Deodorant vs. Antiperspirant.

By Gwen Moore

Well, it finally happened.  I ran out of deodorant.  I was hoping that this wouldn’t happen, but it did.

You see, I lived here in Paris for my junior year of college, as a biology student, and the most memorable lesson that I learned during my studies was that there’s a reason that the French are infamous the world over for body odor.  It’s simple—they don’t really have deodorant.  They have antiperspirant, which some of them use, de temps en temps.  But somehow, for some reason, the technology of that added thing we call deodorant has largely escaped their consumer products division.

What’s the difference?  Deodorant is not just perfume, not just a scent.  It’s a chemical that inhibits the growth of the bacteria in your underarm.  That bacteria, when mixed with your sweat (yuck!), smells really, super bad.  We call it body odor.  Antiperspirant merely works to stop your underarm from sweating and it’s not completely effective, so really you need something that contains both an antiperspirant and a deodorant.

There is, like, no way that I’m walking out of my apartment wearing just antiperspirant.  I refuse to succumb to the most heinous of French stereotypes.  I refuse to smell like Pepé Le Pew.  So remembering that France is a bit too short on deodorant, when I moved back, I brought a small piece of luggage stuffed with Secret, the original powder fresh scent.  I’ve been wearing Secret since I was a pre-teen in love with Judy Blume books.  And I just ran out.  I’ve already put out a tardy APB to Mom, who will load up on some more Secret and ship it over.

But in the meantime, I had to make a special trip to a grande surface, hoping to find deodorant/antiperspirant combo.  And I actually did.

Antiperspirant makes up about 85% of the products on the aisle, but at least deodorant exists.  But I didn’t know what to buy because the scents are, well, disgusting.  You can’t find anything normal and you can’t find unscented, but you can opt to walk around all day smelling like a “Litchi of Vietnam” or some Nile river plant.  Weird.  Is the Nile even clean? 

There was a scent merely called “Girl.”  In English.  Girl.  I don’t even want to know what this is, but it sounds like some sort of misguided French attempt at capturing a female’s sex pheromones and disseminating them through her underarm deodorant.  As if Frenchmen need extra motivation to flirt. 

Then we get to the French attempt to conjure up freshness.  This group includes “Cloud”, “Cotton”, “Crystal” and “Clean Water”.  Notice that not one of those four items, in reality, has a scent.  This is pure marketing to make French women feel like they are buying something that will help them not smell so French.  And speak better Eeengleesh.

Then there’s the food and plant group.  This includes “Green Tea”, “Fresh Citrus Fruits”, “Aloe Vera”, “Vanilla” and, my personal favorite in this category, “Portuguese Pomegranate.”  I would spend the day giggling if I were to use Portuguese Pomegranate on my underarms.  Gwen, you smell good enough to eat.  Thank you.  It’s my Portuguese Pomegranates, one under each arm.

But I finally found my favorite scent.  My favorite scent to make fun of, not to wear.  It’s the most stereotypically French scent, but no one ever wears it around in a perfume.  Think about it.  What is synonymous with France?  Other than wine, bread and cheese.  Yogurt.  So it’s only natural that one of the deodorants should be scented as “Fresh Yoghurt.”  (Yes, with the English spelling).  This is way more disgusting than Portuguese Pomegranate or Litchi of Vietnam.  I picture a gelatinous, runny, off-white substance dripping down my body during a business meeting.  Mixed with sweat and perhaps little bits of strawberry or raspberry.  The kind with the fruit on the bottom.  You have to mix it up before you slather it on your underarms.  Leave it to the French to make yogurt-scented underarm deodorant, proving to the world that they just don’t understand basic bathroom hygiene. 

There were also some deodorants that had magical powers.  Several are made specifically for when you wear your little black dress, promising not to leave white streaks.  That’s fine.  That’s cool.  That seems normal.  But here’s one that is so not normal:  Veet makes an antiperspirant that LASTS FOR THREE DAYS.  It’s like the 18-hour bra, only too optimistic.  And I don’t understand the marketing at all—the person who is content to not bathe for three or four days in a row is most likely not even bothering to buy antiperspirant.  Right?  Please tell me I’m right about that.

Except that I think I’m wrong.  I think this may be the best-selling antiperspirant in France.  I once dated a French guy who bathed that often (the relationship lasted exactly three days).  When I got my hair done a few weeks ago, the woman asked me how often I wash my hair.  I was insulted.  Did she find something wrong with my hair?  I replied, every morning, of course.  She looked shocked.  Tisk, tisk, she said, waving her finger at me.  That is too much soap.  That is bad for you.  You should only wash your hair every three or four days.  On the outside, I smiled and said oh, okay, thanks.  On the inside, I knew she had just hit on a cultural difference that wasn’t going to find its happy middle ground.