Cultural Conversations: Deodorant

There's only one thing for which I have put in a specific request here from home: The New Yorker. I wouldn't argue if someone managed to snag a container of OPI Bubble Bath nail polish, though, but that's off the subject. There's also only one thing that Jacob has requested from home: deodorant. I laughed at first when he said that, but after a few months living here...hoo, boy.

No, my hot (literally and figuratively) husband isn't getting overripe here in the desert sun, but deodorant isn't a commodity that's...caught on, culturally.

And for all the cultural capital we may have built up over these past few months living overseas and melding into different countries and traditions, it's probably still not going to be enough to cover my persistent insistence that people stop skipping the stick - deodorant, that is.

Why why WHY do men (not necessarily Emiratis, but other expats) refuse? We're not talking road crews here. We're talking stockboys at the grocery, security at the mall, TAXI drivers, for Pete's sake! One foreign service employee at an Embassy cocktail party in Abu Dhabi commented to me about returning to the states from Africa, "It was like they pumped perfume into the air or something. I couldn't stand it, it was so unnatural. I mean, bodies, or rotting milk, I guess it doesn't smell good, but it's natural, you know? I was glad to get back to it."

NOT ME. Crank up the chemicals, pump in the perfume. Anything but B.O. Am I insensitive? A priss? Unnatural? Whatever, just spread the antiperspirant love, join the neo-deo movement. And, no, sorry folks: Axe (just like all the incense or cologne in the world), despite it's sexy (somewhat tamed here) ads promising women all over you, is not the same thing, does not work, will not do anything but make it worse.