The sweet smell of excess

Depending on the status of the place — upmarket or budget — this may mean you’re looking at fake stuff, and the shop may or may not be upfront about this. There is a strand among these places that openly says these are not genuine scents, but approximations. So in exchange for knocking a zero or two off the price they are not including one or two of the ingredients that made the original successful. That will be because either they don’t know what these things are or the mystery elements are prohibitively expensive.

If you’re in the other type of place, though, you’re looking at the real thing, and that is even funnier. On just such an excursion recently I found myself in front of a men’s range called NBA, which I took to be the National Basketball Association. I had to look it up to make sure, because isn’t that like finding a football made by Chanel or a Donna Karan baseball bat?

But no, this collection of men’s toiletries bore the name of a sports organisation whose members are famous for being eight feet tall with armpits the size of Tobago which boast a shock of hair that looks like — and probably smells worse than — an onion patch in a rain forest.

So we’re being invited to be like one of these guys?

Actually, of course, we’re being invited to smell like they do when the match is over and they’ve had a shower and are about to hit McDonald’s for three burgers and a wheelbarrow of fries, after which they will sweep up a waitress with each hand and head back to their crib to show the grateful girls that they — with the help of their black polyester sheets — really can make a woman’s hair stand on end.

Alternatives to the NBA experience include the similarly overpriced but better-known David Beckham brand, which involves subscribing to the cult of a smiling, overrated and now over-the-hill footballer whose marriage to a pop star who can’t actually sing transformed him from a working class sportsman to a jet-setting figurehead with a thin and bogus layer of sophistication. As nice a guy as he apparently is.

Then there’s Barcelona, not the city but the football team, whose tika-taka brilliance and success have led to their red and blue striped shirts being paraded all over the world. Now you can smell like Lionel Messi does when he’s out for some paella with his pals.

Wouldn’t it be great to be a fly on the wall at the moment when these sporting titans are introduced to the parfumier, an effeminate, cowering man afraid of allowing his disdain to show through the frisson of excitement he feels in the presence of such ruffians?

“So, o great sporting icon, what do you think? What word comes to mind when the fragrance wafts into your nostrils?”

“Err, poncey? Poofy? Smells like a sugar-bomb explosion in Paris Hilton’s bedroom.”

At this point the star’s business manager coughs loudly and mumbles “$5 million over three years. Be nice. Wouldn’t you like to be in Paris Hilton’s bedroom?”

“I’ve been there, amigo, and you’ll never guess who I met on his way out…”

“Well, I’m afraid we’re going to have to scoot, Jean-Francois. We love it. Don’t we, Sergio? Sergio?”

Perversely, it is a pleasant surprise to get a breeze of something sweet from a passing hulk. I just don’t know how they can wear enough of the stuff to make it last all day. Or is the world full of secret metrosexuals, waxing their chest and applying moisturizer to keep their eyes young-looking? When they do the gruff masculine thing of announcing they’re going to the toilet, are they really off to top up the aromatic magic?

I’m sure the women of this world are glad that the boys are at least thinking about personal hygiene, and it’s good to have a bit of variety, rather than the standard whiff of the supermarket men’s deodorants. But $100 for a bottle of designer after-shave balm, when its fragrance is gone within five minutes unless someone has their nose jammed into your cheek? That’s taking the mickey.

Just as air-conditioning is for killing the heat, not creating arctic conditions, deodorant is for keeping the stench at bay, not creating an almost visible trail behind you. Let’s keep it real, guys. Smell somewhere between acceptable and quite nice, and leave the paying-through-the-nose to the ladies. Now, Beyonce or Lady Gaga? I don’t mind, really. Whichever you fancy. They probably don’t wear it themselves anyway.