Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/08/soap-promises-to-make-you-smel.html
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9 Likes
How does this differ from smelling like rum, sodomy and the lash?
30 Likes
How am I supposed to verify that it works? I can’t even smell my own navel.
28 Likes
jesus – i hope it smells exactly like that!
5 Likes
Like jesus?
I like my body products with a healthy dose of irony.
Or did I mean to say sodomy?
2 Likes
The worst are the beard products. I was growing out my beard before COVID-19 and wanted to try keep it under control, so I was trying some different beard balms and beard oils to see what worked best. One company on Amazon is listed as “GROW ALPHA BEARD” and their slogan is “Being Weak is a Choice”
The other really weird one I stumbled across was aprons. I wanted a water repelling apron and I’m a little picky about where I wanted the pockets on the apron. There are a ridiculous amount of aprons on Amazon being aimed to baristas and butchers with models that can only be described as macho hipster douche bags.
6 Likes
So, if I use the Naval Supremacy soap, I will smell like sea men?
25 Likes
This overcompensation towards masculinity when it doesn’t need to be is just really dumb. It’s soap. However the plainness of the soap reminds me of a staple of Venezuela, it’s this big ass bar of blue soap that was used primarily for washing clothes by hand but could be used for personal use. Its really nostalgic for me and immensely useful since its meant to be used for general cleaning and it lasted forever, if i was inclined to like the Duke Cannon soap it’d be based on a similar plain aesthetic though with the manly BS they can go jog off.
8 Likes
Why would you want it to differ from that?
1 Like
But isn’t this the essence of how women’s products are marketed?
7 Likes
I can’t tell parody from not anymore. After looking at the Duke Cannon website, trying to figure out whether I was laughing at them or with them, I think the company is serious. Holy shit, though, encouraging you to take a digital whiff of all their products labeled THICK or their beer and bourbon smelling soaps, or the over the top military references to soap.
How could any man look at this shit and take it seriously?
12 Likes
Yes and a lot of it still also bullshit. Sometimes a thing is just a thing. I understand that there are advantages towards catering to a particular market, but men’s products tend to really lean into toxic masculinity and antagonism towards feminine things which is much more egregious.
9 Likes
I believe they are trying to find some difficult-to-find sweet spot in their marketing where they can appeal to bros and hipsters at the same time.
10 Likes
You gotta twist your finger in there and smell it.
2 Likes
I can personally recommend Duke Cannon bar soap. The pine-scented one is glorious. I get the big bars because my SO’s hands are ginormous and he used to drop smaller soap bars constantly.
4 Likes
I say turn about is fair play. If women’s products make you feel like a paragon of femininity, I want my products to have similar masculine boosting capabilities! Make me think of saw dust from building a log cabin, or earth from plowing a field, or galvanized steel from erecting… giant… skyscrapers…
I’ll be in my bunk…
13 Likes
Ok, I agree with the fact this is hilariously stupid marketing.
I actually bought 2 of the THICK bodwashes for the first time yesterday.
I laugh at all this stuff, but Axe is indeed for teenagers- however my favorite bodywash (aside from English made Molton Brown’s Russian Leather or Tobacco Absolute) at Target was discontinued, it was Oliver’s bourbon and cedar. It was like 14$ (!) so they got rid of it.
So now, if you want something that actually holds its smell, and smells nice, you have to put up with this sad posturing machismo bullshit.
I just want bodywash that doesn’t smell like flowers, and works. I don’t need messages telling me what some moron thinks manliness should be.
I wish there were a bodywash to make me smell like Jean Luc Picard in the Klementium Library. I’d buy all of it. That’s my kinda manliness.
Added some links to awesome stuff.
Favorite bodywash- Molton Brown Tobacco Absolute
https://www.moltonbrown.com/store/bath-body/bath-bodywash/tobacco-absolute-bath-shower-gel/NHB173
Favorite Shaving cream- Taylor & Sons Sandalwood
Edit- this was next to Duke Cannon soap in Target. Am I supposed to bathe in or drink this? 
Thinking of leaving this on my bar as a joke. Everything is being marketed in “small batch” and “reserve blend” now, even potato chips. Bourbon marketing has taken over ad agencies for everything, incredibly stupid.
5 Likes
Sounds like a plus to me
9 Likes
I guess I read this soap thing as “ironic/humorous commentary” rather than a genuine attempt to market something.
2 Likes
There is a kernel of truth in comedy though, and considering the humor is not self effacing i highly doubt it’s being ironic. To me it reads more like “I’m only joking bro. But seriously bros don’t use chick soap”
3 Likes
