Men's Grooming

What’s Your Favorite Cologne On a Man?

My absolute favorite thing in the world is to walk by a man after he’s been wearing Jean Paul Gautier Le Male for about half a day. There’s something about the scent and his sweat combined that drives me crazy. Freshly sprayed Gautier doesn’t quite do it for me. A guy I wasn’t too crazy about wore that cologne. I cringed whenever I received a text or phone call from him, but couldn’t help wanting to get closer to him in person if he was wearing JPG.

Another cologne that makes me feel a little funny “down there” is Hugo Boss’s Boss. For six months I worked at my father’s cousin’s hotel outside of Venice, where groups of German businessmen stayed for lengthy periods of time. I had a small fling with one of the younger ones—I still remember his name, Thorsten Grimm. He would invite me to his room every evening after dinner, but we could only talk in gestures. He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak German, so I’d spend most of my time giving him back massages. I swear! Only massages. I was a virgin back then, so screwing was out of the question, but sometimes it was so hard to resist because of that damn HBB permeating his room and body. To this day, whenever I get a whiff of that cologne, I get a tad weak in the knees and wonder what became of my old German flame.

This isn’t cologne, but I believe it deserves honorable mention: Axe Africa body spray. I first fell in love with it by a different name—Lynx Africa. I was living in Ireland at the time (yes, I travel a lot!), and one of my Irish mates wore it incessantly. I loved it so much I started wearing it, and brought 16 cans of it back with me to the US. Axe didn’t come out in America until years later, so whenever I ran out I’d have Neil send some over to me!

I’m big on olfactory senses and know that smelling good for your partner is extremely important when it comes to romance and sex. I am not afraid to ask my boyfriend to freshen up if he’s smelling particularly funky, nor is he ashamed to oblige. He understands that not doing so might impact late-night activities. All that being said, you will frequently catch me sniffing my boyfriend’s armpits. In my opinion, a man’s natural scent is the biggest turn-on!

Guest Post

Lola Houlettes is a film grad from NYU who enjoys video-making, music-making, writing, sewing– basically anything creative. She’s an interesting paradox between book-worm and social butterfly. Her ideal man is tall, dark, handsome, funny, and well-groomed!