Jun 17, 2024 3 min read

“A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.” – Coco Chanel

It’s common knowledge that smells can trigger memories, but so can reading about odors. For example, a friend recently made a Facebook post about being in a checkout line behind a woman wearing an overwhelming amount of cologne. I immediately smelled Tigress perfume, which teenaged girls favored in the ’60s. During high school class changes, when students were required to walk single-file through the halls to their next room, it was common to be trapped behind several stylish girls who apparently took Ms. Chanel at her word. A cloud of fragrance wafted from each young lady, much as it does from French skunk Pepé Le Pew in Looney Tunes. The effect was literally breathtaking.

Although it is still being sold, Tigress fell out of favor when hippie chicks moved on to patchouli oil in the late Sixties. But patchouli can be equally smothering. During 1967’s “Summer of Love,” I played in band in a club that had a featured dancer called Dee Dee. She gyrated directly in front of me three nights a week, the fringe on her bikini acting as miniature fan blades. Smelling patchouli still takes me back to that moment; I just don’t want to go.

Not that boys in that era smelled much better. In the ’60s, most teenage boys routinely wore Old Spice and Aqua Velva aftershaves to offset the smell of the ubiquitous Right Guard spray-on deodorant we used. But I and my musician pals favored the “exotic” Jade East cologne. Its manufacturer’s blurb makes Jade East sound appealing: “There’s a gentlemanly but gruff character to the blend and you’ll smell it immediately when applying … it’s lilac and musk combined.” Groovy! But what does Jade East actually smell like? A ’60s high-school boy.

Thankfully, most of the men and women I now know have forsaken colognes – and even scented deodorants – because they are aware that too much of a supposedly good thing can become downright annoying or even trigger allergic reactions in close quarters.

I don’t often mingle with teenagers and young adults these days, so I have no idea what they smell like. But if you’re curious, there are almost 800 “fragrance influencers” on TikTok to tell you. It figures that rather than ask a friend what they use to smell so good, today’s social media-addicted young men and women would rather go online and glean fragrance advice from someone they can’t smell. Jatin Arora, an 18-year-old high school senior in Canada who goes by “TheCologneBoy” online, films himself – and sometimes his mom – for YouTube videos in which he reviews various scents for males. Arora has 1.3 million followers. I won’t become number 1,300,001.

Just as I’m put off by patchouli worn by women, certain men’s fragrances also make me keep my distance. That’s because in 1973 the drummer in my band drenched himself in English Leather cologne. Now, the manufacturer of English Leather will tell you that its product smells like “a mixture of bergamot, lemon, lavender, rosemary and orange along with honey, iris and rose and ‘base notes’ of leather, musk, cedar, vetiver and tonka bean.” But in my mind, English Leather smells like a 29-year-old drummer.

Either that or the entire Cartwright family from “Bonanza,” rode hard and put away wet.

Whoa, pardner!