Beautiful lies

Bread. Fries. The exchange of bodily fluids. The French have the mutant ability to make everything taste better.

But these cheese-loving people are not uni-sensory wonders, my three female readers. The French also have the mutant ability to make smells, as well.

I mean that in a good way, of course.   

During his visit to Manila, I spoke (and smelled) with Alexandre Freile, a French perfumer who worked on the new Axe Twist Body Spray. And, rest assured, the only exchange of bodily fluids that occurred during the conversation was my talsik laway (projectile saliva) on his person.  

While Alex and I were speaking and smelling, we were joined by a man who smelled good by affiliation, Axe brand manager Brian Duruin. Brian was not French, because — like me — he also made talsik laway. 

Alex schooled us in the secrets of how the French make everything better: from perfumes to the English language to animal poop. Yes, that’s right: even the English language.

Scents and Sensibility

How do you become an “international scent expert”? Do you train in a sensory deprivation chamber? Do you need to be dropped in a vat of radioactive chemicals? Or do you just need an extra nose?

ALEXANDRE FREILE: (Laughs) You have to smell a lot.

I smell a lot. But probably not in the same way that you mean.

You have to learn how to recognize the smell and memorize them. After that, you have to create the perfume. 

Whoa, it’s almost like your mixing and matching scents in your head. So, unlike most No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSBs) and DOMs, what you have is smell on the brain?

All you need is a bit of creativity. And a lot of (a French-accented English word that sounded refined yet was indiscernible).

I didn’t understand what you said, but it definitely sounded very expensive. In a previous column of mine where I interviewed another perfumer, I offered him a whiff of my personal scent so he could describe in is own scent-infused vocabulary. I am graciously offering you the same opportunity.

I can probably tell what your perfume is, what is the accord of your perfume, what are your perfume’s ingredients…

Hold on. I was referring more to my natural scent, “Eu de RJ.” Or more accurately, “Eww de RJ.”

You mean… your body odor? (Nervous laughter. Really nervous laughter.)

You can consider it a cultural exchange.

Non.

I always thought it was the French thing to do. Oh well, vive le différence. Speaking of the French thing to do, perfumes were originally formulated to mask our natural scent. But aren’t our natural odors supposed to be a signal for the opposite sex to find out if they are attracted to us? After we revive them with smelling salts, of course?

Basically, your perfumes tend to match your own smell.

Match my own smell? I’m a vegetarian on a heavy bean diet. A smell that would match my own might cause a small explosion. 

That is why, when you buy perfumes you have to make sure that you like it. You have to make sure that your skin responds well to your perfume. Remember: you should wear perfumes like you would wear jewelry. It should make you feel confident.

So perfumes should be treated like your jewelry, but not necessarily sprayed on your jewels. Got it.

Perfumes should be weapons of seduction.

I know many DOMs who wield perfumes like weapons of mass destruction. How do you know which “weapon of seduction” is right for you?

You can use different perfumes depending on your mood and on the time of the day. Preferably, fragrant for the day and sensual for the night.

My yaya tells me the same thing. 

It really depends on what you are looking for.

I know some NGSBs who are looking for a reason to live. How exactly does perfume work? Isn’t the objective of perfume — aside from clearing your sinuses — to make you irresistible to the opposing, este, opposite sex?

Perfumes help you attract women.

It only helps? You mean it’s not a sure thing? No wonder I see many men who smell like they drowned in cologne trawl bars while carrying around a fishing net.

Again, you not only have to like your perfume, but you also have to feel confident with this perfume. The girls will like the way you wear your perfume.

And like what our resident DOM has painfully learned, you do not wear your perfume anywhere near your jewels.

I think a perfume is a beautiful lie. You pretend to be something that you may not necessarily be.

No wonder Congress always smells good.

You use (perfume) to enhance part of your character and personality. You use it get to something. However, you aren’t guaranteed that you will get what you want. That’s the game. You use a perfume and then you play with it.

And when you play, you just hope that you will not be a victim of debilitating groin injury or else it is “game over” for you. I know this question is asking for it, but where should you spray on perfume?

You can spray wherever you want to be smelled. So you can spray it all over your body, your chest, your underarms, your neck, wherever you want.

And anticipating our resident DOM’s question, I want to remind him he should only spray in areas where he will not be arrested for public indecency. Is there any way to tell if a perfume is compatible with your body chemistry? Or is it okay to use a perfume as long as you don’t grow another extremity or spontaneously combust or mutate into another DOM?

It’s really about taste.

You have to taste what perfume is good for you? I knew there was a catch…

It’s quite difficult to articulate. Some perfumes will work on some men and will not work for others.

So when a perfume doesn’t work for a man, it probably mutates him into a DOM.

Traditionally, perfumes were extracted from animal secretions. These included the odor sacs of the civet cat, the peri-anal glands of beavers, sperm whale expulsions, even boar urine. The presumption here was that these excretion contained pheromones that would attract female humans.

(Yeah, right. I am SO attracted to man who smells like a sperm whale expulsion. — One of RJ’s three female readers.)

We don’t really know if there is proof that pheromones work on human females. We do know that they work on female animals. But we use these types of “animalic” products to give something rich and long-lasting to the perfumes.

Ah, yes. The long-lasting smell of a civet cat will make me a stud among female civets.

We need a little bit of drama in these perfumes. And these “animalic” elements give (the perfume) a little bit of drama.   But it is really about chemistry. If you really like someone, then there is some chemistry involved. And perfumes are all about chemistry. So it will help you get what you want.

And we hope what you get is not chemical warfare.

So these perfumes are suppose to help enhance your own body chemistry (and not end up attracting female boars, no matter how voluptuous that boar may be)?

Of course, the perfume will help you out. But you don’t really need perfume. If you really like someone, you feel something that happens inside your body, like chemistry. But perfumes will boost this effect.

Whenever I felt that type of chemistry going on in my body, I was told to go to confession.

My Booty is a Wonderland

Aside from animal parts, do you also add musical instruments to perfume? I often hear perfumes described as having “three notes”: the top notes, the middle notes and the bottom notes. Do I need my iPod to make my perfume work?

A perfume is a harmony of volatile ingredients.

“Volatile”? No wonder I’ve seen so many DOMs explode after spraying themselves with canisters of cologne. Dentures and pacemakers and pomade all over the place. Not a pretty sight.

We have different kinds of volatility. You have some very volatile products, some sparkly ones, and some long-lasting ones. To make a perfume, we need all these ranges of volatility. The top notes are the more volatile products, the middle notes are the heart of the perfume, and the bottom notes are the more long-lasting perfumes. But these three stages work harmoniously together, so you cannot see the difference.

Why are most of those bottom notes for most perfumes made from floral scents and herbs? I didn’t realize that floral was so expensive unless you pair it with — I don’t know — plaid?

We use some flower notes to make a perfume feminine, and we use some aromatic notes, some herbal notes, some woody notes to make a perfume more masculine. 

I didn’t realize that perfumes were hermaphrodites.

There is some olfactive intuition when it comes to perfumes. That is why when you smell a perfume, you know that it is for a woman. Why? Because there is something that tells you that it is for a woman.

What is that “something”? Your konsyensya (conscience)?

If a perfume is citrus or floral or woody, then it means the main accord is based on these ingredients.

So that’s what they mean when they say “splendor in the grass.” How about the more musky, animalic scents? What kind of notes are those? And do those notes go “Grrrrr”?

Musky scents are used at the bottom of the perfume because it is a long-lasting ingredient. We use them to give a perfume a sensual effect and a nice volume.

In the Philippines, we call them “hayop sa dating (the animal has arrived).”

Time For Axe-Ion

And in your ongoing effort to create more elaborate and aesthetically pleasing lies, I understand that you have developed a body spray with multiple personalities?

(Laughs) For the new Axe Twist, we created a duality in the perfume. Cologne is more classical, and it can be boring. But with Axe Twist, there is the hook of something new, of something fresh, something that will make people remember you.

So the DOMs trawling the bars will no longer need the fishing nets.

BRIAN DURUIN: A lot of people think that Axe is just a regular cologne. But the problem with a regular cologne — as opposed to fine fragrances — is that it just masks odor.

My odor would be put to better use if you guys could bottle it and market it to single lonely male boars.

What is unique about Axe body spray is that the fragrance was designed to last up to six hours, compared to regular cologne that evaporates after two hours.

Also, what’s in the body spray that isn’t in other regular colognes is…

A civet cat?

The body spray is basically an odor-blocker. When you start to smell sour and vinegary because of your pawis (sweat), there’s a property in the body spray that neutralizes that odor and then there is a great fragrance.

I always thought that my sour, vinegary scent was what made me attractive to my wife. She always seems to be on a natural high whenever she smells me. It is either that or nausea.

That’s what’s unique about the Axe Twist body spray. It works on body odor and has a fragrance that starts off with a fresh, citrus scent that gradually changes into the smell of sandalwood that keeps the girl intrigued and interested.

You have been warned, my three female readers. Welcome to the jungle.

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For comments, suggestions, or if you are a single lonely male boar, please text me at PM POGI <text message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers.