Smells Like Teen Spirit: a Discussion About Deodorant and What I Hope to Know 17 Years From Now
My last step in my skincare routine is to swipe deodorant under my pits. I am very loyal to Dove Advanced Care in Original Clean. Dove deodorant, (notably, the kind WITH aluminum - oh Jesus Mary GET OVER IT!!!) is the only brand that I trust to protect my pits from evil. The Original Clean flavor is the perfect balance of only making me moderately sweaty and smelling faintly of baby powder but not in a headache-kind-of-way. I’ve had some bad luck with various scents of the Dove Advanced Care selection. And there is truly nothing more disorienting and disheartening to lift up an arm, sniff once, hesitate, sniff again, and feel a sense of stinky evil emanating from your body. Especially as a teenage girl - I was constantly terrified of smelling bad or having pit stains on my clothes. I eventually learned to stick to darker colors that would mask any appearance of moisture as well as looser fitting clothes that wouldn’t hug my sweaty pits as much.
Maybe the use of the word “flavor” to describe a deodorant variant is weird but I’m doubling down. I recently picked up Dove Advanced Care in the flavor Sheer Cool from Target, because I wanted to embody not only coolness but also sheerness (I don’t entirely know what I mean by that so don’t ask). Last week, I swiped it on for the first time, and the Sheer Cool scent immediately transported me back to 2007. I was in Jewel Osco with my mom, picking out deodorant because I was a blossoming tween girl about to start capital P puberty. I remember the two of us completely entranced by the deodorants that were specifically targeted to young girls like me: obsessed with pink and hanging onto any sense of femininity for dear life. I clung to my sense of girlhood through my collection of Lip Smackers, Bath and Body Works body sprays, and Wet & Wild clear mascara. Does anyone remember the Teen Spirit by Lady Speed Stick (Figure 1) deodorant flavor? The stick literally had the words “cute & girlie” on it. Like, holy hell, punch me in the face and rip out my ten-year-old heart. OF COURSE that is what my mom and I picked out. We had NO choice in the matter, alright? You would have done the same. (Note: there was also a Just Dance flavor by Degree Girl that deserves an honorable mention but I don’t think I used it as much as I used Teen Spirit Cute & Girlie).
When I got a whiff of Sheer Cool, I thought about tween me in the deodorant aisle in Jewel. I was so scared to be smelly and so excited to smell like Teen Spirit. I was so worried about how people perceived me - about my sweatiness, my potential body odor, and my ability to be feminine. There were so many things that made me anxious. It’s almost hard to recall all of them, because I don’t really worry about any of those things now. As I grew up, so did my worries. My anxieties as a pubescent girl eventually transformed from “how will I smell around boys” to “how will I impress this person so I can get a job” and “what makeup look will make me appear to be a normal adult woman who is also hot but doesn’t even care if you think that or not.” And as I had that nostalgic moment while I was getting ready, I thought to myself - damn, what sorts of things am I worrying about now, that I won’t even remember 17 years from now, when I’m 44? What scents will I smell that will remind me of when I was 26? Will I look back at myself with the same compassion and kindness that I feel now toward my ten-year-old self? I take comfort in hoping that that day will come and gratitude for feeling excited for it. Growing up is difficult and scary and easily dreaded. But at least we have skin care products that can help us feel Cute & Girlie or Sheer Cool.
Maybe my morning ritual on putting on deodorant can be like a wish - the same way we blow out birthday candles or pluck flower petals. With each swipe, I can wish something new - that I have a long and loving partnership, that I have a decently successful career, that I can love my family and friends for as long as I can. What will happen? Who knows, but I’ll revisit this when I’m 44, so meet me back here in 17 years, okay?
(Please please please duh duh duh I know this is a larger topic of conversation with pink capitalism and being a young girl in the early 2000s and how fucking awful that was but I AM NOT READY TO fully unpack that okay? OKAY. I’m done for now!)
