LG SOTD Jun 23 2024 - A Rainy Dairy Day

photocontest

Theme: Soccer - SOTD was done in front of Stadio Artemio Franchi, home of ACF Fiorentina

• Brush: Muhle Travel Brush - Synthetic #HOLLOW
• Razor: Bic - Single Blade Disposable
• Blade: Bic - Single Blade Disposable (1)
• Lather: Summer Break Soaps - Remote Learning - smush by u/Onionmiasma
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Le Grand Chypre - Aftershave Splash
• Fragrance: Jovoy - Remember Me - sample

STILL TALKING ABOUT FOOD, AND THE PROBLEMS YOU HAVE WHEN YOU SMELL LIKE IT

"If you want to go ahead and do it, you're out of this house!"

"But it's just a tiny smush of a NachoCheeseDorito-scented soap!"

"This is no longer a game. You have changed, I don't recognize you anymore."

"You don't understand, Americans have a different approach to fragrances, they need them to smell like food"

"Why don't they just try to cook some?"

"You know, they lack our inter-generational homecooking traditions..."

"They are just food illiterates! It's not as if they didn't have a choice! Of all the food scents and flavors in the world, why Nacho Cheese Dorito?"

"It started off as an April Fool, then u/Priusaurus made it serious..."

"Who's that?"

"Last year's champion, the guy who always shaves outside!"

"You're about to follow the same path!"

"Don't worry! You know I don't do that I want to shave quietly, in private, as a meditative moment just for myself..."

"It's not a worry. It's a statement: if you want to shave with THAT SCENT, you're out of this house! Maybe it'll teach you what it means to be as desperate as that poor online guy who feels the need to assimilate to an extinguished species!"

"But he is the Champion!"

"GET. OUT. OF. THIS HOUSE."

"But it's raining outside!"

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, OR: LIVING LIKE A LATHER GAMES CHAMP

Regardless of the fate I ended up facing, I wish to thank u/Onionmiasma for providing me the smush of the unobtanium Remote Learning. If only I knew, when I innocently asked for it, about the ordeal it was going to cost me...

Now I am wandering the streets around the soccer stadium.
The national soccer championship is over, and today is a city holiday, so the area is semi-deserted.
It's a different kind of champion that I am living like. Now I see it. Oh, u/Priusaurus, how little I understood your tragedy! You didn't deserve my shitposts!

To prove that I am indeed on a rainy street in Italy, I found a stereotypical vintage Vespa that immediately became my dream shaving station: the top box is good put my gear on, plus there's a nice round mirror! Modern scooters have those aerodynamically-shaped rearview mirrors that are almost useless for an outdoor shave. Long live the round mirrors!

I left the plastic bowl on the top box to slowly fill with rainwater.
Meanwhile, I tried to call all my friends to seek for a shelter.
No luck: everyone's away for the long vacation weekend.

A bunch of minutes and phone calls later, I had gathered an amount of water that felt like a little too much, but I didn't want to waste any water, and then have to wait under the rain for more drops.

I documented the first stages, then I had to rush because of a sudden increase of the downpour. Thunders approaching. Lighting striking in the distance.

Obviously, the Ancient Gods of the Mediterranean were punishing me: our ancestors offered them sacrifices of beef grease and bones. I had contaminated my offering with the blasphemous promise of Nacho Cheese Dorito.

TRAGEDY OF A RIDICULOUS MAN...

... is the title of a film by Italian film auteur Bernardo Bertolucci. Like some fellow genius filmmakers from the US, he tried to warn us about the deceitful nature of the dairy business.

My own tragedy was all for nothing: I could smell ZERO cheese in my SBS smush.

Did u/Onionmiasma try to save me by sending me a divorceproof soap replacement?

Have I been blessed by the Ancient Gods with anosmia against American Abominations?

I have now experienced the tragedy of living like u/Priusaurus, and I know I that's not how I want to end up.

The Gods gave me a Second Chance. I'll make it matter.

FROM NONSCENT TO NONSENSE

After the mystery of the Cheese Who Wasn't There, I still had to complete my SOTD routine.

As I was missing the complementary SBS Mountain Dew scented aftershave, or even actual Mountain Dew (unavailable here), I went with the best approximation.

My Special Santa, u/Onionmiasma, is on record claiming that Le Grand Chypre smells like fancy Sprite.To show him my allegiance, my SOTD rain gear (see pic in the title) included a bottle of LGC and a can of Sprite.
I smelled them back to back: in comparison, LGC smells broodier, less easygoing, more mature.
Sprite smells more "natural" than I remembered, almost as if it contained a blend of actual citrus EOs.

The convergence of the food and perfume aroma industries has Big Soda offering almost wearable scents in their beverages, and respectful artisans making soaps that smell like junk food, and potentially are made with the same aromachemicals. Food for thought.

Then, the Final Fragrance: I wanted something that could reconcile the alleged industrial dairy-ness of Remote Learning with the supposedly gourmand citrus of ~~Sprite~~ LGC.

Jovoy's REMEMBER ME felt like a signal from karma.

The name revealed my purpose: I was here to be a Martyr, a sacrificial Exemplary Witness of a Cautionary Tale that needed to be remembered for centuries to come.

The Remember Me official scent notes asked me: "How many times have you secretly wished to be that anonymous stranger who captivates merely by virtue of a perfume?"

I had sprayed it on myself, and now I was smelling just like that anonymous stranger: not the real-life u/Priusaurus, obsessed with smelling like cheese nachos and bothering homeless people with his obscene public shaves; no, the wannabe American Gourmand, smelling like a fantasy rendition of a dairy product from France.

Tragedy was striking again: I could not appreciate all the nuances mentioned by Jovoy's official marketing.

All I could smell was this.

FOF

TODAY'S CHALLENGE

Could SBS help me lift my curse, and make me return home with a sub-esclusive scent to be proud of?

ROTY