The natural scent of skin is the sexiest thing ever.
Think about it, would you get up close and personal with someone whose ‘smell’ you didn’t like? And have you ever been taken by surprise at the attraction you felt to somebody you didn’t think you would look at twice, just because you got unexpectedly close, and got a whiff?
Oh yes, the smell of skin is erotic, but not necessarily so when it hits you in the face at 10 paces!
Summer is not a forgiving season. No two individuals smell the same, because a person’s personal perfume is made up of his/her gender, genetics, diet, medication and mood. If you find that your colleagues are pressing themselves flat against walls when you walk by in the corridor, or that your friends are all mysteriously busy and have no time for you, maybe you should drop in to the nearest empty space and do a quick sniff test.
Sweat per se is not a bad thing, the villains of this story are the bacteria, especially those that reside in the armpits, groin and feet, that react to it and give off that distinct skunky odour.
All is not lost though. There are steps you can take to counter BO (body odour) without falling prey to advertisements that insist sexiness is the product they have bottled.
Try these first
Wash well and wash often. You need to get the smell of stale sweat off your body before you pile on the perfumes. A cursory swipe of your soapy hand under your pits might not be enough to do the trick; the secret is to scrub. Use a loofah, a plastic scrubby brush or anything else capable of working up some serious lather coupled with as much friction as your skin can take.
Go natural when it comes to your clothes. Pick fabrics that breathe, but remember even the coolest fabrics can’t do much for you if your underwear, socks and shoes are working in three day shifts.
Watch what you put in your mouth. Food, drink, medicine, tobacco, everything that goes in your body contributes to the way you smell. Eat garlic, and the smell comes through on your skin- ugh! Eat coriander, and that shows up too- nice!
Keep a hold on your temper. Your moods – anger, stress, worry etc. all trigger a fight or flight response in your body, and guess what, sweat happens. Actually sexual arousal does the trick too, but that’s not a bad thing at all. Don’t ever under estimate the effect a little bit of sweat on your skin can have. What smells musky naturally is best smelling musky, and not like a fruit basket. It’s when you let sweat sit that it becomes a passion killer.
Of course the other thing that helps is deodorant, and Indian summers being what they are, we could all do with that bit of help.
Antiperspirants do double duty by blocking the troublesome pores and then killing odour. You don’t really need an antiperspirant unless you sweat buckets and stain all your whites yellow. Deodorant stops you smelling, not sweating, and for the average Joe, deos will do.
Deos come in several avatars – the horrible sprays that punch holes in the ozone layer (please don’t buy them - is it worth sacrificing the earth at the altar of man’s vanity?), the roll-ons and sticks/gels. The mild/non-perfumed ones are much nicer than the heavily scented types that try unsuccessfully to do the job of both deo and cologne.
The other kind that is specially nice is the crystal deo. It is a natural crystal made from potassium alum salts which forms a protective layer on your skin without clogging the pores. It is available at most pharmacies and ‘bath and body’ type shops in the US. The best thing about this is that it also lasts practically forever.
If you can get someone in the US to shop for you, ask for the crystal, or for Arm and Hammer (uses baking soda), Tom’s of Maine (uses lots of natural stuff like lichen and coriander) or your regular RiteGuard Sport or ArridXX.
If however, your choice is limited to what you get on the Indian shelves, try a roll-on by Adidas – it is surprisingly good, and scented mildly enough to be unisex. My teen is an athlete and a football player to boot. He spends a lot of time running about in the sun, and I would say he is the perfect specimen to test for deodorant effectiveness.He uses Adidas, and when he gets home from school, I immediately know if he’s used deo or not- he doesn’t get shoved under the shower on the days he has remembered.
So if it’s not your three day old socks, or the spice in your last meal, and you still have people swooning every time you get close, maybe it’s your sex appeal, but then again maybe what you really need is that hard working genie in a small grey bottle.
Enjoy your summer!
Product name - Adidas ActiveDeodorant for Men
Bottle size - 50 ml
MRP - Rs.220 (incl. taxes)