Scents and Sensability!

Scent is one of our most powerful senses. It inspires hunger, for food and more importantly, for sex. Pheromones. It’s not enough to look good. No. Part of having that extra edge is to smell good. It’s sexy. Every man should have colognes in his arsenal. Think of fragrance as an accessory. Fragrance is seasonal. For summer you want light, airy, fruity. For fall/winter you want full, musky, sexy.

Here are my very favorite new scents for fall/winter 2009:
BOIS CLASSIC 1920 – It has a top note of amber with spicy notes of vetiver and citron and a touch of sandalwood. It’s musky and very male.

COSTUME NATIONAL SHEER – One of my favorite minimalist designers, this “Eau Fraiche” has notes of amber. It’s actually unisex and can be worn by men as well as women. It’s as sleek as the namesake clothes. It’s light enough for all year long yet the amber gives it edge.

COMME DES GARCONS CDG 2 – With top notes of saffron and kumquat blended with vetiver, incense, mint, white smoke and nutmeg this is a big, very male cologne. If this were a gay male he’d be a buff, hairy daddy, just out of the shower, slipping into a leather bomber jacket.

JOHN VARVATOS VINTAGE – John is one of America’s great designers. Classic American with a twist and that’s a great way to describe this cologne. It has top notes from the chypre family, with spices and a warm, leathery background. Just look at the bottle.

And my personal favorite:
TOM FORD FOR MEN - Tom is one of the world’s great designers. He’s also a prolific image maker. His advertising campaigns for Gucci and then YSL in the 1990s and early 2000s are some of the most provocative in advertising history. And the campaign for his namesake cologne is no exception. It’s been banned in Italy. But the cologne is devastatingly sexy. Take classic woods fragrance and combine lemon, patchouli and cedarwood. What you get is sexy. This is a cologne to seduce.

Take a day ladies and gentlemen and visit your local department stores’ fragrance bar. Try on one, maybe two colognes and then walk away. Go look at shoes. Come back and try a few more. Then go have a coffee. You only want to commit to a new fragrance after it has settled so that you know how it will truly smell with your personal chemistry. And when something smells good, you’ll know it.

Good luck…  M*