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Signature Scent

I wear cologne. That in it of itself isn't too funny, though the process of purchasing it has led to more than a few laughs in the past. Luckily, I usually buy big enough containers of my cologne so that I don't have to go through that process very often. As it turns out, though, I'm starting to run out of my usual cologne. Yup, it's time for another cologne purchasing post.

First of all, I was toying with the idea of getting a different scent. I like the scent I have now, but I've been wearing it for a while. Maybe it was a grass-is-always-greener thing, or maybe my natural curiosity was kicking in. Either way, I was thinking of trying something else, so I mentioned it to the Mild Girlfriend while we were out shopping. It turned out that she liked my cologne more than I did, so her vote was to keep going with the current scent. In fact, she dubbed it my "signature scent" (hence the title of this post).

Well, then. If you put it like that, I pretty much have to get it again. For the record, I was not opposed to this plan. I started from the position that I like that scent, so buying it again made sense to me. It also turned my quest into one of finding my existing cologne, rather than discovering a new one. That seemed easy enough. We both figured it'd take one quick trip to a department store.

We sauntered over to said department store, and located a bottle of the cologne (in the correct section this time). I don't even remember why I decided to sample it, but I did. Maybe I just wanted to refresh the smell since I already had some on. Or maybe I was being overly cautious to make sure it was the right one. Whatever the reason, when I sprayed it on the little paper strip, it smelled ... different. I'm not sure I have the correct words to describe the smell, but I could tell that it wasn't the smell to which I was accustomed. I have a pretty bad sense of smell, so I even asked the Mild Girlfriend to see if she thought it was the same thing. Nope, it was not.

Well, I've been told many a time that cologne smells different on your skin than on paper. I sort of understand the science behind it, but the important part is that you should actually apply some to yourself before purchasing it. So, I did. Maybe I just hadn't noticed that smell before because I never spray any on paper, you know? Nope, same effect. Both the Mild Girlfriend and I took a whiff a second time, but we agreed that it still didn't smell like my usual cologne. What the heck?

We asked a sales person if the formulation had changed or if something else was different about the cologne, but that wasn't the case. In fact, we stopped at multiple places to see if it was just that one sample that was different. They all smelled the same, which meant that they all smelled different than I was used to. To top it off, multiple sales people told us the same thing: it was the same cologne, nothing had changed. I didn't quite know what to make of all that, but I was quite confused at this point.

Trying to be helpful, a couple of the sales associates gave me a little sampler of the scent. That way I could take it home and try it when I wasn't surrounded by perfumes, colognes, and other assorted scents. I gladly took the samples, but I didn't have very high hopes. I mean, it wasn't just me. There were two grown adults that had verified that it was just a different scent. My signature scent had up and disappeared on me.

The next day, I remembered the samples. I sort of resigned myself to go through the motions, just to convince myself that it did actually smell differently. So, I sprayed a little bit on myself, and took a whiff. My scent was back. I don't know how, but somehow, in the process of a day, it somehow magically transformed itself to smell like something I liked it. Somewhat shocked, I then presented my wrist to the Mild Girlfriend for verification. She agreed; it was the smell that we both recognized. Hallelujah!

I have no idea how that all happened, but it did. I happily returned to the store to buy some of this cologne, now convinced that it was in fact the cologne that I liked. So kids, learn from my travails and heed the moral of the story: signature scents are hard.

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