The Scent of a He-man

I’m sick of cologne. In what reality would this glorified perfume be deemed an attractive scent? Who likes smelling like a chemical bouquet? The answer should be no-fucking-body. Sure, it may be better than smelling like you just took a gnarly diarrhea in a sauna, but even the unwashed foreskin of a long-dead horse smells better than that (maybe). But one thing all men can agree on is that there’s nothing worse than a dude who spends so much time whining that he never gets around to just rolling up his sleeves and fucking doing something, and so I’ve compiled a list of things that I believe men would- and should- enjoy smelling like, and I will be pitching my ideas to whoever the hell will listen (I’m staring menacingly in your direction, Ralph Lauren). Keep your eyes open next time you’re in Marks Work Warehouse.

Cedar

Maybe you just finished building a cedar deck on which you will store your barbecue to be used for cooking salmon on a cedar plank, or maybe you just emerged victorious from your weekly bear-fighting league out in the middle of a cedar forest. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t participating in either activity, because now you’ll be able to smell like you were. Cedar is the Brad Pitt of trees; the type of tree every shitty joe-schmoe elm wishes they were and that all the crazy beeches wanna freak with. But the best thing about buying cedar cologne is that you will be supporting the testosterone-driven logging industry and subsequently reducing hippies everywhere to tears, all for the sake of your vanity.

Hot Sauce

Because no man wants to smell like thousand island dressing. Only the best foods are complimented by hot sauce (meat, eggs, and anything else packed to the tits with protein) and so smelling like it will subconsciously influence your diet and your life for the better. It has also recently been discovered that when Kodiak bears are ready to breed they give off a scent of hot sauce to attract potential suitors.

Scotch

Not the rancid smell of a weathered old mans breath, but the sweet aroma of a freshly cracked bottle of 15-year-old Glenlivet aged in oak casks. You would reek of experience and wisdom instead of defeat and missed child support payments, and I imagine it would smell something like Hemingway did. If you don’t want to smell like a man who hunted German U-Boats in the Caribbean Sea then please hand in your penis on the way out of Modern Machismo 101, Women’s Lib is down the hall.

Maple Syrup

Syrup is like the blood of trees, so smothering yourself in the blood of a tree to smell nice is sort of badass, but if you’re doing it as a warning to the rest of the maples then it’s incalculably badass. Basically any smell that occurs naturally in a forest is an acceptable aroma for a male- with the exception of flowers- but there are some (maple syrup) which are more pleasant than others (bear shit). Choose wisely, and by that I mean don’t fucking smell like bear shit, asshole.

Bacon

Bacon is the meat that perfectly compliments any dish, especially other meat. Now it can perfectly compliment your take-no-shit attitude. It doesn’t matter how full someone is, the smell of bacon will always instantly revive their appetite. Whenever you smell of bacon people will assume that you just woke up, are still quite irate, and are on your way to your dead-end job to work tirelessly on some sort of loud jobsite while you are surrounded by large and dangerous machinery just so you can earn enough money to purchase more bacon.

Diesel
I was going to say ‘gasoline’ but even a clumsy owner of a Smart Car sometimes smells like gas, so that scent is out of the question. Only the biggest, loudest, and pollutinest machines consume diesel, only to subsequently spit out the black fog residue high into the sky as though to say ‘Fuck you and your bitch Earth, God’. Since everything these days can be turned into a hybrid it’s safe to assume that diesel-powered machines continue to exist solely as an affront to hippies, and that makes it alright by me (a man).

Al Murray-Lawson