Test Strip

The other day my wife, children and I had to go to a beauty supply store. The European sounding one that ends in “a” but does not begin with an “s”. We were not going for my wife, we were going there for me. No, I don’t wear make-up, I needed cologne. I don’t make it a point to bring the whole family to choose how I smell, but this was one important bottle of eau de toilette. I was going to New York City for the most important meetings in my life and I wanted to smell good. Not that I smell bad, but all the cologne I own is not carry on an airplane approved. I never buy the smallest bottle, I always buy the largest, it’s a better value. We were on the hunt for a carry on an airplane bottle of something that smells better than me.

I typically wear colognes by Issey, Burberry, Polo (not the green or blue but the black bottle) and some by Calvin Klein. So, I went directly towards the one I know. When it comes to buying “new” scents I have a great amount of trepidation. I like what I like and trying to get me buy something new is almost impossible. One time as a teenager, someone for the birth of Christ day gave me a bottle of Grey Flannel. Have you ever smelled that? It smelled like wet dog rolled in mud covered in a old musty gray flannel blanket. Now I don’t know if these people liked me and were playing a joke, or did they really think that this would smell good on me, maybe even manly. But I took one whiff and never wanted to smell that smell again. But someone liked it. And that’s the thing about the scent of cologne, the same scent can smell different to many people. Especially children.

We are walking down the aisle, in which all the cologne is shelved alphabetically by designer/brand, not by the name of the scent. I’m looking for a small bottle of my favorites when my children, who are seven and six, want to spray the cologne on the test strips and then inject their opinion as to which cologne I should purchase. My kids think I smell like cookies, they say that the cologne that I usually wear makes me smell like cookies, Eau De Pilsbury to them, seventy five dollars a bottle to me and worth every dime.

My wife is spraying many different scents onto test strips. And let me say what a great little invention these test strips are. I don’t remember them from back in the day. We had to spray it in the air, wait a few seconds and then stick our faces in the vapor that was left to determine whether or not we liked the lingering scent. Then, at the department stores you had the ever annoying “fragrance models”. They actually paid people to block your path spraying you as you hurried by and ask you to try this or that new designer fragrance. I never, not once stopped to get spritzed. Did they target everyone or only the people who made eye contact with them? Were they selective in their spritzing? Did they have quota on the number of bottles sold? I’ll never know. Because today it’s a lot easier to walk through the cosmetics section and not leave smelling like you just went to a strip club. If you’ve ever been to a strip club you know what I mean. That smell of smells. The stripper, who is wearing lotion (hopefully none with glitter in it), deodorant, hairspray and perfume then add the cologne of every man she has been giving lap dances to all evening. That smell. They should bottle that scent up, call it Jacked. Because all your money just got jacked from your wallet and the only thing you have to show for it is smelling like the perfume counter at Macy’s circa nineteen eighty seven.

My wife is still spraying and my kids are taking the test strips and saying “daddy get this one” or “daddy this smells like wet grass with juice on it”. But none of them smelled like cookies, I was a little disappointed, I wanted to smell like cookies, new and improved cookies. But sadly, none of them smelled like cookies to my kids so I bombarded my nose with more confusing scents. There were some that smelled like wet socks and potpourri. Others that were so musky they should have been separated and put in it’s own enclosure as to not disturb the other colognes.

Then there are the description of the scents. Woodsy. Have you ever been in the woods and said, I need to smell like rotting bark, dew, wood and pine needles? I have not. I’ve been in the woods once in my life and was not compelled to stay. Floral, for men? Next. Citrus, that I can handle, it’s light, refreshing and who doesn’t want to smell like left over Sunny Delight? Then there are the clean scents, the ones that smell like baby powder, fresh linens out of the washing machine. I like clean scents. I could probably just spray myself with Fabreze and get the same effect, but I’d rather spend forty dollars for an ounce of Armani Code. Which is the cologne I selected. It was my wife’s favorite and I decided why not try something new. It smells nice and clean to me, to my children not so much.

When we got home after dinner my kids had all of these test strips asking “Why didn’t you like this one? Why didn’t you like that one?” I explained to them I only wanted to buy one of them, not all of them. My daughter asks “daddy can I smell you”, which she asks all the time, because she wants me to smell like cookies. I say sure and put my arm out and she takes her nose, puts it on my arm and sniffs one long sniff and says “bananas, daddy you smell like bananas.” Then my son now wants to make sure that his sister is correct in her smell evaluation, asks if he could smell my arm. He grabs it, gets his nose as close to my arm without touching it and three little sniffs later he says “yes, you smell like bananas”. They run up the stairs chanting “daddy smells like bananas, daddy smells like bananas.”
It wasn’t the “cookie” response I was hoping for but at least they didn’t say I smelled like a strip club.