Perfume Pen Pals: Johnson's Baby Cologne


Katie,

Lookie here:

"Johnson’s Baby Cologne has a gentle, fresh fragrance with a pleasant combination of floral and citrus hints. It leaves your baby smelling clean and fresh."

Baby Cologne, KP!

Dan


Dan,

I won't ask why you were trolling for fragrance well below your age range (there is a limit to broadening your dating pool, you know), but I'm relieved to hear that infants are not being passed over by the perfume industry.

Katie


Katie,

I cover every spectrum. I want the best citrus, the best rose, the best baby perfume.

Dan


Dan,

Is the baby cologne a recent release? Perhaps a reformulation of an earlier fetal classic?

Katie


Katie,

Ha! Yes, well you know babies' tastes change all the time. Plus, no baby wants to smell like her older brother smelled when he was a baby.

Dan


Dan,

I’m so fascinated by the concept of baby cologne. I mean sure, wash ‘em, powder ‘em, fair enough, but actual perfume gets into “Pimp my Tyke” territory. But apparently the U.S. isn’t hip to the tip, because from the Philippines to Morocco to South America, all the fashionable shorties are stylin’ and profilin’ with a wide range of colognes.

I guess it makes sense to want to preserve a baby’s new car smell. And “floral and citrus hints” sure beats “placenta and blood” - or a full diaper. But why stop there? Why not hose babies down in a fragrance the rest of us can enjoy?

This cries out for a reader's poll: "Best Perfumes For Babies". I'll kick it off with Guerlain Jicky. Or maybe Etat Libre d'Orange Sécrétions Magnifiques.

Katie


Katie,

Jicky might be too much of a case of duplication layering. At least during those full diaper times. My choice for babies is sweet pea, because of Swee’Pea from Popeye, of course. For no apparent reason, I was obsessed with Popeye as a very young child, demanded Popeye everything, gumball machines ("thanks for the gumball, Popeye!"), drinking glasses, little plastic Popeye pipes. And, of course, I loved spinach and would hum the Popeye theme song whenever I ate it. So, yeah, my vote goes for sweet pea. It's not an actual perfume, but it should be. Plus, it's a pleasing light green floral. So it would work thematically and practically.

Dan


Johnson's Baby Cologne is available from Amazon.com
starting at $3.50 for 6.6 oz


Fumeheads – I’d love to hear your take on this stupid-on-purpose poll: “Best Perfumes for Babies”. What should the trendiest bambinos be wearing?

14 comments:

  1. Anything is better than mommy's armpit & sour breast milk, especially in the summer humidity. So, I guess my vote goes to the Swee' Pea.

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  2. Haha, props to Dan for finding a Johnson's baby cologne ad from the Philippines (represent!). You'd be surprised with the variety of scents coming out for babies. Sometimes we sample them and when we find a good enough scent me and my sister actually use them! This is good when we want to smell differently but do it on the cheap.

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  3. Katie gets the props, for the baby-cologne commercial and the gumball commercial. And props to you, Nina, for bravely jumping outside your demographic. Smelling good on the cheap is like getting away with something. But now you must tell us your favorite baby perfume for adults.

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  4. kissyfur, "mommy's armpit & sour breast milk" sounds tantalizingly like a brief for an edgy new niche fragrance. The kind that triggers a thread on Basenotes on whether it's masculine enough for guys to wear. Right, Basenoters? ;-)

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  5. I just made the acquaintance of an almost-edibly chubby 9 month old yesterday, with gorgeous, translucent alabaster skin. If he could have assembled his "goos" and "gahs" into a coherent query on fragrance recommendations, I'd have suggested Keiko Mecheri Loukhoum Eau Poudree. Voilà! A powdery-sweet marzipan baby in a bassinet of roses.

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  6. Here I was hoping the economy would send all this conspicuous baby consumption down the toilet. I don't have anything against babies; it's their parents I hate.

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  7. Har! Parents...babies...it's that chicken-or-the-egg situation. And the problem with directing our grumpiness towards them is that we've all been one and maybe even both egg and chicken.

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  8. Call me old school, but I think babies should smell like babies. That is, if the baby has been fed, burped, freshly diapered, and bathed. Johnson's Baby Wash does the job and it has just ocurred to me in a light bulb moment that all I need is to buy the Baby Wash and forgo all the back aches, stretch marks and pushing and screaming at the end. Sheesh! Those evil marketers! (Why I oughtta...)

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  9. At the risk of sounding funky, my girls have been fumeheads since about 6 months (the same age that is safe for babies to start wearing sunscreen).My girls seem to prefer mists to almost anything else. My oldest is obsessed with Calgon Morning Glory and my youngest is a little more interested in Body Fantasy's Cotton Candy. =) I still prefer my Candies to almost anything else. Still shopping around for that Café smell. Thanks for the suggestions on those by the way!

    P.S. I love it when my girls smell.. in a good way of course!

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  10. This has me looking forward to an Oprah episode entitled "Help! My baby's perfume garners more compliments than mine!"

    To be followed, of course, by suggestions for fume-y felines and cologne-y canines....

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  11. stargirl, what a marvelous idea to ask the babies themselves what they prefer to wear! Although in their pre-verbal stage, it might be tricky to get an answer. I might suggest sitting the infant on a bed with a bottle of perfume to either side. Whichever side the child inevitably rolls to will indicate their choice. It's a sort of low-tech version of spin-the-bottle.

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  12. BooRad, I really think it's more of a Tyra episode.

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  13. lol Katie! My youngest (now 18 months old) had solved this problem quite a while ago! I would spray index cards with the scent on them let her smell the cards one at a time, waiting 10 seconds in between each card, and then put them in a row. She would then pick up a card and smell it again. If she didn't like it she would throw it down and pick up one until she found one that she like! =) Mmmm, I love smelly babies! (well the good smelling babies!)

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  14. stargirl, I really like that story - sounds like how I evaluate perfumes!

    Interesting to consider that your girls chose fragrances in such a "pure" way - unswayed by marketing, bottle design, celebrity endorsements or what the other tots were wearing.

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