‘Intimate deodorants suggest we want our genitals to smell like food’

These are marketed, coyly, as “whole body” sprays, the whole body here meaning: our shameful, swampy genitals. Lynx launched its “lower body sprays” (in pear, coconut and cherry spritz) with adverts showing female strangers and male teammates becoming distracted by the scent of men’s feet and groins, entering an erotic hypnosis that compels them to follow the scent of a juice-perfumed arse. Elsewhere, Dove and Sure are marketing “freshness” in the form of citrus scents to apply to the grim and boggy marshlands or dust-filled cages that fester, in the language of advertisers, “below the belt”.

(Wait, some quiet parentheses to denote an aside, between pals – it goes without saying I think, that we are largely against this sort of stuff, right? A few years ago, interviewing celebrity gynaecologist Jen Gunter, as well as discussing the way confusion around women’s bodies fuels political efforts to control them, she explained why she was coming for the wellness industry, starting with Goop’s recommendations for “vaginal steaming”. “It’s one of the core beliefs of the patriarchy,” she said over lunch in an Indian restaurant near Kings Cross, “that women are dirty inside. And yet Goop presents this as female empowerment?” By now we’re weary and well-versed in the marketing of shame, in the creation of ever-expanding bodily anxieties in order to sell new solutions to fix invisible bodily problems. Which is not to say we are all immune to these anxieties, God no, we are human, too, and as such, concerned about age, decay, desire, sweat, the potentially rancid stench of our flesh at rest… But we are, or attempt to be, critical of the products designed not just to add “freshness”, but instead make us feel unclean and unlovable without them. OK love you, back to my point.)

What strikes me about these deodorants is not just that we want them to cover up the ways our bodies smell, but the idea that we might want our genitals to smell like food. As the great untethering becomes more defined, are we seeing key facets of what makes us human dissolve? Are we seeing the Ozempification of real life?

“Gourmand” perfumes – those that smell of food, like chocolate or vanilla – have surged in popularity recently, with launches of sugary fragrances increasing by 24% last year. My house vibrates with the smell of Sol de Janeiro 62’s “toasted macadamia nuts”, the perfume a stranger bought my daughter on a plane. (Long story.) Beauty analysts say the rise of these scents is linked to the rise of weight-loss meds. “Fragrance brands may increasingly explore such notes to address GLP-1-driven appetite suppression,” Clotilde Drapé told the Guardian, as consumers “strive to stay lean while enjoying decadent, food-inspired scents.”

Mintel’s Future of Fragrance 2025 report suggests the popularity of gourmand perfumes will continue to rise alongside weight-loss medication use. “Online discussions have linked GLP-1 medications to changes in appetite and sensory experiences, potentially driving interest in sensory stimulation like fragrances,” Drapé said. Yes, a Reddit thread asking whether weight-loss drugs, “make you more ‘hungry’ for fragrances” saw pages of GLP-1 users discussing their new appetite for gourmand scents, with one saying a new fragrance obsession has “replaced emotional eating”. Instead of eating the cake, the user becomes it. The hunger has gone, but the desire remains. And spraying our crotches so they smell like teatime suggests, even if we no longer want to eat, we still want to be eaten.

I’m reminded of the locker rooms at school in 1996. They were in the old building, behind the gym and below ground with little ventilation, which meant the cloud of the Body Shop’s dewberry body spray was almost visible, a sort of pubescent ectoplasm. We held our own bodies at arm’s length in our early teens, unwilling to acknowledge changes, either physical or existential. But we knew that we were, on the whole, disgusting, and while dessert (or indeed, breakfast) was frowned upon, to become acceptable and feminine we should smell delicious. Hence the dewberry spray, used liberally to cover up the assumed smells of, variously, being a girl. Had we been advertised vaginal deodorant at that soft age, we would not only have used our lunch money to buy it, we would have understood its existence as proof of our own innate grotesqueness.

Now, GLP-1s are thinning and complicating desire – indulgence no longer involves eating a biscuit, instead walking through the liquid memory of a biscuit. And as human bodies physically retreat with every morning’s Mounjaro jab, perhaps their meaning and purpose relating to desire and connection retreats a little too – a fine veil appears, another loosening hold on reality. Reality meaning, of course, hunger, truth, the discomfort of being alive, with all its associated smells, the good, the bad, the overripe fruit. We need to hold on tighter.

Silver linings: I never take off my rings, and am always looking for additional little friends that are beautiful but sturdy. Which is why my eye was caught by Alighieri’s The Ancient Incantations pinky ring in recycled silver, which has the added benefit of looking gently chewed.

The inside snack: Another permanent quest is my search for the ultimate luxury snack, something to chomp on at my desk that I adamantly refuse to share with the kids. There have been two stand-outs this week: the dark chocolate pecans by Nutural World (roasted, pleasingly adult) and, from Farm Shop, a teacake, with fluffy marshmallow and tangy jam. For when Tunnocks just won’t do.

And so to bed: Food artist and New York It Girl Laila Gohar has collaborated with Marimekko on a collection of pyjamas and bedding – expect bold archival stripe prints in blue, pink, red and yellow. Laid out together at Milan Design Week, on a bed big enough for 25, the effect was a sort of infinite, comfortable chaos.

Photograph by Getty Images