Scents and sensibility

You may have missed the barrage of television commercials dredging up one of our most intimate concerns — body odor. Often a music video featuring very active and sweaty people or a scientific-looking authority figure in a white lab coat informs us that perspiration oozes everywhere all the time. Underarm protection is not enough. Fortunately, there is a solution to this recently manufactured need: whole body deodorant.

Marketing strategies exploiting our insecurities and anxieties can be counted on to sell almost anything. Implying a sexual deficiency with a testimonial from a professional sports figure, usually male, is particularly effective. Often, the word “clinical” is bandied about before a disclaimer in tiny print informs us that there is no FDA testing or approval.

Playing on our deepest fears not only moves merchandise but also guarantees that very few will risk embarrassment and complain about a worthless product.When former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson was hawking male enhancement pills I doubt that many men called the state attorney general’s office when results didn’t “measure up.” Sports personalities Doug Flutie and Frank Thomas promote a dietary supplement that’s been “clinically researched” to boost testosterone levels for men. The cringey tagline “… and she’ll like it too” adds just enough sexism and misogyny to put them in the snake oil hall of fame.

The cringey tagline “… and she’ll like it too” adds just enough sexism and misogyny to put them in the snake oil hall of fame.

It is tempting to blame or credit modern technology and our moral failings for the plethora of dubious solutions to real and imagined problems. In fact, all of this has its roots in the late 19th century. Before social media, before the internet, before television, before radio … there was Lydia Pinkham. The daughter of staunch abolitionists from Lynn, Massachusetts. Lydia Pinkham in 1876 pioneered mass marketing and the use of testimonials to sell Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound for menstrual and menopausal problems. It was an herbal-alcohol “women’s tonic” dismissed as quackery by a medical community generally apathetic to women’s health issues. In fairness to Pinkham and other purveyors of so-called patent medicines of the era, what passed for prescription drugs were often not very effective and sometimes more dangerous than home remedies. But it was her marketing approach that changed everything.

Lydia Pinkham put her own likeness on the label and marketed directly to women. She solicited their concerns and opinions and incorporated them into her advertisements. Shining a light on women’s health issues won her a legion of fans and a lot of sales. A reformulated version, Lydia Pinkham Liquid Herbal Supplement, is still available today at CVS and Walgreens, $17 at Amazon.

While body odor is generally considered unpleasant, sometimes our noses can mislead us. Conservatively, the underarm deodorant market is worth $8 billion. Armpits are approximately 4% of our body surface so convincing people to use whole body deodorant increases the market to $200 billion.

Now, take a deep breath.

Smells like money.

M.A. Duca is a resident of Twin Lakes, narrowly focused on everyday life.