I had a flashback to my formative years the other day there, courtesy of a can of deodorant.
As I scooshed away, I had the nozzle pointed the wrong way and ended up choking on a miasma of chemicals designed for under my arm, not down the back of my throat.
As I spluttered and gasped, I was 15-years-old again, back in my family home, where I had suddenly started to exist in a cloud of smells and a panoply of soaps, deodorants, aftershaves (not that I’d started shaving) and various concoctions to make me fragrant and fresh.
I knew I needed all these because the adverts on the telly told me I did.
I’m not quite sure at what point this transition from fighting to escape a bath to battling to be allowed to hog the bathroom started.
Probably, like everyone else of that era, it was around the time aunts stopped giving you Blue Peter annuals for Christmas and offered up “smellies” or a soap-on-a-rope instead; albeit one shaped like Popeye. (Kudos at this point to the lovely folk who decided to mark the Papal visit in Scotland in 1982 with a souvenir ‘Pope-on-a-rope’ soap).
But from those humble beginnings began the adolescent hunt for things to make sure I kept BO at bay. After all, the jolly jingles on the telly told me there was nothing worse than underarm odour.
Up until that point, to me soap was whatever was sitting at the side of the bath. Usually white and lumpy, the results of old cakes being added to new. No point wasting money, son.
Worse was when, for some reason, a cake of coal tar soap would turn up when I was wee. No doubt mum reckoned the lifestyle of urchins merited extra-strong antiseptic soap, but the smell still takes me back to the days of being scrubbed within an inch of my life.
But fast forward to the early 70s and the wonderful world of the likes of Shield. After all, you had to think of the morning, think of the whole day ahead, and what could happen before you go back to bed. That’s why the first thing you need to remember every morning is Shield. Aye, day-long freshness guaranteed by the sea green soap shot through with deodorant. It made my acne worse.
I dabbled with Zest briefly. But then I didn’t want to smell like lemons.
Frequently I put in a request for Imperial Leather in the weekly shop. I know, aspirational for a kid on a housing scheme. It’s not like me and my family would ever be having a bath on our private jet. But then, neither would anyone else.
Not, of course, that you could trust a mere bar of soap to stop you smelling like a warthog. Nope, you needed deodorant sprays for that. Lots of them.
As I realised I couldn’t go into the world smelling like me, my go-to can was something called Us. I used enough of it to single-handedly destroy the ozone layer.
It was a big tin with a big blue bulb top. Somewhere in the mists of memory, I seem to think there was talcum powder involved in the spray, but that might just be me conflating it with something else. After all, there was plenty to choose from.
From Right Guard to Sure to keep you dry. All of these would see you daisy fresh whether you were in the jungle, climbing a rock face or singing in a rock band. Surely they would be enough for the journey into town on the number one bus?
So, I was now scrubbed-pink clean. I had so much anti-perspirant on, I wouldn’t sweat even if I was locked in a sauna. But it still wasn’t enough. I needed that extra layer, that je ne sais quoi. Aftershave.
Back then it still wasn’t on to call it eau de toilette. We were men. Or boys.
And what did we reach for. Oh come on, what else? The great smell of Brut.
We were told to splash it all over. And boy did we ever. With the soap, with the deodorant, and gallons of it from that iconic green bottle.
A generation of teenage boys smelling like Henry Cooper. I’m not sure that was a good thing.
There were contenders of course. But Old Spice was for your dad and Tabac was a bit too much like air freshener. (Oh the unbound joy when Calvin Klein eventually freed us all with Obsession).
So. There I was standing in the bathroom smelling like a million dollars (or an explosion on a fragrance counter) and ready to take on the world. Except of course for the plooks. The hunners of plooks. I had a face that could easily pass for some of the more visible craters of the Moon.
Which is when anti-acne treatments entered my life. I had the blue liquid stuff to burn off the spots. I had the cream to stop them forming. I had the cover-up to disguise them. I would have not looked out of place in a panto with all that panstick on.
But still, I was ready to venture out.
I had my Shield soap in place, I was Us deodorised, I had used half a bottle of Brut. And if I came within five feet of you, all you would smell is Clearasil.
All of this meant I was a trendsetter. Some years later X Ray Spex would sing of Germ Free Adolscents. I was one of them before it was a thing.
