What do you smell like to your dog?
A social scientist says we should let our romantic partner pick our perfumes and colognes
Diddy’s actions are unforgivable, but his Unforgivable cologne absolutely made me stay on a terrible date for far too long. I'd chitchatted with this guy in the Amazon early days when you could leave a review and reply to each other. He just kept on leaving reviews for things I really enjoyed or was about to leave my own review. We clearly had similar taste in books, music and movies. I saw that his suburban Chicagoland location wasn't too far from me (born and raised in the city). From a couple reviews, I knew which fraternity he was in and at some point learned what his alma mater was.
But I had not seen his face. (My avatar was my real face.) A Black British man, a fellow reviewer who we both occasionally chatted with, jumped in our review discussions and bluntly said the two of us should meet up after a year of occasional online discussions. I declined. Again, I did not know what this guy looked like. Even after the conversation switched to emails, it was all about Amazon, hip-hop and random products. Nothing romantic.
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However, the millisecond I saw his face in a photo, I was ready for this date to happen (at one of my favorite vegan restaurants although he was not a vegetarian or vegan) asap. And that's how I ended up on a dud of a date with a handsome man who smelled amazing — with zero chemistry. At all. Ironically, he still hinted that he wanted to go on a second date and blamed the vegan restaurant as the reason we didn’t get along. But before he could prove himself right, we ended up in another argument over turtlenecks and KRS-One. (It’s too dumb to explain.) That second date never happened.
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At the time, Examiner.com was pretty popular. I was the Chicago Fragrance Examiner and regularly went to department stores, boutiques and African essential oil stores to test out different aromas. I'm not sure how we got on the discussion of colognes, but I had not found any cologne that was as enticing as Diddy’s Unforgivable cologne.
There were a few others that were cool, such as Diesel and Jay Z’s 9 IX cologne, but I had largely lost interest in celebrity fragrances. (Beyonce’s Heat smelled like church ladies on the front pew. As someone who loved most things Beyonce, that perfume and her next one was an absolute no.) He knew I loved that first cologne, and he wore it. I inhaled that scent and tried to make chemistry magically appear.
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Twenty years later, I've yet to smell a cologne that smells better than Unforgivable. I have zero respect for Diddy after the Cassie video and the zillion other allegations, but the truth is he really did have a nice-smelling cologne. These were the fragrances (and the date) I thought of when social scientist Arthur C. Brooks said people should never pick out their own fragrances and that they should let their partners do it. I knew firsthand that scents and looks can be equally attractive.
However, I frowned for another reason. My home is never without a collection of candles, incense, essential oils and perfumes. Every Sweeper Sunday, my dog knows the house is going to smell like a stronger combination of my favorite household cleaners and sprays.
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As much as I love my dog, I don't want my home or my own body to smell like a dog — unless it's her dog coconut and oatmeal shampoo or the kiwi blossom wipes. Those two are pretty pleasant. But picking fragrances was one of my favorite past gigs. And that got me to thinking about how sensitive dogs’ noses are. As opinionated as I am about smells, a dog's sense of smell is 40 times stronger than a human’s. I wondered what do I smell like to my dog.