Scratch, Smell and Stink

 

My mum and I amused ourselves this morning by sniffing samples of men's colognes that were tucked into today's newspaper. One “scratch and sniff” featured a head shot of a sexy, dark-haired man giving us that “come hither” look. The other sample pictured a fellow obviously aimed at the younger set with little sex appeal and an arrogant, rather goofy stance. That's just us though. We scratched. We sniffed. We wriggled our noses in unison and said “yuck”. This exercise entertained us for about two minutes until we both started sneezing.

I like the scent of a man … my man, anyhow. Well, I guess I need to clarify that ... after David's crawled out of the bilge or the engine room, all sweaty and smelly, the “scent” can be a bit overwhelming. I tend to avoid him then. To be more specific, I like the scent of my man just after he's come out of the shower. No need for colognes to disguise what already smells good.

According to Wiki, the world's first recorded chemist is a person named Tapputi, an ancient perfume maker from 2000BC who plied his trade in Mesopotamia. Certainly scented oils and incense-based fragrances have been around for centuries. In fact, in the Islamic religion, it is considered a religious duty for men to bathe on Fridays and use perfumes. I think perhaps perfume use in some of the European cultures where bathing was rare, however, was not based upon enhancing the post-bathing experience, but rather covering BO.

I use perfume, but rarely. My favorite? You probably have never heard of it. It's Yanbal and I first sniffed it in Peru. Our friend, Gonzalo, is VP of Manufacturing for the company Yanbal and gave us a tour when we visited Lima several years ago. He gave me a sample of Yanbal and it was the most perfect smell ever. It's not cloying or sickly sweet, it's just ... wonderful. I still have it and use it sparingly. It's like a gift to myself whenever I wear it.

So...back to the scratch and sniff samples. I don't think even Pepe le Pew would appreciate them.