Friday, August 17, 2012

Get Back, (Dark) Temptation

Do you know what happens when your boy child hits about 11 1/2?  He starts to SMELL.  Kids going through puberty are little body odor FACTORIES.  They can be squeaky clean, but their armpits?

PEEEEYOOOOOOOO!

I was in the car with him this week, and caught a whiff and remembered the most important thing on my to-do list:  let him pick out some deodorant.  So, today, we went on a little deodorant-buying expedition.

Back when I was a kid and lived with my dad and my brothers, there was only ONE deodorant in our house.  Right Guard.  Spray.  I honestly didn't need to know anything about the ozone to know that this stuff was killing SOMETHING.

Since then, I hadn't looked at men's deodorant.  Ever.  Charley buys his own, so it's not something I have ever considered.  Until today.  And I have to congratulate you, you manly men, because you are sort of eclipsing us girls in the sheer number of deodorant selections on the market.  There were so many, it took us quite a while to choose.  So we did what we do when we go hat shopping for JH, and here I shall helpfully give you the guidelines of shopping for your pre-teen/teen.  This should work equally well for girls.
You're welcome.

Rules for shopping for deodorant (or whatEVer) with your preteen:

1) try as many as possible in the first ten minutes.
2) narrow it down to three
3) add two more (or trade two out, it's your decision, really)
4) be completely unable to choose between two, and you'll run out of time and have to choose two anyway.

This should only take between 1 -3 hours.

As I said, I was impressed by the sheer number of choices, and the creativity in naming men's deodorant/anti-perspirant.

We tried:  Swagger, Sport, Pure Sport, Clean, Extra Clean, Fresh, Extra Fresh, Playmaker, Game Day, Smooth Blast, Phoenix, Danger Zone, After Hours, Fiji, Danali, Matterhorn, Excite, Anarchy, Twist, Kilo, Clix, Essence....The list is long and (hat tip to the marketing department) mighty creative.

We finally settled for Degree Sport and Axe Essence.  Not TOO manly, but it works to tackle those crazy hormonal preteen armpits.

I refused to consider Dark Temptation.  He's 11, and he's my baby, and dammit, I'm paying for it, so I still have a say.

3 comments:

I, Rodius said...

When I was in my early- to mid-20's, I suddenly became violently allergic to every mainstream deodorant brand I tried. So I switched to this. The actual crystal stick, not the roll on, lasts flat-out forever, and it works, and it doesn't haven't any horrifying perfume, though that last bit may not be a selling point to a pre-teen. Anyway, buy it, tell everyone about it, so it never goes out of business and I can keep buying it every couple of years.

I, Rodius said...

Oh, I forgot to say the this. This: http://store.thecrystal.com/crystal-body-deodorant-stick-p2.aspx

spielbee said...

heeeelarious. Love. I've been wanting to blog about the names of these things too...women are always wearing or washing with something that smells like a waterfall. Does a waterfall SMELL? Loves ya!
erin