The 27-Year-Old
Cologne Virgin
GQ staff writer Clay Skipper made a confession in a recent
meeting: He’d never worn cologne—not even a squirt
of Tommy in middle school. So we sent him on assignment
and told him not to come back until he smelled amazing- i’ve always been a Speed Stick guy.
My dad rolled it on every morning, and
since puberty, that’s been cool with me,
too. Fragrances, I felt, were a dive too
deep into the dandier side of grooming.
But I’m 27 now. I have a dermatologist
and a New Yorker subscription. The next
must-have horse in the stable of grown-
ass manhood? Personal style. I had the
fitted jeans and the Stan Smiths. I just
needed a signature scent. But, like, how?
First stop: A department store
fragrance counter, where three eager
scent peddlers spritzed me with clouds of
colognes with names like Black Leather
and Man Intense. Shirtless men judged
me from the ubiquitous fragrance ads.
There were a staggering number of options.
I snatched a John Varvatos sampler
pack ($54) and fled, smelling like a
Christmas tree rubbed with clementine
peels and sprinkled with nutmeg.
No matter where I went—Sephora,
the high-end Aedes Perfumery in the
West Village, GQ’s grooming cave (yes,
that’s a thing)—the sni∞ng experience
remained overwhelming: Smell this!
Now this! A nose can take only so many
sandalwood varietals; four or five
and the nuances disappear. I needed
someone to help me navigate the
thousands of choices. I needed a Sherpa.
I found him in Brooklyn (of course)
at D.S. & Durga, a narrow shop with
an all-white minimalist vibe. David
Seth Moltz had bleached-blond hair and
pale blue eyes and told me that, more
than something to wear, perfume is
evocative, a portal to a memory you may
or may not have already made. “They
are stories that you can wear on your
skin,” he said, for those times when
“you’re stuck at the o∞ce and you want
to go back to the Italian coast.”Maybe cologne wasn’t just another
accessory for peacocking. But I didn’t want
to smell like Cinque Terre. I just needed
a smell that was mine, and so I gravitated
toward soft, warm scents—ones that said:
I work out and I cry. Moltz pulled two:
Bowmakers and Freetrapper ($155 and
$175, respectively, for 50 ml.). On first
whi≠, Bowmakers had an 18th-century-
violin-case musk—“deep and dude-y,” as
Moltz described it. Freetrapper was similar
but softer around the edges, like sitting
on a worn leather couch eating a peach.
But it takes time to see how they interact
with your skin. I applied one to each
wrist and waited ten minutes. Bowmakers
mellowed out and smelled less like a time
when colonialism was cool. Freetrapper
developed a golden, floral aroma.
“A scent creates a window into
something deeper in your mind,” Moltz
said. “It’s a whole world that you can enter.”
The only way to know if a cologne
works for you is to take it home and
wear it. (Really wish I'd known that at
the department store.) So I left with
a sample of each. The next day I applied
Freetrapper: one or two sprays to the
wrist and a soft dab down the backs of
the ears to the pulse in the neck. Don’t
rub it in, Moltz says; that will break down
the top notes, degrading the scent profile.
What did I discover by spraying
aromatic oil on myself? Well, it didn’t
turn me into a scent exhibitionist,
like I was worried it might. And despite
what Moltz said, it didn’t take me to
another world. Rather, it gave me what
Speed Stick never could: an aura of
quiet confidence. It added a layer to my
presence. So even if I’m not a guy
who’s going to wear cologne every day,
at least I can be a guy who has cologne.
Because like every other tool in the
generic toolbox of manhood, a scent
is something a grown adult should
be able to wield in a way that says: It’s
not my first time.I was
saving myself
for the
right one.
MAY 2017 GQ.COM 43PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF EVERETT COLLECTION. COLOGNE BOTTLE: GETTY IMAGES. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION FOR EDITORIAL PURPOSES.
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