The bizarre ‘smell maxing’ TikTok trend costing parents big-time

Image: TikTok @thecologneboy / @es_scents

‘Drunk Elephant Tweens’ as they have become known, are taking over chains like Sephora and Mecca for high end skincare products once reserved for the adults, and this obsession with what they put on their faces is not just reserved for the young women.

The David Jones fragrance counters have a new demographic buying up perfumes and it’s not the desperate dads the day before Mother’s Day.

Nope, it’s teenage boys looking to elevate their appearance and look by ‘smellmaxxing’, ‘scentmaxxing’ or ‘fragrance maxxing’ and starting their own cologne collection.

“Attractive people are more likely to be treated well”

And the concept of having a signature scent of one’s own has grown straight out of another viral TikTok trend, ‘looksmaxxing’

TikTok influencer Marco Phillips who makes plenty of content on personal aesthetics, explains the concept of ‘looksmaxxing’.

“Looksmaxxing is basically about maximising your looks,” the TikTokker shares in a viral clip.

“So to ‘looksmaxx’ is to change your physical appearance to help yourself in society. This all comes from the ‘halo effect’ which is the idea that your appearance affects how other people see you.

“Attractive people are more likely to be treated well in society, while those who aren’t that attractive are more likely to be neglected.”

One bottle of cologne cost $1000!

Marco who has over 6.2 million ‘likes’ across his many informative TikTok clips mostly on the subject of male grooming, spruiks the benefits of going to the gym, caring about your hair, clothes and skincare.

As well as, you guessed it, your smell.

And while smelling nice seems fairly wholesome compared with diet culture or the pressure to have big muscles, the costs involved in buying high end fragrances are astronomical.

TikTokker, ‘The Cologne Boy’ is an 18 year old who drops regular reviews about his enormous scent collection.

He has amassed more than 41 million ‘likes’ for his scentmaxxing or smellmaxxing clips including one of his most watched about the time he purchased an $1000 bottle of Jean-Paul Gaultier’s, ‘Le Male’.

For scentmaxxing beginners, The Cologne Boy, real name Jatin Arora, recommends deodorants, showering after the gym, using a moisturiser and having good oral health, which as a mum of a teenage boy, seem like sensible tips to me!

He also recommends a bunch of cologne’s for different seasons of the year and times of the day; which is where the problems begin when you consider the costs involved in having just one, let alone multiple high-end fragrances.

“It’s very alpha”

While my teenage son is still mostly just using his deodorant and an occasional spritz from dad’s cologne, other mums of teens have told me about their sons’ obsession with scentmaxxing.

“My son loves his fragrance and when his mates come over to our house, they all enjoy testing his different ones so the whole house stinks,” an anonymous mum told me.

One mum and high school teacher shared that she has had to ask her students to go easy on the cologne after she was getting daily headaches from the multiple smells.

“They don’t stop sniffing each other’s necks and enquiring after the scent,” she told me of the scentmaxxing trend at her NSW school.

“The boys even have day, night and seasonal scents and one told me he spent $500 on a ‘blind buy.

“They measure each other’s ‘aura’ and ‘rizz’ ( attractiveness), which to me it all seems very alpha.”

Another mum told me how while she is not against the smellmaxxing trend, or her son smelling nice, she is not forking out the hundreds of dollars herself.

Instead her son is saving up his money to buy his own cologne.

“The high end scents he loves are expensive and he is obsessed right now,” she told me.

“He has a drawer full of testers at home that he has collected and will buy his favourite one when he saves up enough cash.”

I hope she has the Panadol at the ready.

文章来源：dailytelegraph

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