People should speak more freely. I’m not offended by feedback in the slightest. I’ll start asking people that I work with if my cologne is offending.
This thread reminds me that back 25-30 yrs ago, my wife used to buy me cologne. I never woulda bought it myself, but she said she liked it and she bought it, so I wore it. I always figured a tiny bit was sufficient - that someone would have to get awfully close to me to smell it - and presumably no one was getting that close to me other than my wife.
Boy - the has been a long time ago. I figure 3 kids knocked all that out of our lives! 
As a general rule, I figure no scent is preferable to any scent. And IF any scent is chosen, less is far preferable than more. Whenever I smell someone with heavy scent, I figure they must be trying to mask some pretty awful funk.
I followed someone from another department into the building this morning, about thirty or more feet behind him and I was walking in a cloud of his cologne. I think that’s a sign he’s overusing it.
Yep. I use Royall Lyme, mostly as I have never gotten a complaint, since it has no perfume essences. And sure men have to use something after they shave to prevent razor burn, although admittedly there are versions with no or little scent.
Some people over use the scents as they are smokers and have no sense of smell anymore.
Since smoking has become less common, our sense of smell is getting better.
Reading the comments, here, looks like aftershave and cologne are joining neck ties and business suits on the trash-heap of history?
I’m not sure that one could make that conclusion from this small, skewed “convenience sample.” Most of the comments seem to be in the vein of either:
- I used to wear cologne when I was younger, but don’t anymore
- I strongly dislike (or have a reaction to) all fragrances, and I wish that colognes and perfumes, along with other overly scented products, went away
For the former, the population of this board skews older, and it may well be that younger guys are still active users of cologne.
For the latter, their POV on fragrances may have been a particular motivation for them to participate in the thread in the first place.
Perhaps cologne and perfume were needed before showers and baths were as easy and convenient (my morning routine involves a long hot shower), and many of us are now spending the entire day in air-conditioned environments. So we’re not acquiring unpleasant odors to the extent that people did in years past?
My comment came out harsher than I’d intended - your cologne may not actually bother anyone; some scents aren’t as cloying as others. I was just trying to point out how we all tend to not smell ourselves.
I find the hint of a quality scent to be pleasant. Please note the words “hint” and “quality”.
I’m about as far from a metrosexual as it’s possible to get, but I enjoy wearing aftershave. I do shave daily, so it’s as much a part of that particular grooming effort to put on some sort of lotion or splash to soothe the recently shaved skin as it’s something to make me smell good. I do shower daily and use antiperspirant/deodorant every day; I’m a long way from being rank or funky from BO.
Aftershave is where it’s at. The proportion of fragrance ingredients is much lower than in cologne or other types of fragrance, so it’s not as intense or long lasting as other products. It’s usually pretty much entirely gone by 9-10 am.
The hierarchy and percentages of aromatic ingredients is:
- aftershave (1-3%)
- cologne (~7%)
- eau de toilette (~10%)
- eau de parfum (~15%))
I tend toward more artisanal/imported aftershave products- Barrister & Mann is a favorite brand, as are Proraso and a few others. And @DrDeth, I’ve been curious about Royall Lyme and some of their other products myself. Does it smell like limes, or is it more complex than that?
Well put.
If not pleasant, at least tolerable.
But in the vast majority of instances, I prefer it even more if I cannot smell other people at all.
It has a bracing, refreshing lime scent, with some traces of pines or something like that. I have never had a complaint, and many compliments- a little goes a long way.
Try eBay, sometimes they sell some tiny sample bottles. Also similar is Lilac Vegetal Lime.
I should have added: while it’s possible that teen boys and young men don’t use the old-school aftershaves or colognes, I do know that Axe does a huge amount of business with their body sprays, which specifically target that age range.
I’m amused to see new commercials for Old Spice brand products because I graduated from high school in 1984 and back then, the brand was viewed as your old man’s cologne (or even your grandfather’s cologne), so good job to them for reviving the brand.
I worked on a major anti-perspirant brand from '90 to '94, and it was the same case then – Old Spice (which also made anti-perspirants and deodorants) absolutely was seen as “dad’s brand.”
I think that they still make the old-school aftershave, but where they have really revitalized the brand is in their body washes.
I’ve never used after shave after shaving and I don’t get razor burn. Do most guys that shave actually use after shave?
What do you do, then? Electric razor or blade?
Yes, but always after razor, sometimes after electric.
I do. It’s soothing and my skin feels tighter.
It was, but they’ve done an amazing job turning that image on its head.
I used to use the aftershave (with my wife’s approval) until a bottle shattered in a duffle bag in the trunk of my car – at the beginning of a six-hour drive. We didn’t realize what had happened until the interior started to smell. Even after ditching the broken bottle and shaking out as much liquid as we could, we endured the rest of the drive in a cloud of Old Spice. (IIRC correctly it was winter in Iowa, so opening the windows wasn’t an option.) The scent lingered for weeks even after cleaning out and shampooing the trunk.
Needless to say that was my last bottle of Old Spice.
I use a blade.
My skin never has an issue. I shave and get directly in the shower so maybe that mitigates the problems others have?
I shave in the shower and have never, ever used aftershave, even when I didn’t shave in the shower. (At that point, I shaved immediately after showering, while dripping all over the bathroom.)