My preteen nephew has just recently started to wear cologne and shopping for his upcoming birthday has sent me on a serious trip down memory lane. I started thinking about how scent is such an integral part of the human experience. Certain fragrances have the uncanny ability to change your mood or rekindle vivid memories of long ago. My father was big on wearing cologne. He always smelled good. In the 1970s, he always had a few bottles perched on the top of his dresser—Old Spice, English Leather, Brut, and Jovan Musk were forever in his personal rotation.
Naturally, Dad passed this habit on to my brother and me early on. I think I was all of eight or nine years old when “Santa” left me a small bottle of English Leather cologne in my Christmas stocking. And that was all it took. From then on, it became part of my daily routine to splash or spray on some kind of scent before leaving the house in the morning. I just don’t feel right without it.
When I started earning my own money as a teenager in the 1980s, my tastes got a little more bougie. I gravitated toward scents like Drakkar Noir, Quorum, and the original Polo cologne in the green bottle. These scents weren’t exactly top-tier men’s colognes back then, but to my friends and me, they were the height of luxury. A bottle of Drakkar costed quite a sizable chunk of our minimum wage salaries. But one or two compliments from the girls at school about how good we smelled? That was priceless. To be honest we would’ve probably sold our souls for that small bit of attention from the ladies.
To this day, the smell of Drakkar or Polo reminds me of warm summer nights out with friends—the drama of house parties, cigarette smoke and hormones in the air, learning how to hold my liquor, early rap music, and often regret.
By the early ’90s, with a proper salary in hand, I could afford to upgrade my fragrance game. Joop, Fahrenheit, Cool Water, and Eternity became part of my collection. Some people have that one signature scent, but I’ve never been a one-scent kind of guy. Those early ’90s years were just pure fun for me. They were the sweet spot in my life where I enjoyed the freedoms of adulthood without too many of the responsibilities. A different cologne for every mood just felt right.
In my forties there was Guerlain's Vetiver, Agua Lavanda, and a few others that are escaping my memory at the moment. I tend to have a conscious mental block on some of the memories from these years as they were some of my worst as a corporate employee.
Now that I’m in my fifties, my cologne rotation has leaned more to the mature side and includes Jermyn Street and Elite from the British house of Floris, and probably my favorite of all time, Tom Ford’s Oud Wood. I managed to snag a bottle of the latter when my brother worked for Saks Fifth Ave and got a generous employee discount. I use it sparingly now because, frankly, I won’t pay full price for it—it’s hella expensive.
Sadly, personal scents aren’t nearly as popular as they once were, especially here in America. It’s actually rare to catch a whiff of someone wearing perfume or cologne in public these days. Everyone here in the US seems to have some kind of allergy or aversion to personal fragrance. Yet, ironically, these same people think nothing of filling their homes with dozens of noxious Glade plug-ins or dousing their belongings with Febreze, which I’m convinced permeates your very soul with its toxicity. Don’t even get me started on Fabuloso.
Still, for me, cologne remains a small, indulgent ritual that anchors my day and ties me to memories of youth, family, and special moments. Personal fragrance might not be as trendy anymore, but for those of us who know how much it can "season" our lives, it feels just right.
What’s your favorite cologne or perfume and what memories do they hold for you?
Be well, make the most of this day. Thank you for reading!
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