The smelliest time of the year

The first day back after the holidays really does stink.

In his washed out, dull, beige clothes, this washed out, dull, beige man would not normally get my attention. But on the bus today he does. This morning, this particular member of the invisible army of geriatrics quietly winding down the clock around my hometown has actually caught my eye.

Or rather my nose.

Because he is liberally drenched in something I’d more readily associate with a fourteen-year-old schoolboy; musky, intense and very much in-your-face.

And to be fair to him, it may very well have been a fourteen-year-old schoolboy who bought it for him. ‘Tis the season, after all, for well intentioned if unimaginative and misguided gift giving.

But it’s not so much the Lynx Effect of this incongruous octogenarian that has my attention, but the grim reminder it brings with it. For tomorrow, Tuesday January 3^rd, is officially the most throat-clogging, eye-watering, nostril stinging, malodorous day of the year.

Tomorrow is the day on which the majority of the deskbound classes return to their offices after the Christmas break. Many of these individuals will do so doused in one of the selection of mid-priced fragrances gifted them over the holidays. From the first train of the morning to the last bus of the night we will be breathing an atmosphere somewhere between a bustling city bar and a men’s locker room.

Now, I understand the old geezer on the bus smelling like a teenager on the pull – he’s almost certainly off to visit the teenager responsible. But the army of office-monkeys is another matter entirely. Why do they soak themselves in fragrances they’d never wear on any other working day of the year, if indeed at all?

 

The science of fragrance selection

When I was growing up my Mum and Dad would splash on something smelly maybe a couple of times a week. Their dresser was laden with bottles of different after-shaves, eau de toilettes and perfumes, most of which little used with only a few regularly replenished. Likewise now my bathroom shelves record two decades of poorly selected Christmas and birthday gifts interspersed with a few regularly used favourites.

I doubt my parents or I are that uncommon in this respect. And there’s a good reason for it. We select fragrances which appeal to ourselves, whether we’re buying for ourselves or buying for someone else. If you buy for yourself, based on your own tastes, you know you’ll be right. If you buy for someone else based on your own tastes, it’s a lottery. And it’s not like buying clothes or jewellery; you can’t “see” fragrances. You can’t easily pigeonhole them like you can shapes, colours and materials.

Fragrance selection is very personal and pretty well understood.  The smells we like and dislike on ourselves, and those we like and dislike on other people, are an extension of our body language, part of our animal DNA. Fragrances we choose for ourselves will fit ourselves. Fragrances we buy for other people won’t necessarily fit them, even if we try to get it right.

So perhaps January 3^rd isn’t the smelliest day of the year after all? Perhaps it’s not that people are wearing more fragrances at all, merely that they’re wearing far more incongruous ones; and on some subliminal level we’re more conscious of that.

 

Cough, sneeze, wheeze

On an individual level that could possibly be true, but it doesn’t account for the chemical soup that will be furring the inside of my lungs when I get on the train tomorrow morning. In a crowd individual incongruities don’t matter, it’s quantity not quality.

People do seem to wear more scent on that first day back at the office. Why?

A simple case of showing off to co-workers and colleagues perhaps? Even simply doing your bit to provide water-cooler conversation fodder. How many times tomorrow, after all, will we hear the words “You smell nice, did you get that for Christmas” uttered with a grimace while someone chokes back a cough? Something to chat about, something to vary the usual small talk, something safe and conventional and which reflects positively on our private lives.

Quite possibly. At least for some people. But however reassuringly selfish that explanation is, I can’t believe many people would care enough to consciously go out of their way for it.

Deference and gratitude to the gift giver is perhaps a more credible answer. However poorly we may rate the selection, it doesn’t diminish the sentiment. Someone close to us cared enough (societal expectations of gift-giving aside) to go out and choose this present for us, and we care enough about them to show our appreciation by making a point of using it and enjoying it.

Maybe so. This is certainly more credible because we care about the people affected. I can see it motivating us to wear a fragrance we don’t like for a family get together, or a New Year’s party. But the first day back in the office? Isn’t this a little gratuitous for simple, selfless, demonstrated appreciation?

So I wonder, perhaps, if it could be guilt? We aren’t as grateful as we feel we ought because, while we respect the thought behind the gift, we know we don’t like it and we know it will soon be joining the other ghosts of Christmas presents past in some cluttered corner of our bedroom.

Just a little too deliberate, just a little too egregious, just a little unnecessarily over the top; a selfish sacrifice then, perhaps, to salve our own conscience?

And perhaps not all that different from the old guy on the bus after all.