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The story
On 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” (Anything-Goes Live-Commentary) board, a thread asking what cologne men should actually wear kicked off. Even when posters named colognes considered mainstream classics, replies kept shooting them down with “most of those stink.” The discussion started from the basic question of whether men should even wear cologne at all. As it rolled on, it spread beyond scent preferences into body-odor countermeasures, clashes with fabric-softener smells, and nostalgic talk about brands that were huge back in the day — but in the end, nobody landed on a definitive “this is the answer.”
What people said
Sounds like it'd smell like damp, unaired laundry
Eito deserves to get sued by D&G already (his hit song 'Kōsui' won't stop name-dropping their perfume)
I like this one
It's not pretentious, feels subtle, but still gives off a clean impression
What about Tactics?!
Natural is best
Japanese people have a low rate of bromhidrosis, but with all the sebum and humidity, bacteria-caused body odor itself actually happens pretty easily for us
That's the one that smells like baby powder
Who's even buying those?
That's just an excuse for BO you can't fully cover up
I've got mild BO myself so I actually like the oriental ones
Way too much, idiots
Some of these are so strong that even one spray on your ankle is overkill
Are their noses dead or something
If they'd just use the right amount, people would rate them way higher
🥺 One that smells like juniper and gooseberry? Sounds like Yennefer from The Witcher
At the end of the day you wear it to land whoever you're after, so of course gay guys wear it and straight guys wear it too
Anyone who says otherwise must have zero luck with women
There are people trailing an insane cloud of fabric-softener stink — how do you even do laundry to end up like that?
Totally fine if you're a student
But if it's unpopular I'll just quit wearing it
I wore Sculpture
Though that's 25-year-old info
'Ultraman Marine' (aka Ultramarine) was huge too, right?
Couldn't stand it, rough times back then
So nostalgic
A high schooler I met recently was wearing it too
It's been sold at Matsumoto Kiyoshi (a major drugstore chain) since this year, so it's way easier to get now — nice
Just go with the Captain scent and no woman's going to make a face at you
It's like a 'cheap' smell, if that makes sense
That's because they use cheap synthetic fragrance oils
Just dab some Old Spice behind your ears
A lot of the ones with reviews saying 'smells like old-man hair gel!' actually come pretty close to that barbershop smell
You mean eau de toilette
Background and key points of this discussion
The claim floated in the thread that “Japanese people have weak body odor” is partly true, but the number of sweat glands varies a lot between individuals, and in Japan’s humid climate, bacteria-driven odor can develop on pretty much anyone. Cheap perfumes tend to smell “cheap” because they lean more heavily on lower-cost synthetic fragrance compounds instead of natural essential oils, which makes the scent’s layering and longevity feel flat instead of multidimensional. Also, as one poster noted, “eau de cologne” and “eau de toilette” refer to the same type of product but with different fragrance concentrations — the higher the concentration, the longer the scent lasts, though too much makes it easy to tip into “overdoing it.” Go-to brands also vary sharply by generation. The reason no single “correct answer” for men’s cologne exists seems to come down to this tangle of concentration, ingredients, and individual body chemistry.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “There’s really no telling what cologne a man should wear……………………“
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