First, to announce a new Page on this blog listing my postings about men’s fragrance. Then, to continue some recent postings on notable names for men’s fragrances, a look at Fucking Fabulous and two nomenclatural celebrations of testosterone, Testosterone Original Fragrance Paris and Testostérone (from Zurich).
The new Page. On men’s fragrance, a name chosen for its ambiguity: ‘fragrance for men’ vs. ‘fragrance of men’; there’s a similar ambiguity in male fragrance. The choice is deliberate; as I say on the Page, it inventories:
postings on fragrances for men / colognes; and on the scent of the male body
Tom Ford’s Fucking Fabulous. I wrote on Facebook on 2/7:
Just to note that Tom Ford sells a cologne for men named Fucking Fabulous. From the company:
FRAGRANCE FAMILY: WARM & SPICY
SCENT TYPE: WARM & SWEET GOURMANDS
KEY NOTES: LEATHER, TONKA BEAN, SAGE
FRAGRANCE DESCRIPTION:
TOM FORD’S ICONOCLASTIC LEATHER SCENT IS SPICY, WARM AND DECADENT. A GOURMAND ALMOND AND IRIS HEART IMBUE TEXTURAL RICHNESS TO THE LUSCIOUS LEATHER, INTENSIFIED BY FLORAL ORRIS ACCORD. THE EFFECT IS SO EXQUISITELY BEAUTIFUL, NO OTHER NAME WOULD DO.
ABOUT THE FRAGRANCE:
WITH A NAME THAT SAYS IT ALL, TOM FORD FUCKING FABULOUS IS A DECADENT LEATHER SCENT THAT WIELDS AN INTOXICATING GRIP. “IT’S UNDENIABLY THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD NAME FOR SUCH A BEAUTIFUL SCENT. WHY MAKE IT COMPLICATED?” – TOM FORD
ABOUT THE BOTTLE: FUCKING FABULOUS IS CONTAINED IN A MATTE BLACK ICONIC BOTTLE. THE 50ML FLACON HAS THE SLEEK, ARCHITECTURAL LOOK OF A CHESS PIECE, ADDING MONUMENTAL BEAUTY TO ANY VANITY. A MATTE BLACK SET-UP BOX COMPLETES THE LUXE DESIGN.
[AZ] The price from the company: $895 for a 250 ml bottle (nobody said fabulous was cheap).
Putting aside the annoyance of the screaming all-caps, this is pretentious and boastful. It managed to make me dislike Tom Ford even more than before.
But the bottle:
(#1)
TOF Paris. Experienced first through this ad that appeared in my Facebook feed:
(#2) Yes, that’s a bull in the logo: a symbol of aggressive masculinity
One of several ads showing a hunky guy giving off powerful sex vibes, a presentation that we are to believe is intensified by the scent his TOF Paris fragrance gives off. As I regularly say in a slogan, if you’re a guy, you either want to be him or to do him (or both).
TOF Paris explicitly welcomes its gay male audience, to the point where its ads include this steamy one featuring a same-sex (and interracial!) couple:
(#3) (AZ:) Dance to the music of testosterone
Text of a TOF Paris ad. The first paragraph has all the emotional resonance stuff:
An elegant and manly perfume for men: The master perfumers from TOF Paris worked tirelessly to create a scent with elegant and manly notes. They attempted to awaken our most primal instincts through the use of pheromones. This is how, in France, a perfume for gay and straight men, at the crossroads of sensuality and sexuality, came to exist. A perfect combination that suits most men and that will agitate your senses in any situation. A perfume that makes men want to go much further.
The second paragraph has the technical stuff, with some description of the ingredients (typically including some only perfumers are familiar with — oud wood and all that) and some of the scents themselves (again drawn from a technical vocabulary of the parfumerie):
A perfume filled with pheromones to arouse your animal side: The TOF Paris perfume for men, gay or straight, is based on three key ingredients. Oud wood is a powerful and nebulous [AZ: ?? nebulous means ‘cloud-like, (literally) hazy’ or ‘(figuratively) hazy, vague, unclear’] ingredient. It has an intense, leathery, deep animal odor. Secondly, ambroxan gives off an amber scent, close to that of ambergris, of animal origin. Ambroxan is obtained from sclareol, a molecule present in [the plant clary] sage. It is also called “Lovers’ sweat” [AZ: I can find no place where lovers’ sweat is used this way; certainly, it’s not common] because of its scent akin to skin. Finally, the hyraceum, or the African stone, is produced by a small African mammal called the Cape Daman [cape daman, more generally known as the rock hyrax]. It gives off a powerful, masculine scent and is filled with powerful pheromone molecules.
Note, again: “men, gay or straight” — the idea being that a scent that will work to attract straight women to a straight man will also work to attract gay men to a gay man. An idea that seems to have at least some validity.
I’ll now go on to the other testosterone-named men’s fragrance on my program and then return to the topics from these two TOF Paris paragraphs: testosterone and pheromones, and ingredients and scents.
Testostérone by Sentifique. From the Fragrantica site:
(#4)
Sentifique is a new, luxury perfume collection from Switzerland [based in Zurich]. Although this ambitious project began in 2009, it remained a well-kept secret until the first perfumes were ready for public presentation in the autumn of 2012. „Sentifique” is a [portmanteau] name derived from a play on words: the French phrase „senteurs magnifiques“ [‘magnificent scents’] describes the new brand’s ambitions very accurately: to create fascinating, unsurpassed fragrances at the very highest level.
Sentifique has 5 perfumes in our fragrance base.
The perfumes: two for women (Daim Rouge, Dangereuse), two unisex (Cedre Sacre, Party), one for men (Testosterone).
The Parfumo site describes the scent of Testostérone as spicy-woody and says that production has apparently been discontinued.
Testosterone and pheromones. From Wikipedia:
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In male humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristics such as increased muscle and bone mass, and the growth of body hair. In addition, testosterone is involved in health and well-being, and the prevention of osteoporosis.
… Sexual arousal:
Testosterone levels follow a [24-hour] rhythm that peaks early each day, regardless of sexual activity.
… There is no correlation between testosterone and men’s perceptions of their orgasm experience, and also no correlation between higher testosterone levels and greater sexual assertiveness in either sex.
… The plasma levels of various steroids significantly increase after masturbation in men and the testosterone levels correlate to those levels.
So the connection to sexual arousal seems to be small and indirect, but the connection to various social markers of masculinity is stronger: there are complex associations between testosterone levels, competition, dominance, and aggression, though all of these are moderated by social norms. In any case, any indicator of higher testosterone levels might then be taken as as an indicator of higher masculinity (obviously a complex matter, since aggression is in the mix), and so might conceivaby make a man more attractive to straight women and to gay men. Various steroids related to testosterone, in particular androstadienone (and also androstenol and androstenone converted from it), could then serve as human pheromones.
On the basis of these rather tenuous associations, a modern industry of pheromone-centered male fragrances has been built — on top of the gigantic traditional perfume industry based on natural substances found to have attractive — possibly, literally attractive rather than merely pleasant — scents .
Pheromones. From Wikipedia:
Androstadienone … is an endogenous steroid [found in male sweat (and saliva and semen)] that has been described as having potent pheromone-like activities in humans. [It can be converted to androstenol or androstenone.]
… Though it has been reported to significantly affect the mood of heterosexual women and homosexual men, it does not alter behavior overtly, although it may have more subtle effects on attention.
Androstadienone is commonly sold in male fragrances; it is purported to increase sexual attraction. [It has very little scent in itself, and is sometimes sold as an additive to existing fragrances.]
And then from the Social Issues Research Centre site‘s “The Smell Report”, on sexual attraction:
The attractive powers of pheromones (scented sex hormones) have often been exaggerated – not least by advertisers trying to sell pheromone-based scents and sprays which they claim will make men irresistible to women.
Widely publicised research findings on female sensitivity to male pheromones have also led some men to believe that the odour of their natural sweat is highly attractive to women.
Women are indeed highly sensitive to male pheromones, particularly around ovulation, but many popular assumptions about the effects of these pheromones are the result of misinterpretation and over-simplification of the research results.
All male pheromones are not equally attractive, and some of the myths stem from an understandable confusion over their names. The male pheromone androstenone is not the same as androstenol. Androstenol is the scent produced by fresh male sweat, and is attractive to females. Androstenone is produced by male sweat after exposure to oxygen – i.e. when less fresh – and is perceived as highly unpleasant by females (except during ovulation, when their responses change from ‘negative’ to ‘neutral’).
So, men who believe that their ‘macho’, sweaty body-odour is attractive to women are deluding themselves [AZ: though it might be that gay men find it both attractive and arousing; certainly, many gay men have reported finding male sweaty body-odor to be highly masculine, attractive, and indeed arousing], unless they are constantly producing fresh sweat and either naked or changing their clothes every 20 minutes to remove any trace of the oxidised sweat. Generally, the female-repelling androstenone is the more prominent male body odour, as the fresh-sweat odour of androstenol disappears very quickly. In terms of scent, the sweaty macho-man is therefore likely to be unattractive to most women, most of the time
A dubious view of the whole business, from Wikipedia as quoted in my 7/4/17 posting “POP go the pheromones”:
Some body spray advertisers claim that their products contain human sexual pheromones that act as an aphrodisiac. Despite these claims, no pheromonal substance has ever been demonstrated to directly influence human behavior in a peer reviewed study.
But the pheromone-centered industry rolls on. Witness this item offered on amazon.com:
(#5) ATTRACT MEN for gay men: human sex pheromones cologne from PhermaLabs ($29.95 for 1 fl oz)THE MAGIC POWER OF PHEROMONES: It is known that the body produces different levels of pheromones during the day – however, whenever being in an extreme situation, the level of pheromones increases – that change makes you more attractive to the people that are around you. Our cologne’s revolutionary formula already contains pheromones and thus no extreme situation is required in order for your body to produce them! Get irresistible right away!
THE SECRET TO ATTRACT GAY MEN: If you are looking for a way to boost your self-esteem in order to attract more men, then this is the way to go. Wear our cologne now and get amazed by the results; many gay men talked about men that didn’t pay any attention to them and they got instantly attracted after the use of the cologne!
… LONG-LASTING SMELL: Are you afraid that you are going to wear this cologne but you won’t be able to take advantage of its miraculous effects because the smell will fade away by the time you’ll leave your apartment? Not anymore! We guarantee that this cologne is going to stay on your skin for hours – wear it at the morning and be irresistible for the rest of the day!
The presentation of this product is not as an intensely masculine fragrance but rather as a kind of medical treatment offering “Cupid in a bottle” (“A carefully designed formula will help you instantly attract men, women, gay men or lesbian women at will!”)
The PhermaLabs site is deeply uninformative about the company; it gives a US address, but that’s just an office in a Rancho Cucamonga CA office building.
Ingredients and scents. From the TOF Paris ad text above, roughly in the order of their appearance there.
— oud / oudh wood is a Western perfumers’ name for agarwood. From Wikipedia:
Agarwood, aloeswood, eaglewood or gharuwood is a fragrant dark resinous wood used in incense, perfume, and small carvings. It is formed in the heartwood of aquilaria trees when they become infected with a type of mold (Phialophora parasitica). Prior to infection, the heartwood is odourless, relatively light and pale coloured; however, as the infection progresses, the tree produces a dark aromatic resin, … in response to the attack, which results in a very dense, dark, resin-embedded heartwood. The resin-embedded wood is valued in Indian-North Eastern culture for its distinctive fragrance, and thus is used for incense and perfumes.
… First-grade agarwood is one of the most expensive natural raw materials in the world
— Ambroxan. From Wikipedia:
Ambroxide, widely known by the brand name Ambroxan, is a naturally occurring terpenoid and one of the key constituents responsible for the odor of ambergris.
… Ambroxide is synthesized from sclareol, a component of the essential oil of clary sage
— ambergris. From Wikipedia:
Ambergris …, ambergrease, or grey amber, is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of rubbing alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.
Ambergris has been highly valued by perfumers as a fixative that allows the scent to endure much longer, although it has been mostly replaced by synthetic ambroxide.
— sclareol. From Wikipedia:
Sclareol is a fragrant chemical compound found in Salvia sclarea [clary sage], from which it derives its name. … It is an amber colored solid with a sweet, balsamic scent.
On the sage, from Wikipedia:
Salvia sclarea, the clary or clary sage, is a biennial or short-lived herbaceous perennial in the genus Salvia. It is native to the northern Mediterranean Basin, along with some areas in north Africa and Central Asia. The plant has a lengthy history as an herb, and is currently grown for its essential oil.
… The distilled essential oil is used widely in perfumes and as a muscatel flavoring for vermouths, wines, and liqueurs.
— hyraceum. From Wikipedia:
Hyraceum is the petrified and rock-like excrement composed of both urine and feces excreted by the Cape hyrax (Procavia capensis, also referred to as the rock hyrax or dassie).
… The material hardens and ages until it becomes a fairly sterile, rock-like material (also referred to as “Africa Stone”) that contains compounds giving it an animalic, deeply complex fermented scent that combines the elements of musk, castoreum, civet, tobacco and agarwood. The material is harvested without disturbing the animals by digging strata of the brittle, resinous, irregular, blackish-brown stone; because animals are not harmed in its harvesting, it is often an ethical substitute for deer musk and civet, which require killing or inflicting pain on the animal.
On the rock hyrax, from Wikipedia:
The rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), also called Cape hyrax, rock rabbit, and (in the King James Bible) coney, is a medium-sized terrestrial mammal native to Africa and the Middle East. Commonly referred to in South Africa as the dassie [and elsewhere under a number of local names]
And that’s just from one men’s fragrance.