What’s that smell? It’s the boys in the Sephora fragrance aisle | Canada Voices

They come dressed in baggy hoodies and even baggier sweatpants; with plastic slides on their feet and braces on their teeth. The customers crowding the aisles of your local beauty store these days aren’t there for the lipstick and skin serum – it’s the fragrance section these boys are after.

“I’m looking for something I can wear every day. Like, to school,” said Caiden John, a 14-year-old who was with his dad and little sister at the Sephora store in downtown Toronto one recent afternoon. They were shopping for cologne.

His favourite scent, he said, is Le Male from Jean Paul Gaultier, which costs $135 for a 2.5 oz bottle. It’s an earthy, woody scent, with notes of mint and vanilla, according to the manufacturer’s description – an “irresistible seducer that makes hearts throb wherever he goes.”

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“I’ve been wearing it, for, like, two years,” said Caiden. In other words, since he was 12 years old.

Over the past few years, social media has given rise to online communities that target young men and boys, pushing them to pursue self-improvement in the form of impossible, oftentimes punishing new beauty standards.

Looksmaxxing is an online community that has its roots in the incel community and is obsessed with attaining physical attractiveness, sometimes through extreme measures. And then there’s smellmaxxing, a sub-category in which young men attempt to increase their attractiveness through the liberal application of designer fragrances – to optimize their “scent aura.”

And so, on any given day, in the after-school hours, you’ll find hordes of young men at your local Sephora. They’ve eschewed the Axe body spray and other drugstore brands of the previous generations. Instead, they’re following the lead of online influencers toward designer colognes, from mini travel sprays of Hugo Boss, all the way up to Tom Ford, bottles that retail for well over $1,100.

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One popular influencer in the smellmaxxing world is Jatin Arora, a baby-faced 19-year-old from Winnipeg who posts online as “The Cologne Boy.”

“When I was about 16, I begged my mom at Costco to get me a bottle,” said Mr. Arora in an interview. “Everyone just likes to smell good.”

Alongside his cologne reviews, he gives advice on everything from weight loss to how to achieve financial freedom. Today, he has over two million followers on TikTok, and photographs himself posing next to luxury cars and designer watches.

Another major figure in the smellmaxxing world is Daniel Schütz, a.k.a. “Jeremy Fragrance,” a German TikToker with over 10 million followers. A common theme in Mr. Schütz’s content (in which he often appears shirtless) is compliments. He posts endless footage of men and women (but usually women) approaching him on the street to compliment his scent.

Back at the Sephora store, a group of Grade 11 boys on a class trip from Quebec had formed a crowd around the cologne testers.

One of the boys, 17-year-old Steven Bach, said he first discovered fragrances through TikTok. When asked how TikTok – primarily a visual and audio platform – had somehow become so popular for scent, he simply shrugged.

“I just feel confident in it, because people compliment me,” he said. “They say that I smell good.”

A few moments later, Ihsan Aras, 19, walked into the store with his friend Vedat Cerrah, 18. The two were visiting Toronto from Ottawa.

“Honestly, it started out with social media, but it’s become a part of daily life for me,” said Mr. Aras. He was wearing an OVO T-shirt, and his hair was permed on top so that his bangs hung down like ivy.

Mr. Aras bought his first cologne back in Grade 9, he said – a bottle of Prada’s Luna Rossa Carbon that he was able to purchase, in part, by hoarding Optimum points (and his parents’ points) at Shoppers Drug Mart.

Today he owns about 15 bottles of cologne (worth somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000), paid for by money he earns working part-time as a waiter.

He sprays himself before school, and then again after school. He’ll spray himself before going to the gym, and then again after. He keeps a bottle of cologne in the car to freshen himself up throughout the day.

“I probably do about 10 sprays a day,” he said.

They were only at the store that afternoon to use the testers, Mr. Cerrah admitted. They had no intention of buying anything.

In the world we’re living in, people judge you based on first impression, he said.

He added, a beat later, “And females like it, too. They fall all over you.”

To that, Mr. Aras looked over, eyebrow raised. “Disagree,” he said. “It’s just consumerism.”

Back with 14-year-old Caiden and his family, the trio wound up exiting the store that day empty-handed. After all, he already had four bottles of cologne at home.

How did he afford to buy them all? Caiden nodded over at his dad, Derwayne John, who looked down, and shook his head.

He had mixed feelings about his son’s cologne habit, he said.

“The only thing I like about it is the hygiene,” said Mr. John. It’s a good lesson in important habits such as showering daily, brushing teeth and washing hands.

“The downside? It’s very expensive.”