Yes, I know the title is over the top. Read a little further and you’ll find the whole post is pretty melodramatic too. I’m trying to make a point.

I teach junior and senior high school English and art. This is my 6th year in my own classroom, and I was also a substitute teacher for a few months before taking my first contract. Working every day with teenagers has given me extensive research opportunities on which to base the opinions I express in this essay.

Axe Deodorant Body Spray is a blight on the world. It is a pulsing, nasty, white-topped mountain of a pimple on the face of humanity: you know, the kind that sticks up far enough to cast a shadow.

Advertisers are paid millions of dollars to promote this foul product to the victims public who somehow seem to keep purchasing enough to keep the company afloat. Like letters on the butts of sweatpants, it’s a phenomenon I just can’t wrap my head around. Lately, the geniuses at Axe have informed us that the fact that “women are getting hotter” should be a major concern, and their product is crucial for individuals hoping to survive this danger to society. What an insult to women, who don’t all look like the chick on a mudflap. What an insult to men, most of whom hope to find a woman with more critical characteristics than physical appearance. Axe completely ignores the fact that most guys prefer an “A” in brains to a “D” in bras. According to Axe, the only way men can cope with women who are growing more attractive by the generation is to douse themselves with wretched smelling “fragrances.” Luckily for those men, Axe is available for $7.59 at their local retailers. Hooray! Crisis averted.

I suppose we could look at Axe as a cost-effective way to control unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in the adult population. No grown woman I know would consider getting close to a guy who wears that stuff.

Unfortunately, teenage boys are buying this garbage like crazy because they believe it will make them appealing to teenage girls. They buy it and layer it on like house paint in hopes of making those young ladies stop day-dreaming about werewolves or vampires or whatever else girls find interesting these days.

There’s one serious, practical problem though. Boys read the labels on Axe Deodorant Body Spray, and believe that the second word of the official title means spritzing themselves with this stench will have them smelling FABulous. Teenagers have taken the title to mean that Axe Spray is literally a deodorant. Many, many of them seem to believe that a little spritz on the pits in the morning will suffice, and that they do not require an antiperspirant to control their sweat. Sometimes, this is a near-deadly understanding.

Picture this, please: imagine a teenager who arrives at school wearing Axe as his only line against defense against body odour. Things may be fine at 8:30, when he smells like “Phoenix” or some other abominable variety of Axe Body Spray. By about quarter after eleven though, the poor, misguided youth smells like unrestrained, rampaging armpit, with just a touch of Phoenix droppings. Let’s say there are 16 young men in a classroom, and it’s 31 degrees Celcius like it was today.

And you thought the title was melodramatic. Sheesh.

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