There’s something going on with the way teenage boys smell.
It’s become a cliché for adolescents to douse themselves in Axe body spray at the first sign of puberty. But lately, teen and even tween boys with money to spare are growing obsessed with designer fragrances that cost hundreds of dollars.
Ask a teenager why he wants a $200 bottle of cologne, and he might tell you he’s “smellmaxxing,” a term for enhancing one’s musk that is spreading on social media. “I started seeing a lot of videos on TikTok and thought, I don’t want to miss out,” said Logan, a 14-year-old in Chicago who has been putting his bar mitzvah money toward a collection of high-end colognes.
He displays bottles from Valentino and Emporio Armani proudly, in front of his lava lamp, and considers his nearly $300 bottle of Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille to be his signature scent. “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled Axe,” he said.
Some teens are buying fragrances with their allowance money, while others request them as birthday or holiday gifts from their parents (with varying levels of success). But they’re moving the needle: Teenage boys’ annual spending on fragrance rose 26 percent since last spring, according to a recent survey by an investment bank.
For a story in The Times’s Style section, which was published this morning, I talked to adolescents and their parents about the rise of young scent hounds, and why the cosmetic products of adulthood seem to be catching on earlier than ever.
Notes of honey
I spent a few months speaking to teenagers at fragrance counters around New York and in online cologne forums. What struck me most was the language they used, which sounded more like the stuff of sommeliers than middle schoolers.
The scent Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier has “a really good honey note,” said Luke Benson, a 14-year-old who lives in Orlando, Fla., and says he talks about fragrances with his friends at sleepovers. Tom Ford Noir Extreme, on the other hand, is “a lot spicier and a little bit darker.”
“I’d never heard him say a designer name of anything,” Luke’s mother, Brooke, told me.
Other teenagers name-checked obscure legumes used in perfumery or informed me of their distaste for the scent of oud. One paused our conversation to make sure I was familiar with “sillage,” a French term for how heavily a fragrance lingers in the air. (Now I am.)
For many boys, the appeal of designer fragrances is in the air of maturity they confer upon their wearer. Young people say the scents make them feel more adult and talk about them in a manner that emulates the older fragrance influencers they follow online.
The influencer effect
Over the decades, trendy scents like Drakkar Noir and CK One have gone in and out of vogue among late teens and twenty-somethings. But TikTok influencers appear to be motivating even younger boys to seek out more expensive scents.
“Social media and TikTok make people want to be more grown up,” Luke said.
TikTok’s fragrance influencers recommend scents for different occasions; date night, going to the gym, attending middle school. Most prominent among them is Jeremy Fragrance, an often-shirtless German with nearly nine million followers. In his videos, he sniffs his fans, trying to guess which scents they are wearing.
And a younger generation inspired by Jeremy Fragrance is coming up behind him. Jatin Arora, 18, shares daily fragrance reviews with more than a million followers. His collection of nearly 400 bottles includes many free products from brands, which seem to be catching on to the fact that these influencers can get their products in front of younger buyers.
Hannah Glover, a middle-school physical fitness teacher in South Carolina, has been a little bewildered to see her 11-year-old students coming to school with $160 bottles of cologne. “These middle school kids are so impressionable,” she said. “I mean, you can sell them anything.”
Glover banned spritzing in her classroom, but it wasn’t enough: Glass bottles keep shattering in students’ backpacks and unleashing their scents upon the entire school. “Sometimes I’d rather take the B.O.,” she said.
THE LATEST NEWS
Israel-Hamas War
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Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s cabinet, threatened to leave the government unless Benjamin Netanyahu answered questions about the future of the war, including a postwar plan for Gaza.
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Thousands of demonstrators in Tel Aviv called on the Israeli government to negotiate a hostage deal with Hamas. Ambassadors to Israel from the U.S. and other countries gave speeches.
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A marketplace for survival supplies — including entire aid parcels — has emerged in Gaza.
War in Ukraine
THE SUNDAY DEBATE
Who has the advantage in the presidential debates?
Trump. That the debates are occurring at all shows that Biden, trailing Trump in the polls, is desperate. “Time is running out to turn around the public’s dismal view of his presidency,” Liz Peek writes for The Hill.
Biden. The low number of debates the candidates agreed to leaves Biden with fewer opportunities to meaningfully gaffe, especially so far out from November. “The guy whose name is on the cover of ‘The Art of the Deal’ just got outmaneuvered,” Jim Geraghty writes for The Washington Post.
FROM OPINION
We dont always need to use an apostrophe, John McWhorter writes.
A.I. chatbots designed to provide lonely people with companionship only discourage them from forming human connections, Jessica Grose writes.
Bring back movies dedicated to making us cry, Heather Havrilesky writes.
Here are columns by Nicholas Kristof on an invasion of Rafah, and Ross Douthat on Trump’s Manhattan trial.
Lives Lived: Brig. Gen. Bud Anderson single-handedly shot down 16 German planes over Europe during World War II. After the war, he became one of America’s top test pilots during the “Right Stuff” era. He died at 102.
THE INTERVIEW
This week’s subject for The Interview is the marine biologist and climate policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author of the coming book “What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures.” We talked about how individuals might change their thinking about the climate crisis.
Is it your sense that there are people who want to be involved in climate but are paralyzed by fear or despair?
First of all, I don’t think there’s any one way we should be communicating about climate. Some people are very motivated by the bad news. Some people are overwhelmed by that and don’t know where to start.
I just saw a study that said if we follow the most plausible possible path to decarbonization by 2050, the amount of carbon emissions already in the air will result in something like $38 trillion worth of damages every year. A future like that is going to involve sacrifices. Whether we choose to embrace it as a sacrifice or reframe it like, No, we’re actually helping —
What is it that you don’t want to give up?
I don’t want to give up the range of possibilities for my kids.
I assume you care about other people on the planet, besides your children.
You know, I just don’t know how to think about the future. I’ve done a handful of interviews with people who are thinking about the climate crisis, and the fundamental thing I’m trying to understand is how to think about the future, and I don’t feel like I understand.
Perhaps it’s worth saying it’s OK not to be hopeful. I feel like there’s so much emphasis in our society on being hopeful, as if that’s the answer to unlocking everything. I’m not a hopeful person. I’m not an optimist. I see the data. I see what’s coming. But I also see the full range of possible futures. I feel like there’s so much that we could create, and the question that motivates me right now is, ‘What if we get it right?’
Read more of the interview here.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
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BOOKS
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THE WEEK AHEAD
What to Watch For
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Trump’s defense team presents its case tomorrow in his trial in Manhattan.
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Taiwan inaugurates Lai Ching-te as president tomorrow.
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The French Open begins tomorrow.
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A British court will hear the appeal of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, against extradition to the U.S.
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Primary elections in Idaho, Kentucky and Oregon are on Tuesday.
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Kenya’s president begins a state visit to the U.S. on Thursday.
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Idaho’s Democratic presidential caucus is on Thursday.
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The Cannes Film Festival announces the winner of its Palme d’Or award on Saturday.
Meal Plan
If, like the Cooking editor Margaux Laskey, the weather where you are is unpredictable, you may want to prepare dishes that work whatever the forecast. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Margaux offers such recipes, including a shrimp pasta and grilled soy-basted chicken with spicy cashews.