Masculinity by Intense (a.k.a. "N10Z") is a pheromone fragrance designed to enhance “male-to-male” attraction. I’ve never understood pheromone perfumes. I naturally secrete pheromones, so why do I need to add more pheromones to my body with a fragrance? If pheromones encourage others to come my way, does adding extra pheromones to my person provide too much of a good thing? Will the Human Hurricane of Pheromones I’ll become by wearing a pheromone-rich fragrance make people want to know me…or devour me? Can wearing a pheromone perfume be dangerous?
If Val Lewton were alive I’d pitch him a movie: Fatal Attractant
Place: Coastal university town
Who/What: A lonely (and lazy) gay science professor, Mr. Y, concocts a pheromone spray that will render him enticing to other gay men At first, the pheromone spray works: men notice him, chat him up. Then…his clothes disappear from the clothesline; peeping toms stare into his home; male students loiter at his university office door. As Mr. Y’s natural pheromones interact with the laboratory-made pheromone spray, things go awry; everywhere he goes he is followed, groped, manhandled. Mr. Y’s auto insurance rates rise as men in speeding cars ram into his bumper. Living La Vida Pheromone is hard on our professor.
The turning point/‘pheromone overdose’: the professor’s new beau goes from kissing Mr. Y’s fingers to trying to eat one for lunch…an ear-nibble turns into a piercing as incisor impales lobe…and so on.
Fatal finale: A beach at sunset; Mr. Y screams: I want to be alooooooone! and swims into the ocean to wash off the pheromones for good; he is pursued by hundreds of men. They all swim farther and farther out; the currents rage. Mr. Y, saturated to the core of his being with pheromones that will not stop emitting come-hither vibes, dies of exhaustion and sinks to the ocean floor. His energized “followers,” unsatisfied, turn and start swimming to the shore as…
Back at the university…Professor Y’s bottles of pheromone liquid (“camouflaged” in Evian bottles) are mistakenly taken to a faculty dinner party…. Will civilization survive?
Masculinity by Intense was released last year and it contains bergamot, mandarin, basil, clove, amber, cedar, leather, black pepper, sandalwood, vanilla, white musk and the N10Z (pronounced "intense") male pheromone. N10Z is “known to enhance attraction and confidence.”
Masculinity by Intense “feels” like a water-based scent; it goes on wet and takes a minute or two to dry on skin. The aromas of the fragrance are pleasant: black pepper, sheer cedar and leather, lightest vanilla, a hint of musk. The fragrance is well-blended and if you’re looking for a mildly spiced cedar scent for warm weather, or if you’re a pepper lover, this is a good choice. Masculinity by Intense’s cedar and pepper notes blend especially well with citrus perfumes – I liked Masculinity by Intense layered with Monsieur Balmain (let’s call it Monsieur Masculinité, shall we?)
Masculinity by Intense has minimal sillage but lasts all day on my skin. I would categorize this as a unisex fragrance, but perhaps a warning should be issued to women wearing male pheromones — especially pheromones designed to attract other men? That's a whole nother movie pitch, isn't it?
I’m not a scientist. I didn’t excel at chemistry in school. Maybe pheromones are not sinister when added to a perfume…but maybe they don’t do much either. Certainly no man, gay or otherwise, showed any out-of-the-ordinary interest in me on the days I wore the fragrance. I didn’t feel extra confidence either. But maybe my cute, always-desirable, eternally confident self is hard to improve upon?
Masculinity by Intense is available at 10percent.com and amazon.com; 60 ml for $55.
Note: top center image and top left/right image [cropped] by John Singer Sargent; “hands” [cropped] via Wikimedia Commons.
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“Mr. Y’s auto insurance rates rise as men in speeding cars ram into his bumper” – thank you, Kevin – I needed that chuckle today!
Thanna: no problem!
Your script is the dark(er) side of “Suddenly, Last Summer”!
And M. Balmain is appalled, since he does not believe in “layering”!!
Layering’s OK if you’re not related 🙂
Tsetse: or at least DISTANTLY related…M. Balmain is French perfume royalty, after all!
Dzingnut: YES!
LOVE IT. Reads just like old school Stephen King. Pheremone fragrances are hilarious. Who buys them???
I DO !! just kidding, I didn’t even know perfumes could have pheremones in.
but I’d like to try it haha
Owen: this one smells nice…we’ll have to take the word of manufacturers that pheromones ARE present.
ARI: someone must…some have been around for decades.
The movie plot is brilliant! I loved this review, thank you. I have been curious about the pheromone element myself, but it sounds like another marketing ploy. I wonder if it would have any effect on animals?
lol at the animals 🙂
Evil Emma: not on my cats anyway….and one of them LOVES perfume and gets riled up by a few of them.
Kevin – I laughed so hard at this, wishing that we had the emoticon of the little guy rolling on the floor, pounding it in laughter, that I actually went over to the Posse, started a comment (I’d already left one earlier today) and clicked on the little guy just to see what the code was. I hope it works. Here goes….
=))
If not, just know that I’m rolling with laughter here! Great job!!
Darn!
Rappleyea: thank you very much.
That would be a good movie as well…hapless professor beseiged by very interested dogs…. Loved the review, Kevin, and glad someone decided to take on this pheremone nonsense. Knowing you smell amazing can help add to your overall confidance and happiness, but there is no magic formula. Period.
maggie: perhaps the very idea of percolating pheromones does give a boost to some
Cute, desirable, and confident *are* hard to improve upon!!! Your self assured comment there makes me think of the one Ab Fab when Eddy is walking around saying: Looking good, Feeling great! Looking good, Feeling, great!!
What I really want to know is how Tom Ford is reacting to this fragrance? Is he weeping with desire? Will he forgo his own line? Will he come out with his own Breeches Intense fragrance???….
Breeches Intense!
AnnS: we should look to Marc Jacobs BANG perhaps?
Double Ack – I think I blocked that MJ fragrance/ad out. At least Masculinity isn’t making me want to wash my eyeballs with bleach. Aahhh.. now I am seeing that horrible ad in my head. I am washing my brain out with soap…. must go home and watch Bambi….. Aaagh.
I don’t know why, but I want to see your script treatment picked up and made into a zany science caper by Disney… “The Computer Wore Pheromones”.
Me too!
In that case, there will also have to be a “Flubber” fragrance.
Olenska: yep…would have to be a computer if it is Disney.
It could be a fragrance remake of “The Strongest Man in the World”, except Kurt Russell’s a bit too long in the tooth to play the lead…. Masculinity: Just like Crumple Crunch Cereal, except you wear it instead of eat it.
Haha I love your reviews Kevin…in fact I signed up just so I could tell you that.
Also, your pitch sounds like Love Potion #9 (an admittedly more violent version) for gays! And I LOVE it.
Bleedingheartliberal: thanks and Welcome to NST!
I would guess that the rationale for adding pheromones to fragrance would be that most of our natural pheromones are regularly removed from our skin by our modern preoccupation with cleanliness. Then again, fragrance has long been promoted as a way to increase one’s sex appeal. Adding pheromones is really only about a half step beyond that.
50 Roses: true, we ARE very clean these days.
“Certainly no man, gay or otherwise, showed any out-of-the-ordinary interest in me on the days I wore the fragrance.”
Mmmm, did you try over-applying?.Hehehehe
Now, totally not joking.. .this sounds like just another typical cedar-water based frag.. 🙁
KG: just my usual 10 spritzes. HA!
“Living La Vida Pheromone”, and “come hither vibes”!! I wanted you to keep going with the story! Thanks for another creative review!
Dixie: perhaps there’ll be a sequal….
Guys obviously dont naturally secrete pheromones designed to attract other men, so wearing this isnt going to give you an overdose of what you already have. If anything, you’re probably wearing pheromones normally produced by women.
Interesting point.
Rictor: do you know if any men even secrete any pheromones that attract women?
Do you know that gay men don’t secrete pheromones to attract other [gay or otherwise] men?
As far as I’m concerned, this is all mostly hypothetical BS no matter how one slices it, so I just wouldn’t get too literal-minded.
There’s no concrete evidence that humans are affected much, or at all, by pheromones. Most research would indicate that attraction is largely based on things like visual cues, not what we smell like to each other. So it really doesn’t matter what “gender” the pheromones are, as that’s not what attraction is based on.
I think the only thing that’s been proven out is how women in a group will synch up their cycles to the alpha woman in the group. As I recall, they took a group of nuns and dabbed a cotton ball under their noses that had armpit sweat from one of the women. They all synched up within a few months.
Rictor, you’ve lost me…but as I admitted above…I wasn’t good at chemistry.
If that doesn’t get picked up as a movie, you should find an illustrator and publish it as a graphic novel. 🙂
Oh, and I’m so immature that “Living La Vida Pheromone is hard on our professor” made me snicker to myself.
Miss K: one must hide innuendo the best way possible!
“I laughed, I cried… it moved me, Bob.”
But the “hands” image was sort of giving me the creeps.
mals: Robin said the same thing!
Oh man, I gotta tell you, that “script” made my day ! I laughed so hard, I almost fell off my chair ! Thank you for that !
If I wear it, (I’m female), does that mean the only men I’d attract would be gay ? Do you think hubby might be put off by it ? Maybe they would think it was him wearing it ? The possibilities are endless 🙂
Ravennightmyst: “Hijinks ensue…”
Raven: if only Shakespeare knew about pheromones.
lol – I can just see all these poor gay guys being suddenly overwhelmed by the urgent desire to switch teams. Lots of angst and hair tearing.
I adore John Singer Sargent’s and once work took a trip to Boston solely to enjoy his library art… but your image here has now explained Edward Cullen’s hair. Never could quiet get that and now I can, Thank you Kevin.
As for your write up, I loved it but what kept coming to mind was the old Disney flick about Mr Walker & Mr Wheeler. I can’t explain that one either but will blame it on the effects of synthetic male pheromones posted here. 😛
Made my morning it did.
miette: that is one thick head of hair…gives the Kennedys a run for their money.
OMG that is total Cullen Cuisinart hair.
Your cautionary tale had me grinning from ear to ear Kevin. That was hilarious! 😀
RusticDove. thanks!
Love the film script, Kevin. I wonder if you should copyright it – I can imagine it turning up in a film about two years from now? If so, we’ll know where it came from!
I’ve always been puzzled by the pheromone thing, too.
Nina: a friend swears by the MIglin(SP?) pheromone perfumes…but she’s happily married so don’t know what credit she gives them. HA!
Thanks for giving me my giggles for the day. I keep getting that image of cars chasing him and ramming his bumper!!!! (snicker) However I’m kinda with most of the crowd….don’t think I will be picking up a bottle anytime soon…..
Crmax: these types of fragrances are impossible to sample…one would have to buy unsniffed and I doubt that will happen too often?
Love this post! It’s hilarious (my favorite part was “lonely (and lazy)”), while also an excellent review. You are a wonderful writer.
The thing about pheromones is that, as I understand it, they attract someone whose immune system is the opposite of yours. So there would be no way to be generically attractive to an entire group. And that’s a good thing.
Suddenly: yes, it is!
This is a new one: pheromones for Teh Gay?
Assuming they smell different than pheromones for women to attract menz?
Kevin goes to the mat once again for an assignment!
I’m assuming one could get a fresh/woody scent for men that’s just as good as this for much less money at L’Occitane or Bath & Body Works? What do you think? And who do you see starring in your screenplay? Colin Firth? Pierce Brosnan? Rupert Everett?
I was picturing Anthony Head (Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer). But I’ve been strangely obsessed with him lately, so maybe that’s why.
Colin Firth, please. 😉
Joe: this one lasted MUCH longer than L’Occitane fragrances….
All the men you mention are too old for my script…I”ll go with Melvil Poupaud for a Euro doomed/dramatic turn or Josh Brolin (playing for laughs)
Speaking of Euro, you made me wonder what Olivier Martinez is up to nowadays. Hmmmmmm…. 😉
Joe: ALORS! A quick check says he’s in “Knight & Day” (no comment!)
This was completely hilarious, Kevin! I love it. I’m with SuddenlyInexplicably, my favorite part was “lonely (and lazy)”!
Thank you Jill!
I was always a fan of Realm as it gave a heightened feeling of confidence but I’m not sure if it was a true head turner. I amassed several bottles of this concoction because the scent was so enticing. It was one of my favorites of the 90s.
Eckerd: ah, yes…I remember that one.
Pursued into the ocean by hundreds of men, through raging currents – you’ve taken perfume lemmings to a new level, Kevin! 😉
Nozknoz: excellent interpretation!
So funny Kevin! It really made my day trying to imagine the gay male version of Glenn Close’s character in your movie… in my head it ended up some sort of cross between Ricky Martin and Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane… “But you ARE in that chair Blanche… and you’re living la vida loca!!!” LOL!!! Ok, maybe I took it a little too far. 🙂
K-Scott: must think long and hard about your Ricky Martin/Bette Davis “connection!” HA!