.
And Axe's Web site offers its own application advice: "Do not spray ... in eyes, over open flames, near female correctional facilities or sorority events."
It is "The Axe Effect," or "the internationally recognized name for the increased attention Axe-wearing males receive from eager, and attractive, female pursuers," that calls for the warning.
For its marketing campaign, Axe was named 2006 Clio Advertiser of the Year. The award-winning TV spots generally follow an average-looking lad onto an elevator or to some other venue, at which point he is overwhelmed by attention from eager, attractive female pursuers.
The Web site shows young women giving sultry looks. One caption reads: "I'll come back to your room, but I'm not taking my high heels off."
Forgetting everything you've learned about women's liberation, a cost-benefit analysis to purchasing Axe products, ($4.99 for 4 ounces of the body spray compared to $29.50 for an ounce of Abercrombie and Fitch's "Fierce"), is a no- brainer.
"Oh, it works," 19-year-old UP Mall shopper Kyle Steinke says. "Too well."
He and his South Bend housemates, Dustin Beckham, 19, and Robert Tharp, 18, wear Axe and believe it has positively affected their romantic lives. Church and others at the UP Mall that day were more skeptical of Axe's amorous-making claims.
"All my friends wear it," says Justin Hughes, 13, of Niles. "TAG stinks like BO."(TAG is Gillette's similarly priced body spray.) Justin's girlfriend finds The Axe Effect amusing. Taylor Gordon, 14, has been dating her Ring Lardner Middle School classmate for two weeks now and scoffs at the suggestion that her apparent interest in Justin is merely a byproduct of a guy product.
Nevertheless, "I love it," she says, holding Justin's presumably Axe-d arm.
OK, so these kids may be hip to tongue-in-cheek advertising. But James McKenna, chair of the anthropology department at Notre Dame, says the $4 billion industry may be onto something -- that it's not the "Orion" body spray that is good or bad for sexual success, but the thinking that makes it so. Sort of like spray-on confidence.
"If young guys have a psychological edge and believe they will be more successful (romantically), my guess is they will be," he says.
Cologne is for guidos. Period.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
You stink. : )P
"Hi Karate"
what is old is new again...
The animals at the Audubon Zoo?
perfect woman lure, a fat wallet.
LOL - shoulda bought Stetson!
an asthma attack AND a migrain. that stuff is disgusting.
That guy looks like Forrest Griffin of the UFC.
"Nothing wrong with a nice scent. Davidoff's Cool Water is my cologne of choice, and believe me, it has gotten more than a handful of compliments from females. "
I put on some Bulgari in preparation to taking the wife out to dinner, and never got out of the house.
"As a female I prefer the smell of the AXE body washes over the cologne."
My wife bought some for me. I like it. Very mild.
Lucky wife ;)
Unilever's Axe is now the best-selling body spray. According to Yahoo! Finance, the British-based company had sales of nearly $74.7 billion in 2005
They shove those numbers in there like they're really relevant to the story.
I doubt that “Axe” represents a very significant portion of those sales numbers. Unilever product lines include Dove soap, Lipton Tea, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Birdseye vegetables, Bertolli olive oil, Hellman’s mayonaisse, Knorr, Vaseline, Slim Fast, Wish-bone, etc.
That's like saying Bucky Dent had a great career as a home run hitter, since the Yankees have over 11,000 home runs in their franchise history.
yes it does!
we even use fragrance (and other crap) free soap here :D
so is patton ... thus it's banned.
aw heck, it even bothers me so it's definately pretty awful stuff :(
You mean sex sells????
Who would have guessed it!
/sarcasm
Cologne sprayed directly on the body is too strong. If it has to be used at all, it should be as a nuance.
At the risk of introducing an unpleasant mental image, I will note that the proper way for a man to apply spray cologne is to remove his shirt, spritz a cloud of the product into the air, and walk through the cloud.
Don't forget to put on that shirt again.
The plan consists of me getting slowly bald and fat.I also tell her the same old stories and jokes she has heard for years and years.
So far it seems to be working.I would be afraid to try some "super-women attracting" cologne.Imagine what I would have to do to keep her off me,then?
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