The bacteria are back. They've been reading the trade press and, as far as we can tell, watching a lot of old comedy specials. We've checked everything below for accuracy. The attitude is theirs.
So. Whole-body deodorant.
I saw.
Pits, feet, “underboob,” and a region the packaging describes with great confidence and zero anatomical terms.
They found out about the feet.
They found out about the feet! A hundred years of “deodorant” and it meant armpits. Now the drugstore aisle looks like a map of places we have cousins.
For most of a century, deodorant meant one thing: underarms. This year the big names decided the rest of you was an untapped market. Whole-body sticks, creams and sprays are on every shelf, and the largest company in the category expects the segment to be a tenth of the business within a few years. The pitch is that your underarms are only a small share of where you sweat. True enough, and beside the point. The sweat that smells comes from the apocrine glands, and those are concentrated in exactly the place deodorant has always covered.
The armpit is where the restaurant is. The rest of you is a vending machine.
Feet are a vending machine with a heater.
Fine. Feet are a food court.
The number keeps going up
What's the deal with 72 hours? Everybody has 72 hours now. Seventy-two hours of odor protection. Who is this for?
Someone who isn't showering for three days.
Name one person.
We've met several.
We've met several! But it's the number that gets me. Twenty-four was the number. Then 48. Now 72. Next year it's a week and a punch card.
The claims race is real. Twenty-four hours became 48, 48 became 72, and reviewers keep politely noting that three days feels like a stretch. Most of these products do fine for a day. The number describes a lab test, not your life, and almost nobody goes 72 hours between showers unless there's a tent involved.
Do you know how they test 72 hours?
Sniffers.
Professional sniffers. Somebody's kid went to college, came home, and told the family he got a job smelling armpits on a schedule.
A licensed nose.
Day one, the nose leans in. Day two, the nose leans in. Day three, the nose leans in, and somewhere a mother is telling her friends her son is “in clinical research.”
He is. We're the research.
Here's the part nobody says out loud. Every shower resets the count. You're not getting 72 hours. You're getting until tomorrow morning, like everyone else.
Deodorant with a mileage rating. “Up to 72 hours. Your results may vary. Do not operate heavy machinery.”
We are the heavy machinery.
What the tenants think of Zaffré
Zaffré is an underarm deodorant and plans to stay one. Not out of principle. It's just where the smell gets made. The BioShield™ formulas use a zinc active that captures the molecules these two release, right at the skin, so there's nothing left to reach your nose. All day. That's the only number we'll put on a label, because it's the one your shower schedule agrees with.
Four formulas, and you pick by skin: Sensitive if a natural deodorant has ever burned you, Max if your days run long, Core for every day, Tea Tree if baking soda has never bothered you and you like the smell of the woods.
They put a zinc bouncer at the door of the one place we actually eat.
And they didn't spray it on your shins.
Your shins were never the problem.
Your shins are fine. Leave your shins alone.
One more, and then we'll go
Knock knock.
No.
Knock knock.
Who's there.
Seventy-two hours.
Seventy-two hours who?
That's what we said.
I'm going to the feet.
Pick your formula in the buyer's guide.