To Smell or Not to Smell?

There are two co-workers who noticeably “smell good.” One is a manager and when he walks by he leaves a pleasant invisible trail. The other is a co-worker I occasionally work drive through with, and standing side by side with him is more pleasant than most because he smells so nice. 

I find the smell of both of them especially refreshing because it’s McRib season.

When lunch hits the restaurant fires up the McRib Sauce Cauldron and the smell is pretty overwhelming. The entire restaurant starts to reek of a Texas BBQ science experiment, an elixir of industrial food production. It’s not awful, but it’s not nice. When a co-worker with a distinct scent walks by it’s the odor equivalent of finding a nice patch of shade in the park on a hot summer day.

🗳️ Should I wear a scent at work?

Earlier this year I worked with my friend Chloe Coover to find a signature scent for KmikeyM. Chloe is the co-host of Nose Candy, a perfume podcast, and she helped me come up with some options I was planning to put to a shareholder vote. The only problem was that there was a very clear winner.

Of the seven samples I tested the only one that worked was Copper from Comme des Garçons. Chloe’s notes for this scent, in relation to KmikeyM, were:

Cold, metallic, and reminiscent of coins, Comme Des Garçon’s Copper was the first fragrance that came to mind when undertaking this project. Masculine and grassy, in addition to its resemblance to currency.

And it passed the test of both Kathryn and a number of friends! With no contest to speak of the vote became more difficult to craft… I no longer needed help deciding which scent was the most KmikeyM. But now that I work in an industry with strong smells, the idea of an odor of my own is more appealing.