Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations Part 2: Scent for a Daddy on a Budget and Scent for a Professional Speaker

frankly, no one stands a chance

Hiiiii my greedy little fume-heads! Ready for this week’s edition of Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations? This is a recurring column where I answer some of y’all’s questions about perfume and offer up my best recommendations to help you smell hotter, richer, meaner, gayer – whatever you’re going for!

Each column kicks off with a perfume recommendation from me for an incredibly specific queer situation, and then we get to reader questions.

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If you’re new here and wondering why we’re talking about perfume, please check out my Why Perfume post, and then come back here, because I wanna give you a hug and then sniff your neck, deeply and in a very gay way.

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Scenario: So You Want to Broadcast Warm, Loving “Daddy” Energy and Have Someone Burrow Into the Collar of Your Sweater and Go “Mmmm” and Also You’re Maybe a Little Bit Broke

Wow, this is really unfair of you to do to someone. Wow. I need a minute.

OK. How dare you – the cutest person on Earth – think you’re going to put on a chunky sweater and then also smell like the living embodiment of HEALING, LOVING DADDY ENERGY? People cannot take this level of care!! They’ll spend all day crying!!! FUCK!!!

Alright alright. I’m calming down. All I need from you, my treasure, is ten bucks. That’s all. And in exchange for your ten-dollar bill, I’m going to give you three full ounces of this:

did you read the copy on the box

This is Sex Appeal by Jovan.

Now. I know what Sex Appeal looks like. This was created in the mid-70s, and it comes in the cheesiest packaging imaginable, topped off by a big silver-tone plastic cap, and it has the most embarrassing name, and it is laughably cheap.

And it also happens to be really, really good.

I’m not kidding. I have purchased this five times over the last decade. I’ve gone through two bottles of it myself; I bought a bottle for a lover; I’ve got a bottle stashed away as a backup in case they stop making this stuff; and someone once stole this off my dresser during a party. (I’m pretty sure I know who it was.)

Here’s why I keep buying this: Sex Appeal is masc warmth personified. It’s cozy and ambery. It’s soothing and barbershoppy, with a hint of herbs, but also has a spiciness to it, a prickle of chin-stubble rubbing against your cheek.

This is how you’d want a daddy you loved to smell – it smells like it knows what it’s doing. It’s competent. It knows how to tie a proper knot. Sex Appeal smells like it would go warm your car up on an icy morning and also do all the shoveling while you’re still in bed.

A word of warning: I don’t like this perfume when I first put it on. It’s sharp and acidic at first spritz, and it’s likely you’ll hate it in the early moments of trying it. But patience, my love – it takes 10-15 minutes for Sex Appeal’s warmth to emerge, for its raw edges to get sandpapered down into smoothness. Once you’re 30 minutes in, there’ll be no going back – you’ll be cosseted by the rich, creamy latherings of spiced shaving cream, and whoever smells the collar of your sweater will sigh with happiness.

Not bad for $10, right?

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Reader Question: “I have an extremely specific perfume request: I need to be taken seriously in my career."

-Emily C.

Today’s reader question comes with a bit of a backstory!

Emily writes that she was once an academic, before becoming a bike messenger in London. Then, in 2011, she set off to cycle around the world. Since then, she’s written two books and won a 4,000km race across Europe. Says Emily:

“For most of this time I’ve lived the life of a dirtbag, sleeping in hedges, and wearing the same outfit for weeks at a stretch….Now I’m more-or-less retired from ultra-distance cycling, and trying to make a living as a speaker, which involves visiting swanky companies, wealthy private schools and glitzy bike industry events, where everyone is very well dressed. The trouble is, I stopped buying non-cycling clothes back in 2008, so I’ve had to do a lot of work to develop a new personal style – during that time I seem to have gone from sweet little femme, to handsome middle-aged butch dyke, and nothing I wore in my late 20s suits me any more. 

I’m still finding my feet in this new identity, and in the circles I move in professionally. What perfume can I wear that tells them I belong here, that tells me I belong here, that strikes the right balance between athlete and intellectual, and that shows I fit in as well in the boardroom as I do in the streets or on the trails?”

Emily, I am cracking my knuckles right now. I am cackling. This is entirely how I want to spend my time, I am HERE FOR THIS.

So what I’m hearing is that you need to smell of projected confidence. You’re looking for psychic armor to help you speak, as a once-very-dirty-athlete, in front of hundreds of very clean, fancy people who are paying you to inspire, entertain, and validate them.

This is so, so doable. Here are my recs for smelling like you belong among the scrubbed and moneyed:

Terre d’Hermès by Hermès

why yes, you can find it cheaper, here you go

Curled cedar shavings. Woodchips in the sun. The smell of freshly showered wrists being buttoned into a crisp, clean, white dress shirt. Terre d'Hermes is an award-winning fragrance composed by a famous perfumer, Jean-Claude Ellena, and holy crap, it really is a winner. This opens with bright citrus notes, which quickly turn into woodiness – cedar, vetiver, a kiss of elegant patchouli. You will smell expensive, but you’ll also smell of nature – think running your hands along the sides of a beautiful, polished wooden boat, not “trees and leaves.”

This perfume is particularly radiant, meaning it will surround you in a tiny aura. That doesn’t mean Terre d'Hermes is strong or overpowering; it just means that this is there, and detectable, and stays there, like golden armor made for your skin. Have you seen Dune? When they all press their body-shield watches and you see a vibration of light pass over their bodies? Terre d’Hermes is that.

Note: There are many versions (called “flankers”) of this perfume. There are also lots of concentrations, meaning you can get this in eau de parfum and eau de toilette, as well. Ignore all of the different versions. You only want the bottle that says “Terre d'Hermes Parfum”.

Paris – Édimbourg by Chanel

Good god. Here is a bracing perfume designed to smell like the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. And you know what? I’ve never been, but I think it friggin’ does. This perfume brings chilly, sun-dappled trails to mind – this is green mountains and moss and icy water bubbling past; it’s a day with just a little too much wind to be warm.

Paris – Édimbourg opens with a strong bergamot/lemon blast, and dries down into a woodsy, fancy juniper/vetiver situation, to my nose. It’s Chanel, so it’s characteristically smooth and expensive-smelling, but it’s also oddly rugged.

This is a perfume for someone who’s been playing outside since they were born. They may have bare feet and wind-tangled hair, but one day, they’ll inherit the entire estate.

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Wild Card Rec: Lonestar Memories by Tauer Perfumes

What if we fucked with people a little bit? What if we didn’t even try to fit in? After all, what do they know about 4,000km bike races in the (i’m guessing) rain and cold and heat, eyes straining against the sun, legs trembling with exhaustion? What do they know about sleeping outside in the dirt, clothes stiff with old sweat, the stars burning above, night after night?

They don’t know. That’s why they need you to tell them. You’re the star, here, so why not do whatever you want? Why not smell like a sexy, untameable thing, totally unsuited to mingling among the clean and wealthy masses? Why not be unforgettable?

Lonestar Memories is gas and diesel fumes. It’s dry and leathery and alone. There’s a smokiness to it and (my favorite part) an unmistakeable rubber note. It’s so butch.

This is the scent of journeys no one else will ever understand. How could they? You’re the only one who was there.

Bonus: gay men will try to inhale you.

That’s it for this week’s Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations! I’ll be back next week to answer more questions.

In the meantime…

Do YOU have a perfume question?

Ask me here on this form that is linked right here!

Later, gaytor!