Delving into the psyche of men who buy exfoliant advertised for use after mother-daughter threeways
Sociological Images expertly dissects the new Axe exfoliant-for-men ad, which suggests that it's the perfect thing to use after sexual relations with "Jessica" and "Jessica's Mom":
Geez, what a tool!
The heterosexual male fantasy of being sexually serviced by two women is so common as to have become a cliché, but what about the less-frequently endorsed but still prevalent fantasy about those women being sisters (or better yet, identical twins!) or a mother-daughter pair? Is it simple attraction (i.e., if you're attracted to one woman in a family, it's likely you'll be attracted to other women who look/act like her)? Is it the taboo element? Or does the power to coerce women into an incestuous situation serve as it's own reward?Still, Axe got one thing right with this product. When I think about a guy who would buy this sponge in the hopes of securing sexual relations with a woman and her mother, I can't help but think of him as a, well...tool.
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Really... what kind of douchebag buys this stuff?
I would expect to see it piled in a grocery cart with a copy of Hustler, Hot Pockets and some cheap 40oz malt liquor.
Axe is desperately trying to create a market for man-perfume-etc, so I guess they are willing to resort to anything? This ad demonstrates nothing but desperation to me.
Selling beauty products to hetero men is a pretty stupid business model.
Forget about the sexism involved in the entire Axe campaign, this is a perfect example of another piece of manufactured junk that our planet doesn't need. It taps into so many anti-humanity and anti-social ideologies of consumer engineering, simulacrum, planned obsolescence, consumer fetishism etc, just to sell something that suddenly your hand wasn't capable for the entire existence of humanity up until now.
Look at any kind of sustainable practices manifesto, and every single one is rooted in the manufactured landscape of consumption. They all point fingers at gross consumption like this. They also all boil down to one thing: stop making crap. This product is the epitome of shitty, shitty waste of raw material. Not to mention I shudder to think of all the douchebags buying this "detailer" as if they were suddenly detailing their '05 Infiniti G35. "You know boss, they only made 3500 of these in this colour for '05 in the country."
I wish I could write with more eloquence, but junk like that sickens me.
Unless the family dog joins in, I'm not buying that axe stuff.
The best part is that this is made by the same company that does Dove - the whole inner beauty, self esteem etc: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/
I'm betting it's not the same marketing dept though!
Nowhere in this ad does it imply that the target audience picked up the scents of Jessica and Jessica Sr. at the same time.
That isn't to say that Axe products aren't manufactured from toxic waste.
@LIGHTBENDER
That reminds me. I need to go shopping.
Or maybe, just maybe, it's a joke.
"I wear a lot of Axe body spray, but live in a predominantly black neighbourhood, so when i go to the store, i have to look for Ask... if you get that joke, you're racist." - Zach Galifinakis
I don't know about the rest of you
But I bought one because it looked like a good exfoliating product that didn't look girly as fuck.
/Dude that can look past stupid advertising...
Statistically speaking, Axe is worn primarily by teenage boys.
Perhaps it is just me but the bottom right hand corner looks somewhat phallic...
@#7 Redmond Cooper: But what, pray tell, made you believe that you need an "exfoliating product" at all?
Well, a luffa gourd spong would work as well and has the added benefit that you can use a whopping big bowie knive to cut of the piece you need.
If that's not manly enough, go hunt your own shark and rub yourself down with that…
I actually own one of these, and honestly? Its a loofah with a nice grip. Okay, so the adverts are... well, retarded. The product isn't half bad though, and that ... I dunno, buffing? side is nice for getting off weird stuff like tree sap or spindle grease.
Just my 2 cents
I think the interpretation is wrong. If the situation is a ménage à trois, there wouldn't be a real pressing need for the guy to get the perfume scent off. I rather think it's meant as the guy's sleeping with Jessica and her mother, but separately.
Which would only make him ever so slightly less of a douche, I suppose. Though it would make the analysis off point.
Creators like OLIVIERO TOSCANI invented controversial advertising 30 years ago (ok, he will kill me if he reads that I compare his masterpieces to this but anyway...).
A post like this demonstrates that this kind of AD is effective especially because another way to read it is that:
"the man needs a shower after Jessica forced him to finally meet her mother that uses so much perfume that it reached even his knees when she hugged an kissed him".
I find the ads for Axe products...meh, not sure. Repellent is too strong a word, uninteresting is too weak. But they do cause me to studiously ignore their products.
But dude. 2 related women involved at the same time with a third unrelated person, guy or gal, is not incest. It is just a guy with an extra mating opportunity.
Unless maybe the two related women are involved with each other. If they are involved only with the unrelated third person then, no. Would two brothers involved at the same time with an unrelated woman be incest?
And even so, if children are not possible, other than being rather icky and unusual, to me anyway, who's hurt by it?
Mn. Whn t cms t th ml lbd, r grpngs f mr thn tw, (ply-mry?), lbrls sr r jdgmntl nd ntlrnt.
Or is it a clueless business trying to sell a stupid product with an insulting advertisement that sends you off the deep end?
i use this product as well and find it to be a great body scrubber. f*ck exfoliating. i need the grime off of my body! the soft spongy side is good for normal cleaning of the skin, but the red and much more abrasive side peels tar and paint right off of your body. i for one don't buy into advertisement for the simple fact that i don't watch a lot of tv. (maybe and hour a week) i have seen the axe commercials and do find them funny. not for the male fantasy aspect, but as to all the hot women (doing who knows what and wearing skimpy outfits) that you can cram into a 30 second commercial and get away with! is it any wonder that they do it? they want guys to buy this product, and they want guys to watch their commercial to get the word out. i think people that use the word "tool" to classify people that buy into something good, live in sh!t. if they don't then they are living pretty good, or as their peers would think. friends, family, neighbors... and because of this, aren't they themselves a "tool"?
But I bought one because it looked like a good exfoliating product that didn't look girly as fuck.
Sorry, but exfoliating is girly.
I don't make the rules - I just enforce them.
Wow, you motherfuckers need to lighten up. I'll at least give the original story author some minor props for a good stunted-growth high school bitter that actually had some humour and a little toungue in cheek about itself.
Basically what I'm saying is the shopping cart loadout described by Lightbender, minus the Hustler and in my dreams because you can't buy forties at the grocery store where I am, sounds like a pretty badass night.
I don't use Axe. I use store brands, though not the dirt cheapest. When it's been available to me, it genuinely has been a decent shampoo/bodywash/deodourant, decent on the skin/hair/pits after a few hours at the bar. It's also not the shit you'll find in most girls' showers, but that stuff costs $30 a bottle and usually provides a drastically better clean and condition.
But Axe isn't bad, and this ad is funny. So is the analysis. I guess Nosehat is the worst offender here, Quiet Noises has a valid but perhaps overstated point.
Axe has a history of making over the top ads playing on male sexual/sexist cliches and stereotypes...
This ad is about as sexist as this one is racist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfzdgWgEZ4
Check out some of their other commercials to see this one in perspective (those who took this serious might hear a small 'whoosh' sound)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=axe%20commercial#
I think they're kind of funny, especially compared to 'normal' ads for shower-products.
Yeah, I actually agree with Joe and Redmond: it is deliberately and self-awarely comically posed in this ultra-masculine campaign to distract their target audience from the fact they're buying a loofah.
... In fact, I would concede to the possibility they're playing it close enough to the chest to not even hint in their ad design any tongue-in-cheek irony. "Shower Tool" is very deliberate, because if many dudes are even peripherally and momentarily aware they're being sold a loofah Axe would lose brand dominance for that brah very hard and fast.
Axe (and other perfumes for men) remind me of the Onion's brilliant story about a tanker spill of Tag ("an estimated 20 million gallons, or the equivalent of 45 million Body Shots")
What's the big deal? Axe is marketed at uber-hormonal teen males. These teen males know girls in their school that they think are hot, and some of those girls have hot moms in their 30s, and guys talk about who has the "hot mom." So for the target demographic, this isn't nearly as despicable as you would make it out to be. Besides, what is so horrible about a "male fantasy"? Why is that term always used in the perjorative? Women can have all the 'empowering' fantasies they want, but the second a guy wants to have consensual sex with more than one woman he's a cad and a "tool," even if he's likely a 15 year old who has no experience at all and is just shooting the shit with his friends to feel less inadequate. I feel sorry for the guys who buy this product because it appeals to their sexual fantasies that will never come true, but it's just the advertisers knowing their target audience and making a (gasp) joke that they think will have appeal for that audience.
Being devils advocate, this product is using your dirty minds to extrapolate to sex with the mum and daughter, however this is not stated.
I smell hypocrites!
@17 - I just watched the Nick Lachey advert and that was pretty clever. Also, pretty much the same music as the bicycle preacher dude.
I don't use Axe, (or Lynx as it's called in the UK), because I don't wanna smell like an adolescent. I always think there's something a little stunted about grown men using it. Personally I want to smell neutral, not like I just ran the gauntlet at the perfume section at Macy's.
As for the general undertone of exfoliation being somehow 'unmanly', come on, really? That's still the default view? Who cares when men do in the shower? Everyone's got skin, and it's better to be clean than otherwise.
I'll join in and pick the standard response letter item that stands for OMG U GUYZ LITEN UP
only in the sense that the menage-a-trois is not what's implied. when you add the copy at the bottom (something about the red part for tough parts, other side for sensitive parts) what I took away was that he dates jessica, but gets nothing but cuddles, let's say, and then on the side gets his jollies with jessica's mom.
I don't know why I see it that way, perhaps the contrast between ears and knees. I can think of chaste things you can do near someone's ears but I can't think of anything chaste near someone's knees. :)
I work in an industrial area, and frequently get pretty damn filthy in the deal. I keep one of those things in my locker for when I shower after work, not because I buy an ounce of Axe's hugga-mugga bullshit, but because I can rinse it clean every time I use it and hang it up to dry overnight in the locker, thereby avoiding generating more washcloths to be dragged home and washed, again and again. I've also lost 30% of my grip power to carpal tunnel, and that goofy thing is just plain easier for me to manipulate than a limp, floppy washcloth.
If somebody needs to believe that I'm still a brainless, sexist fratboy for using an Axe product, well...Have yerself a ball.
With #18 - it's of course an over the top joke, much as if they used this ad as well (read the text):
http://www.designsdelight.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/vintage-magazin-ad-for-one-piece-suit.jpg
The Axe / Lynx etc stuff reeks, but not in a rancid way, so it's pretty much well made by the creators. I don't like smelling like it though, so I wouldn't touch it with my bargepole.
I know the marketing people who've been in / are in these campaigns, and they're the biggest piss-takers on the planet. But their job is to shift product, and they do that in this clever way - sexual and provocative imagery, wrapped up in stage-ham - but nonetheless, people buy it - because the trojan horse in the humour is the package of normal (yet nowadays, frequently maligned) sells: sex, babes, perfect bodies, sex, blowjobs, tools in the shower etc etc.
So you get a big meta-gag too: the advertising by a long way breaches what people have deemed acceptable in today's climate, yet they do it and not too many people complain - so it's a big joke, and by buying the product or buying into the joke, you join the club and stand grinning the other side of the "morality" line.
Plus the other big gag is that the fragrance turns women on to you. Like pheromone ads. But again, people want to smell nice, and they desperately want to believe that will hook them up. So they buy it. My wonderment is - how many women then fall into the same game and respond positively to the smell / knowledge that the male is wearing it?
So it was all a big gag that paid off and created its own little industry.
@13 Remember women put perfume on their neck chest, wrists and behind their ears. Your lovely comment might read differently with that in mind.
And exfoliating products generally mess up your skin - eat a healthy diet and you won't need any exfoliating. I just let my skin slough off into the air for other people to breathe, it delights me.
Frankly, want to get laid based on smell? Get some Tweed by Creed. Talk about the content, the perfumes, engage your prey in a merry tale of travels to the middle of London to buy it, and above all - tell them Walter Billington wears it. You're made.
i always assumed the ads were ironic
Thoughts for a new advertising line for Axe:
"It's what Alan Clark MP would use!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Clark
(Infamously involved with the wife and two daughters of a South African judge)
RIP.
Well, the ad is basically a joke (and a joke which, while unsubtle, may appeal to those of us not in thrall to political correctness in all its forms.) Personally I am unbothered one way or the other BUT...
"Axe?" Which marketing douche picked that name?
"OK, guys, it's a name which will appeal to the homicidal maniac in every red-blooded guy. It hits the serial killer demographic bang in the middle and if we can link that concept to the lighter subject of boning your girlfriend's mother then we have a product for the 21st century! Could we sponsor Hostel III, maybe?"
bill'o uses a loofah. wasn't that reason enough for loofahs to fly off store shelves and into the hands of a burgeoning consumer set whom are pathologically insecure, as well as easily confused/distracted by "edgy" campaigns that appeal to animal motivations like sexuality and appetite?
oh that's right, bill'o doesn't let anyone even say the word "loofah", much less put his face on a package of them.
i do have a stick of axe deodorant, it smells good and i wear it when i dont want to use up my expensive cologne stick, even though it's much more difficult to wash off. (but shhhshsh it's a secret to everybody otherwise people will think i'm a slave to my tv or something)
Sorry, but exfoliating is girly.
Just change the word exfoliating to scourering and you've instantly cured the problem! Seriously, while I don't like a frilly metro-man I do appreciate it when a guy takes care of his dry or acne prone skin so that I don't have to brush the skin flakes off of myself after giving him a hug. Just because your a dude doesn't mean you can't aspire to a pleasing skin texture. But, lay off the body spray... it makes you smell like a douche.
Eh, I use the Axe Snake Peel. I switched to that because it doesn't smell at all. I was using Old Spice body wash before, and it had a strong scent, but the Snake Peel does its job and doesn't linger.
Now, the Axe detailer I thought would be good to use after I go for a long run and need to scrape the dirt off my shins, but I only use it rarely because it's not that easy to clean.
So I guess I'm a jerk then for liking this stuff. And a tool. It doesn't matter that it works, just that I think it gets me laid, right?
Tom14: Right, because conservatives are so supportive of sexuality!
It's funny how they made the frilly exfoliating puff
macho by making it black and giving it an automotive
sounding name.
I don't like how this ad is executed (Couldn't they
afford models?), but I'm not offended by the mother-
daughter fantasy or the use of fantasy in
advertising. I thought their TV ads that showed
geeky guys wearing attacked by women on the elevator
were cute. I'm capable of distinguishing fantasy
from reality and I hope other people are. I know
I'm not going to be attacked by beautiful women on
elevators if I wear a certain perfume but that
doesn't stop me from enjoying a humorous and sexy
ad.
Beh, it's Old Spice or nothing for me.
Actually no.
Men looking after their skin (or any other part of themselves) in the way they want to is not 'girly', it's their choice. Quit judging based on shallow thoughts.
Whatever about the smell Lynx/Axe ads are hilarious, and no one I'm aware of has ever taken them seriously. They're funny.. to the point of people genuinely ask their friends "have you seen the new Lynx ad yet?"
/Actually I haven't asked, or been asked, that in a while, but it''s still true.
I really like the 'find a dirty boy' ads.
It's a good message, although I'm not sure it's the same company (same demographic target, though).
If there was actually the suggestion of a three-way encounter happening here it might make this interesting. Instead it sounds like puritanical hysteria. Who cares if the Axe guy is sleeping with Jessica and her Mom and how is it offensive?
It's obviously for men who work at a perfume sales counter. C'mon people.
Do you know, how can anyone complain about the content of the advertising in the context of the overall media assault we experience?
At least this ad wears its heart on its sleeve.
When I watch US TV programs, what fascinates me is the number of references to drinking and smoking. I know useful people in the Hollywood cesspool, and this is all paid for, all underpinned by the industries and companies who stand to make money from it.
So watch, if you have to, for research only, 90210. Talk about tools and suds. But watch how many people "get drunk" (and are stated to be so by actors, as that character appears to have a great time), and how they even "smoke" (to the point the rebel without a cause lookalike does it, pressing on the very same buttons James Dean did).
Honestly, it's a product, looks silly, is maybe silly, I'm not fussed. But I think the heat of my passions is reserved for other matters.
And who says three-ways are fantasies?
Pro-tip: a shower poof is a gentle way of removing the skin buildup, crusties, and flakeyness that comes with psorisis without scraping away ALL the skin and leaving yourself scabby and bleeding.
The loofah bit would be dangerous overkill for scalp and face with psorisis, but if you're one of the folks who's condition develops into thick yellow crusty scales on your elbows and knees, the loofah side would probably come in handy there, too.
Why can it not be that Axe is implying that the guy tried on the perfume and is now trying to get rid of the smell (as @fataltourist implies). They supplied the copy but our minds are the ones that created the image and sexualized it. We're products of our times and its advertising, but shouldn't we blame ourselves if we instantly find this sexual?
(This isn't meant to counter any of the douchiness/toolness on the part of Axe mentioned by others.)
Axe itself is the reinvention of a famously duplicated three-way: A gold chain, a 1987 Camaro, and a bottle of Drakkar Noir.
But more to the point: I am very interested in sleeping with girls and their mothers, and I am appalled by the insinuations that this makes me some kind of sick Axe user.
Hey Cory.....re: threesomes? Not so much into the mom/daughter thing...but 2 willing, unrelated girls?
Don't knock 'em if you haven't tried 'em.
Just saying.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/15/review-axe-detailer.html
It's a good scrubber.
Women are scary.
What are axes used for?
Speaking of idiotic consumption:
Last night I heard a radio program on CBC about "sneaker heads," who will pay $1,000 for a pair of 'limited edition' Kanye West Nikes (which are made in sweatshops of course. They drive hours or days to camp out in front of stores to get a pair.
One collector had 200 pairs of shoes that had never been taken out of the box at home!
I screamed "give your money to charity, damn it!" at the radio.
If it gets 13 year old boys to take more showers, it ain't exactly a bad thing.
@14: "Polyamory" is generally more complex than just "sexing two ladies." It's a nice, academic-sounding name though, isn't it? Way easier to sell to the girlfriend than "threesome."
Personally, I never really got the "twins" thing. I'd be a little creeped out by the comfort the siblings apparently possess having sex with the same person in the same room. It's half a step below full-blown twincest for me. Sure, if you like that, go for it, but it's not a fantasy I can fully empathize with.
Has anyone criticizing this thing actually used it? I got two of these when they came free with the body wash. I haven't even opened the second one yet.
Compare this with the cheaper types I usually buy and there is no contest. The cheaper ones start falling apart in the shower in as little as a week or two. Plus this one also has a more abrasive side for heavy scrubbing.
Say what you want about the commercials, but some of us are smart enough to realize the crap isn't going to get us laid, but still appreciate a decent product.
Never seen the adds.
The wife buys axe for me, I use it, the wife is happy. When the wife is happy my life is good.
I'm the old gray beard riding a Harley.
Which part do you use to get rid of the pepper spray after Jessica and her mom find you in their house trying on their perfume?
#3 My brother bought a G35, he buys Axe body wash, loves big screen tvs, buys protein powder, my brother would be the douche bag that buys this crap. Machismo through macho products.
since I turned old, and cut my hair short, i use ivory soap. it gets me clean, and is not too tooo horribly resource intensive.
it works on all my body parts.
as a bonus, i do not have nubile young wimmen chasing me around, distracting me from things like earning a living, building cool things, and generally being able to think.
am I boring? maybe.
did I spend extra money for pablum and advertising? no.
i spend the extra bucks on motorcycles, bicycles tools, and my kid
to remove dead skin cells:
http://www.amazon.com/Salux-Nylon-Japanese-Beauty-Cloth/dp/B000EZS3O6
#3, that's a lot of big impressive words you've gathered together to condemn a shower scrub. How is this product any more an "anti social ideology" than a woman's bath poof?
Look, I'm all kinds of gay, and I use the Axe Detailer, because it's great for washing my bod. Not because it's promising threesomes, but because it's got a well-made rubber grip and scrub patch. That's all. I'm not destroying the planet for godsakes.
The ads intent isn't to convince you that by using this product you can somehow "secure sexual relations with a woman and her mother" - it's to show you that it has 2 different kinds of cleaning action in a funny/entertaining way and thereby getting your attention.
An interesting an unintended side effect would be inspiring "Sociological Images" to read much into it which causes them to write a piece about it which causes boingboing.net to post about it which causes Axe to sell some more of their douchebag soap because of all the free advertising.
Putting aside the actual product, what would be "good" threesome conditions? Obviously, you have already ruled against the incest.
#47 that comment is making my sides ache - "all kinds of gay"!
#48 You might be right. We're all talking about it. That's a wonderful effect of ads. Just like secondary smoking.
Twins are harder work than you might imagine.
I bought a four pack of these. Sadly they have not lived up to the promise. The promise of being good exfoliants that is.
The ad doesn't necessarily insinuate contact with "Jessica" or "Jessica's Mom" - only their fragrances. I picture a little pervy dude crawling through Jessica's cracked window and stalking from room to room, rifling through dressers, spraying himself with found perfume, tucking undergarments in a backpack for later use, ducking back out the window, shuffling home, playing dress up (with a little autoerotic asphyxiation) and finally scrubbing himself down with this thing before his mom gets home from work. The aristocrats.
I use an Axe "shower tool" to apply Lush products. What the hell does that say?
It's very simple. Most guys see products like exfolliant and body spray as girly or gay or metrosexual or whatever. If marketers want to break through that image they need to go over the top hetero.
Axe and just about all of it's competitors use masculine black packaging and a "this product will get you laid" message to make regular guys comfortable enough to buy it.
It works on me. I love the stuff.
Having slept with both Jessica and Jessica's mom on multiple occasions, let me tell you, they do not care what hygene products you use. Those girls are total freaks without warning! ...But me personally, I would never use Axe, it's for ten-year-olds from the suburbs who still gel their hair. Just sayin'.
Of course, this could all be about a guy who likes to spray women's perfume on himself?
It's amazing how Axe and similar companies have tricked an entire generation of men into thinking that using (and more accurately, overusing) their smelly perfume can get them laid into infinity. Any time I smell this stuff, I just think it smells like Brut, the cheap cologne my dad used to buy at Woolworth.
delve, v.
2 a: to make a careful or detailed search for information b: to examine a subject in detail
I'm not just saying this to be a linguistic crusader of some sort, but also because the original post does pretty much the opposite of "delving". I'd actually be interested in reading more about the "why" of the ad.
hmmm..who the heck approved this campaign. I bet they were seriously desperate to break the boundary of the 3some. They probably are looking for a shock factor but it comes out plainly stupid, simplistic. Only a tool would buy this. I do agree with that.
When my girlfriend was young and shy she'd splash on a spot of "Whetstone"
Now that she's approaching her sexual peak she slathers on the "BenchGrinder"
But why do her knees always smell like my dad?
"A 12-year-old boy died when his heart failed after he sprayed on too much deodorant, an inquest has been told."
That pretty much sums it up right there.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Boy-12-Died-After-Spraying-Deodorant-Lynx-Aerosol-Triggered-Heart-Condition-In-Daniel-Hurley/Article/200811315156332?lpos=UK_News_Top_Stories_Header_3&lid=ARTICLE_15156332_Boy%2C_12%2C_Died_After_Spraying_Deod
It may be dumb, but I'm sure Axe is loving the free publicity.
@ Redmond Cooper #7:
I don't know about the rest of you
But I bought one because it looked like a good exfoliating product that didn't look girly as fuck.
/Dude that can look past stupid advertising...
If you can look past stupid marketing gimmicks then why are you cleaning yourself with something that looks like a wheel from a Tonka truck just so you won't feel "girly?"
Mostly I am kind of fascinated by the fact that Cory Doctorow read this ad as referring to a 3-way instead of just a guy who is secretly sleeping with a mother and a daughter who wear 2 different perfumes and who might smell each other on the guy if not for the monster-truck-tire shaped bath product? The first thing I thought of when I read the ad was the film "The Graduate".
Wouldn't it be more interesting to analyse what Cory Doctorow's interpretation says about Cory Doctorow?
Wow, so may f'in responses for an f'in exfoliant. For men. Women don't even need sucha f'in product, they just believe they do thanks to f'in marketers.
Are we all tools now? I think so.
@ Secret life of plants #62: Too much time spent on the interwebz?
It's obviously satirical. I like the way it brings to mind a man empowered enough to fight back (albeit just sexually) against our overly matriarchal society.
I was going to say something about how it *could* be interpreted innocently, but Freud simply doesn't work that way and the male psyche is going to (of course) jump to threesome, but "pg" over at the main link did my job for me:
If you can look past stupid marketing gimmicks then why are you cleaning yourself with something that looks like a wheel from a Tonka truck just so you won't feel "girly?"
Zing.
I don't see what can possibly be 'girly as fuck' about a shapeless, beige, $3 piece of fibrous sponge from the corner pharmacy.
#65 - For starters you may want to look around at the section of store you had to go to find your loofa. Do you see makeup and "feminine products"?
Loofas are girly, give it up.
The dudes statistically most likely to have fucked a mother & daughter combo are dads and step-dads.
Just saying.
The ad is dual-purpose creepy.
I call it, "The Aristocrats!"
Axe (fantasy threesomes) and Dove (campaign for real beauty) are both owned by the same company, Unilever.
Marketing genius. Appeal to men's inner monkey, and appeal to women's insecurities. We're all being screwed with.
I am gonna throw down some Fugazi on the thread:
"You are not what you own"
Let's all think about that before we go judging people who own one of these as "douchebags".
(but really, take the high road, what fun is THAT?)
This doesn't do half as much as my Dr. Bronner's!
...all one or none...
...all one or none...
This is such a small thing. Such a small thing. And yet, to young men of a certain age and persuasion, this little doo-hicky might be the bright spot in their day. Why on earth would we begrudge anyone the pleasure of scrubbing themselves down with deoderant soap?
In our ongoing discussion of what is and is not a good product, I'm inclined to say low cost self care products are good. Crushed chile pepper and bergamont exfoliating soap from Austin Natural Soap Company, even better... :)
"When I think about a guy who would buy this sponge in the hopes of securing sexual relations with a woman and her mother, I can't help but think of him as a, well...tool."
I'm sorry, but thinking that men will buy this because they actually believe it'll score them an incestuous threesome makes the writer a far bigger tool.
Anyone who buys a product for reasons other than quality, utility, affordability, and personal taste is a tool. Coca-Cola is just brown sugar water. Mentos is just mint candy. This Axe Detailer is just a deluxe mesh sponge thing. It's sickening that advertisements depict these simple things as mind-blowingly fun, edgy, or sexy and people actually believe in that image enough to buy the products when they normally wouldn't have.
No, the guy using this product is a douche.
The guy that is selling it is the tool.
I think the Axxe campaign simply thinks it has to make it more clear that they are intentionally being over the top in a post modern ironic sense, because the teens buying this are buying it with a laugh rather than a secret wish, realizing a smell and cleanliness are little more than simply that, no smell bad, no feel slimy.
So what percentage of Axxe buyers do you think are taking it completely seriously? How seriously do you take your deodorizing and grooming needs? Is it really just being used to a "This works thats good enough" state? Or more of a "Desparately need to be sexy clean" state. Doe it sell to douchebags*? Or people that think douchebags* are funny?
(* the social type, not the rubber bladder and hose device)
I like how the bottle and the sponge look like a penis and testicles.
#73 For starters you may want to look around at the section of store you had to go to find your loofa. Do you see makeup and "feminine products"
No, I see soap and lotion. Then again, I'm in Canada; skin care is co-ed over here (must be the -30°C winters).
Selling beauty products to hetero men is a pretty stupid business model.
Gay men aren't going to buy that shit. We already know how to take care of ourselves.
#29 WalterBillington: That ad is awesome. It's as if Jeff Lynne were on the bridge crew in the first Star Trek movie.
Supposedly a guy I went to high school with was boinking his wife's mom, the wife found out, a fight broke out and he ended up stabbed and went to prison.
Reality isn't as sexy as an Ax commercial.
I see it as a very tall man with a very short wife named Jessica who were going out for dinner and a movie so he gave his daughter a hug before they left her with the sitter.
Then again, I guess I just don't have much of an imagination.
First, tho I totally agree with needless doohickey redeuxion as the primary means of saving ourselves, the species, planet, and preventing the heat death of the universe etc; getting in peoples face and screaming, even when you know you're right about something, usually doesn't change their mind. A nice long walk with someone, maybe like the AT, would be more appropriate.
Second, to throw my pennies at the menage question... It's about taboo, mostly I'd say. Think about all the restriction we have, every single moment of the day. Freud outlined it very clearly. We constantly deny our urges. This is the 'price of admission' (to borrow a phrase from an author I admire) for us to maintain our culture. We don't drive 90 mph, even when it's bright and sunny and it would feel so great to do it. We don't slap each other, even though someone may desperately need to be slapped. You get my point?
Sexual urges are some of our most powerful. Fantasies about acting them out are very empowering. By recognizing them for what they are we are no longer enthralled by them. We own are own desires. Eh, college.
Oh, and OMG as of this posting youtube is down... have we been attacked or something?
The ad is slightly amusing, but obviously aimed at teenage boys.
I recently sprayed some Axe at myself as a joke at a party. It turned out to not be a very funny joke, as I smelled like complete shit.
That stuff is just plain awful.
I wear Axe products. Why? Because my wife likes it.
I own one of these shower tool things. Why? Because it works.
I use their shower gel. Why? Because it works and my wife likes it.
I don't have TV service, and I don't read print magazines anymore. I have completely missed all of Axe's advertisements for the last two years, and I'm fine with that.
I use their products because they perform their function, and smell nice doing so. Isn't that the point of most personal products?
Who here wears Old Spice that isn't some testosterone-soaked hardbody? You don't have to be one to wear it, and you don't have to like Axe's ads to wear their stuff, either.
@55
I'm having trouble parsing your statement. It almost sounds as if you've never fantasized about twins.
I must be reading this wrong.
Personally, I Enjoy Being A Girl(y man).
I definitely feel like Axe targets the douchebag demographic, and seems like they consistently do a good job of it. On the mother daughter topic, I actually seem to remember an Axe ad where some teenage kid is picking up his date and her mom smells his Axe cologne/body spray and rips her blouse open, so I guess this is a theme from them (and I guess it was effective somehow, since I remembered it at least, though would never buy). Just from seeing Axe stuff it seems like its pricier for deodorant, so I guess you gotta pay extra to smell like a desirable threesome partner. As for me, I'll just use the girls bath puff or a loofa, since I'm secure enough to use what gets the job done.
So how many users signed up for an account to talk about how they bought/received and use/were cajoled into using this ultimately extremely useful product, even if they don't agree with/love the sexually charged ad campaigns?
@10, @15, @22, @57, @69, @70, @105: Care to say anything else on any other bb thread - ever?
...whereupon it becomes clear that choice and consent being the sole criteria for the good is only true when it is one's particular choice that is supported.
I mean, I find the ad gross, but I don't support most of the things that have eroded our society to the point where advertisements like this are common and acceptable (and, as one commenter noted, for a product marketed primarily to teenage boys - which is EXACTLY when you want them to start thinking that promiscuous sex is a wonderful idea and which doesn't hurt teenage girls at all).
Axe anti-perspirant actually does a much better job of plugging my perpetually sweaty pits than any other type I've ever tried.
Of course, that probably just means it's giving me cancer more efficiently, but in the mean time, no more sweat stains!
It's a scream that this many people are talking about freakin' Axe. And I read it, beh!
I think this just hits a hot button because we are all so jacked up about gender. Maybe some social progress has been made, but then companies like this one play up our insecurities for profit. Personally, I enjoy the much more ironic Old Spice ads, esp. the ones with Bruce Campbell (shop smart!).
Anonymous @64:
Since you're asking, good threesome conditions are three people who all love each other.
Not common, but very good if you can find/create them.
Real men use Varsol to scrub off paint and tar. No detailing tool is better than that stuff.
varsol pah! Whatever happen to good old transformer oil? So what if a few dioxins and PCBs are in the mix. Bloody posh varsol, in my day we used gasoline! Leaded too by damn!
Please. If a wire brush is good enough for Chuck Norris, it's good enough for me.
Another good Japanese exfoliator:
http://beautyknot.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/utena-everish-charcoal-washing-scrub/
I bought it on a whim at a drugstore in a sample size, and now wish that I had spent more time looking for the average retail size.
OMG what have I DONE? I feel so USED! Must EXFOLIATE!
"..a product marketed primarily to teenage boys - which is EXACTLY when you want them to start thinking that promiscuous sex is a wonderful idea and which doesn't hurt teenage girls at all."
Aww, teh poor gurliez.
One of the main reasons girls react differently to promiscuous sex is because society consistently tells them they are less of a person without their virginity. We (as society; men and women) constantly make judgements on girls/women that we wouldn't make on men, and encourage all sorts of projection about responsibility and regret upon the woman in the situation.
This is seemingly mattering less and less, though; teenage girls in the UK are racing to meet boys in all sorts of government statistics, including sex, drink and violence.
So this is what burgeoning equality looks like. Yay!
@anonymous, 109...
Let me get this right... An anonymous comment complaining that I have made an account?
You did check if I have made any earlier posts (guess what, everyone has to make his first post sometime), but you make it sound like we're all astro-turfers for Axe here.
Don't worry, I'll make some comments on other BB-threads, but we can never check if you will.
Oh, and thanks for a very warm welcome, mr. Anonymous. At least I've read enough here to know you're not the 'typical' BB-poster.
Anyway, quite a long 'discussion' over such a small topic...
As for the no comment history remark, since BB switched to the new comment system, your post history has an expiration date of sorts. I've been a member for a few years, and right now, it will show that I've made two posts, which isn't even remotely true. So, unfortunately, it's harder to figure out if someone is an astro-turfer, a habitual troller, or other sort of internet nasty. I do miss the persistent histories....
I guess some of you keyboard jockeys need to get rougher hobbies, like welding or karate or something. Calluses exfoliate pretty good.
We fixin to get that fixed. It is, however, a good point that nobody but a moderator can really see anyone's history. On the other hand, when one commenter accuses another commenter of being a troll, the accuser is almost always brand new and the troll is usually a regular commenter or the author of the post. Hilarity ensues.
@120
It is true, the nature of broadly ferreting out astroturfers will draw blood when a real person is struck instead. To be wrongly accused even in a comment thread is in no way wonderful. Especially your first: so, my apologies. Also for the poor evidence based on commenting history, the temporal nature of listing was not clear to me in my anonymity.
Yet the point still stands. Astroturfers reek. I smell them in this thread; I would be glad to be wrong, but the behavioral pattern stands out. Whether I say so anonymously shouldn't debase the point, unless you suspect I'm some sort of anti-Axe crusader (and even then...).
That's part of the price of being anonymous - as is the inability to verify that "I" = 109 - that I don't mind paying while commenting on the web.