January 13th, 2007
 By nature, I'm supposed to not care about my outward appearance, body odor, etc.. We, as males, are suppose to go around wearing "fashionable" tiger/leopard skins with blue ties (Fred Flintstone anyone?) going around scratching our nuts with our left hand (and then smelling it), holding an oversized club to bludgeon buffalo with our right, and grunting two word sentences all day long.
Maybe in between all that I'm supposed to pass idle time by discovering the wonders of playing the timeless "pull my finger" game with my favorite hunting buddies. This version of man is a popular discussion topic with feminists who have nothing better to do than to gather in groups with the sole intention to hate on the opposite sex while they put curlers in their hair then pig out on low fat strawberry-banana yogurt and watch marathons of Living Single, Sex In The City, and The Tyra Banks Show.
Yes, the future of man indeed had a grim outlook. Thankfully, with the help of a few products, the cave men have evolved into self-proclaimed "sexy beasts" that *gasp!* care about how they are projected to the opposite sex.
Since the turn of the new millennium, it has been slowly more socially acceptable for men to take better care of themselves without being called gay lol. The correct term for this would be "metrosexual". There are varying degress of this ranging from "I just want to be presentable at all times" to "I'm a pretty boy" haha. Wherever you or somebody you know may fall, it's a proven fact that males in my age group (I'm 20 at the time of writing this) take more time to do their daily hygiene routine than we used to. This is due to the recent surge of male toiletries that have been introduced to the market place lately.
Seriously guys, take the time to look at the amount of products we have to chose from these days. We have our own body wash, shampoo, lotions, and facial cleansers now. Remember a few years back when all we got were bland, generic deodorants that weren't labeled "Sure" and if we wanted shampoo with fragrance, we'd have to settle for Strawberry, Apple or some other fruity scented variant of Suave? Now, you'd be hard pressed to find something we need cosmetic wise that isn't available on the store shelves already.. The market is absolutely booming with the male market growing 13% in 2004 to $59 million and sales are forecasted to exceed 27.2 billion dollars by 2007 in America alone.
"This research also demonstrates that a high proportion of men are very involved in the process of choosing their own toiletries products. More than half say that they are responsible for both choosing and purchasing these items. Almost a further quarter say that, although they usually leave the actual purchasing to someone else in their household, they usually give instructions as to which brands, and which particular products, they would like. Fewer than one in five leave the whole process of choosing and purchasing the toiletries they use to someone else in their household." -- Cosmetics Design.com
Besides the whole "blah blah for men" line of smell good items, in the last 3 or so years we have witnessed one company step up, take the charge, and totally spearhead this male revolution. Anyone who just so happens to browse the deodorant sections of your supermarket has seen the Axe products by Unilever already. Backed by aggressive, albeit questionable, marketing strategies that use strong sexual emphasis, the brand has gone on to totally take over and dominate the market with an iron fist.
Being offered in 9 different "seductive" scents for the body spray cans (with marketable names such as "Tsunami," "Essence," "Touch," and "Phoenix"), about 6 or 8 body wash scents that are either based off the scents offered in deo. form or new ones that are exclusive to the body wash line (such as "Reloaded," "Groove," and "Snake Peel"), and the same 9 scents in antiperspirant and invisible roll-on, any of Axe's competition looks pretty minuscule when surrounded by an army of these products in the now instantly recognizable, sleek black packaging on the shelf.
 So what makes all these products appealing and why do males spend so much time in the mirror getting ready for the day? Is it to impress the ladies? Partly. Smelling like a 14 day old corpse isn't going to get you many dates unless you're hitting on a girl in Raccoon City (home of the Resident Evil T-Virus outbreak for the survival-horror inept), so smelling decent is half of the battle. It's also nice to know you smell good as it puts a little pep in your step. If you smell good, you feel great... Fresh, clean, and ready for the world (or any random girl that happens to talk to you during the day). So couldn't you just wear cologne and get the same results? Why is body spray so popular?
Technically you could just wear cologne, but I don't believe cologne is right for all situations in every day life -- just as I wouldn't expect anyone to wear body spray out on an important date with Ms. New Booty; it just wouldn't be right. Cologne is also expensive and it wouldn't be too smart of you to splash a bit on after you get out the shower everyday. Now, I don't know how girls operate with their perfumes or anything, but I'm sure they don't just wear it all the time. Who knows, maybe they do. They can do that sort of thing because they're girls and need to smell like a bed of roses, and according to the ever popular "Dj R0d Logic," they aren't allowed to belch, pass gas, or defecate, either... because that would be extremely "unlady like" and inexcusable... *rolls eyes*
"As men are less defined by sex, by place, by family, by ethnicity, by job, by social class/caste, their physical self becomes more important in defining who they are," says Rose Cameron, senior vice president and planning director at Leo Burnett, who recently spearheaded a behavioral study of 2,000 men. "They have more tools at their disposal than ever before to sculpt themselves into the image of who they think they can or should be." -- USA Today article, July 2005
Body spray gets the everyday edge because they are more appropriate (they don't smell like you're trying too hard to impress), more easily accessible (you can just swing by your local grocery store if you're in a bind), and most importantly, are much cheaper than cologne (Axe retails for about $4 for a 4 oz. can vs. a 2.5 oz bottle of Sean Jean's "Unforgivable," which is $45 in comparison). Axe has been so successful, it recently gained a very unoriginal copycat competitor named "Tag" by another giant in the market -- Gillette.
Tag features the same three letter brand name in silver letters against a familiar looking black can (although recent pics online depict a brand new silver can) along with a marketing campaign straight out of Unilever's play book.
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