Good Vibrations Magazine

Mixed messages, I tell you!

So, here we are, and by “we” I mean women, with everything in the media telling us that we should be odor-free. Remember all of those FDS commercials? I do! It’s an early memory of mine, along with maxi-pad (with new wings!) and Summer’s Eve douche commercials. “Feminine hygiene” was stamped into my young-woman brain early in life, and any mention of the musky “woman-area” was slightly scary and mysterious. I remember going through my mother’s bathroom cabinet, pulling out belts and pads with long, thin ends, wondering “what am I ever going to do with these things?” It was all so…daunting.

FDS-Feminine Deodorant Spray… do they still make this? I can’t remember the last time I saw a commercial or ad for it. So, where to look, but the internet?

First off, weirdly enough, I find that someone is selling a bottle of FDS on eBay. Packaged, but still, is someone really going to buy this? Also, you can get a bottle on Amazon for $3.99. What a deal!

I finally come across the official site: www.fds.info and am completely baffled by what I find. The FDS site actually features BLOGS on it! Okay, so they look fake to me, but you can click on “Life of a Coed”, “Young Professional”, “New Mom”, or “Moms with Teens” and read such fascinating entries as this: “Toiletries… while shopping for them last evening, I came across FDS, and thought what a great product to take along, I tried it as soon as I returned from shopping and I think I am hooked! I saw the website on the packaging so I visited and here I am sharing my life experiences… I guess now I’ll have to keep you all posted!”

I told you…fascinating! I also learn from the site that FDS has been around for 35 years and now is available in “Pursonals” sized… ie, purse-friendly sized. So, now you can smell “shower fresh” anytime! Fantastic!!

What’s the point, you may be asking… and don’t worry, I do have one. For years, as a woman, the message has been “delete all traces of your body’s odor” right? But then…then… a product comes along that shakes everything up. And that product, my friends, is called Vulva Original. (www.smellmeand.com)Vulva Original is a perfume that claims to smell like “a real vagina” and “optically resembles the object of every man’s desire” as well. That’s right, this perfume smells and looks like vaginal fluid, and it’s for sale. (By the way, I am crossing my fingers that a sample will make its way to my desk, as I’m uber curious now.)

But who is this perfume for? Well, it looks like Vulva is being marketed to men (straight men, let’s assume) that may miss the smell of a woman, or perhaps just want to carry the scent with them all day.

“Apply it to the back of your hand and sniff. Your libido will take care of the rest all by itself” says the site, making it sound like this perfume is to be used as a sexual aide of some sort.

No matter what its “use”, I find it ironic, not to mention amusing, that one product (FDS) is sold to women to get rid of scent, and another (Vulva) is sold to men (and women?) so they can smell that exact scent. It’s funny, don’t you think?

I forwarded the Vulva Original web site to a few of my friends, to see what their reactions were, and they had a few things to say:

“Why would I ever buy something that I already have for free? I checked out the web site and was particularly interested in the gallery of pictures. Why do they have a man smelling one of the model’s pussy? I mean really? I thought you dabbed perfume on your neck or wrists. Speaking of dabbing things on your wrists or neck, a girl I dated used to do the sexiest thing ever and I always thought it was totally out of character for an almost stone butch to do. We’d be in public or the car or sitting at the dinner table at Thanksgiving (not really, but you get the picture) and she would slide her hand down the front of her pants, take a quick swipe at her box, and wipe the juice on both sides of my neck. And there I would be, completely turned on and able to smell her scent (which I loved) for several minutes. There were times when she would wipe it on my upper lip and then tell me not to lick my lips. That one happened while we were shopping in Nordstrom’s. Misery, sweet, sweet misery. It was so fucking hot and my head would spin completely out of control.

Oh, and their slogan – smellmeand.com? – you have got to be kidding me. They should fire their ad agency.”
-M.

“I have to say I am a mixed bag when it comes to scent… sometimes body odor can be really sexy… alluring. It’s an intimate smell. Other times it can be a bit overwhelming– like when you can smell somebody walking down the block. Even though a scent can be something I appreciate here and there… I have to say I would NEVER buy the Vulva scent. It’s not something I would necessarily seek out. It’s not that it’s “gross” or anything like that… but I think any allure a “vulva” scent would have is… personal. It’s not like I get hot smelling the pussy of the person next to me on the bus. It’s more intimate and personal than that…”
-DC

“I’m perplexed and amused by the Vulva perfume. I showed my dear partner with the intent of having a good laugh. PC boy that he can sometimes be, he was defending the product, saying, “If it was just a hint or a suggestion of the smell, it would be really nice.” He then went on to say that “clean sweaty balls” smell like trees! And, you know, I like the scent of fried chicken, but I don’t want to WEAR it.”
-D.

“I think that there are so many kinds of scents, and everyone’s body chemistry is so different, that anything purporting to smell like a real person, or a real person’s parts, can’t possibly get it right. (I’m reminded of the phone customer who asked about our Vanilla Vulva lip balm we used to carry, hoping that the Vulva flavor was stronger than the Vanilla– of course, there was no Vulva flavor, it was just a name, but it shows what some customers are interested in…) Additionally, there’s the synthetic nature of the scents, and how unnatural they end up smelling.”
-J.

So, to smell or not to smell? Cover it up or buy it and put it on your wrist? Well, FDS is only $3.99 while Vulva will run you 19.90 Euro (that’s about 23 U.S. dollars). So, it costs more to smell like Vulva than to not smell like Vulva. Isn’t that interesting.

And, I just wanted to share this little tidbit I came across in the research of this article: “Read the Label.” Enjoy!