Why Your “Scent” Might Be Keeping You Single

During my “not so terrible” 2’s:), I tried to convince my mom that I could “hear” smell as opposed to just perceiving or smelling it, and my mom, in turn, tried so hard to rid me of my “bad” English!  It wasn’t my grammar that I had issues with, it was the fact that I could smell odors so strong that it seemed to occupy all my senses and as an infant, finding ways of expressing overwhelmingly pungent experiences were minimal for me.

In the early stages of my modeling career, it was Fashion Week and I was very excited when my Booker called to inform me of a seven day booking for a big fashion house Showroom.  When I arrived and proceeded to the dressing room, there were six other models already hanging out.  As I set foot in the room, without any warning I was hit by a violent swift of body odor.  I stared and studied every single girl in an attempt to figure out which one of them was the culprit so I could stand at the extreme opposite end of where she was, far away from the offensive smell!  I decided to scope out their clothes; maybe someone was wearing something filthy or emitting the unpleasant steam visibly!  Well, I wasn’t able to figure things out by the way each and every single girl was draped in luxurious designer gear, Chanel pieces appeared to be the uniform of choice.  After failing to pinpoint the stench based on appearance, I proceeded to study their behaviors.   Almost immediately, I realized that every girl was discretely fanning herself, while gasping for fresh air, except for one girl who seemed oblivious to the issue at hand.  To confirm my suspicion, this chick was comfortably devouring an apple in the midst of the foul smell! Who the hell can eat anything in this decay!   Even the cleaning guy who came in, asked us if something died in the room; the poor guy came back minutes later with some air freshener and his job still seemed incomplete due to the rotten fish and cheese smell that continued to linger!   It became obvious to me that the more I resisted the arresting odor, the more aggressive it got and I was being forced to surrender to the strongly pervading smell.  This is how I ended up in what seemed more like a 7-day fashion slum house than what I had imagined for my first fashion week.  The worst part of the whole ordeal was that no one (including me), mustered up the courage to confront the girl about it.  Probably because she spent the entire week sobbing about her boy problems and how she always got dumped and never gets a chance with guys whom she treats so nice and shows so much interest and attention to.  Apparently, she bought the last dude she went out with a set of Chanel cologne for his birthday and then never saw him again!  Looking back, this was one of those I “shoulda, coulda, woulda” said something.  My reasoning at the time:  I was the new chick and I didn’t want to take the chance of upsetting the delicate girl, or maybe being pinned a troublemaker by the clients and possibly jeopardizing the chances of being called back for next season.  Hopefully, someone she confides in has addressed the problem by now and she is not running around confused about why folks are running the other direction.

The point of the matter is, this same girl with the horrible odor was the same person clueless about why guys kept evading her.  Self awareness is crucial when it comes to dating!  Men (decent ones at least) are aware of personal hygiene and it’s a major turn off when a woman stinks no matter how beautiful  she is.   One secret about me is that the sense of smell is my most active sensory organ.  When I wake up in the morning the first thing I want to do is to get a whiff of the One I Love; I usually pretend I’m going for a kiss on the neck but I plant my nose there and inhale.   So, I hope you can understand why I feel the need to pick this bone.  In addition, smell is like an aphrodisiac, why wouldn’t you want to be desirable?  The following few (basic) guidelines below will help those in need of change:

• You need to know when you have bad breath.  Brushing your teeth unfailingly when you wake up each morning is pretty basic information, no matter how late you are to where ever you think you are going.  Brushing your teeth after every meal is ideal but if you can’t, carry a strong mint box in your purse and use it often. Floss daily, flossing regularly saves lives because you might have food stuck and rotting away in between your teeth without even knowing it!  If your bad breath persists, see your doctor because you might have a deeper underlying problem.
• You need to know to take a shower at least once a day (twice a day is better) and apply deodorant please.
• If you wear weave or any kind of artificial hair please be aware that after a while it will start to smell from sweat and you need to wash it periodically.

Lastly, for women who are spoken for, keep in mind that if you are slacking in the above areas of discussion, your guy might just be putting up with you but we all know that cups do get full sometimes…  My point is, take care of your business and don’t relax just because you think you have “secured” your man.  Your partner deserves the BEST OF YOU EVERYDAY!  You don’t only have to look and smell nice when you are going out.  This brings me to my next conundrum:  When you have a guy at home and you only let him see the shitty you, yet when you are going out to see people, who you could care less about, you get all  made up, WHY?  Shouldn’t you be trying to give the best to the One You Love and then whatever you can to strangers and others?  Think about it:)