Strong, Man

There are eight Axe scents: Touch, Essence, Phoenix, Kilo, Tsunami, Orion, Apollo and, of course, Voodoo. Each sounds like the name of a fern bar or a star of Wrestlemania. The scents are based on descriptions in a "brief" submitted to the Nose. The Nose, who can speak in terms both technical and poetic, then consulted with the perfumer. The perfumer, an artful chemist working in a lab, created the "juice," which is the fragrance itself. The brief for Axe included a lot of technical minutiae assigning each scent to a specific category such as "oriental" or "citrus." Briefs are notoriously filled with vague, nearly indecipherable demands. Unilever wanted scents that expressed emotions and ideas such as "authenticity," "confidently male" and "a warmer sexier side with a deliciously sensual heart." Touch, for example, was regularly described as evoking "that anticipation before the first touch, when you're first meeting a girl."

The Nose was Ann Gottlieb. She describes herself as the "director of the orchestra." Gottlieb has had her own self-named business for 23 years and before that worked in the fragrance industry in product development. She has the kind of New York accent that always makes her sound rushed, and with her clipped, straight-to-the-point demeanor, it is hard to imagine her dealing in metaphors and allusions. Her most essential tool, her actual nose, looks rather dainty and unassuming.

Gottlieb has worked on fragrances for Carolina Herrera and continues to be the Nose for Unilever's Calvin Klein scents. Her experience had been in the prestige market -- the expensive brands sold in department stores -- rather than the mass market fragrances. The creative processes in the two categories, she says, are distinctly different. Mass marketers typically come up with a group of fragrances, spread them out in front of a focus group and ask which it likes the best. The scent with the most votes goes on the market.

"It's a system used across the board for deodorants," she says. "It's still used today by companies that are not fragrance-oriented."

"I smell very strategically," Gottlieb explains. "When you open a bottle, what comes out will continue to support the brand strategy." In other words, Gottlieb's job was not just to make sure Axe smelled good to young men. She made sure it smelled "confidently male." The company still used focus groups, but it also relied on Gottlieb's sensibility.

"I brought a prestige note to mass market," she boasts. "Testers can't tell if something smells classy."

If it seems, upon spritzing a bit of Touch into the air, that you are quickly overwhelmed by the smell, it is not your imagination. Touch is a spicy scent reminiscent of patchouli and clove cigarettes and with an unsettling undercurrent of Drakkar Noir. Axe fragrances, which are packaged in a black aerosol can that vaguely resembles a bullet, are constructed to attack the nose with the subtlety of a cannon. There is no slow "dry down" during which the fragrance subtly reveals its full self. It doesn't particularly change as it warms to body temperature. This is part of the sales pitch.

"The fragrance that goes in the can is a compressed version of the fragrance," Gottlieb says. "Top, middle, dry down, it happens much faster. You have to get each part right away.

"You get a chance to spray once," Gottlieb says. "With young men here -- more than in Europe -- you need to seduce them as customers right away. They don't have time to wait and see how it develops."

The ambitions for Axe are enormous for a grooming product that can be found in the automotive and electronics departments, in addition to the deodorant aisle. But George envisions transforming Axe into a brand with the cultural resonance of names such as MTV, Nike and iPod.

"It's not enough just to be the best deodorant marketers," George says.

Just recently, the company introduced shower gels. One advertisement pictures a towel rack next to a shower. There are four towels: "his," "hers," "her sister's" and "her roommate's." The tag line: How Dirty Boys Get Clean .

Young men can now layer on the Axe. Double the Kilo. Double the Touch. Until it is possible to smell the odor of authentic, confident masculinity long before the man ever enters the room -- and reveals that, no matter what his age, he's really just a boy.