Reviewing Old Spice’s Holidudes’ Pumpking Deodorant … no, for real!
I’m 1,000 percent certain there’s never been a review of an underarm deodorant on Wicked Horror before. But when you run into something like Old Spice’s Holidudes’ Pumpking underarm deodorant, for the love of all that is holy you have to say something.
This is one of those out there consumer goods that ties about two dozen or so pointed questions together into a single product. One look at this thing on the shelves at Target and I could hear the Facebook prattle in my head. Is July too early to have Halloween products out? Is the whole “pumpkin spice” thing totally played out? Does Halloween necessarily equal horror? Does it kinda count as an unofficial piece of Michael Myers merchandise? Will the managing editors of niche interest entertainment sites REALLY shell out $7.99 for random hygiene products JUST because they have an indirect horror theme?
Hey, I’m no jury, but if something can trudge up that many hot button debates, it’s probably worth a 900-word-or-so article. Hey, somebody has to be the online stewards of these kinds of things, don’t they?
Now, I admit, it’s a tall order writing about deodorant on a website that is like 75 percent hot takes on random horror movies. Like, imagine resurrecting Willie Shakespeare from the grave and asking him to pen a couple of sentences about a Division 2 college football game. I mean, he’d write SOMETHING, but it probably wouldn’t be his career best or anything like that. But when I really started thinking about it (read: when the ADHD meds finally kicked in), it kinda dawned on me: there really isn’t that much difference between reviewing underarm deodorant and all these straight to streaming genre pictures. Go ahead, make the joke about both of them stinking so I don’t have to, you low-hanging-fruit-grabber, you.
The Pumpking deodorant, not unlike many contemporary horror movies, is mostly aesthetics. I mean, sure, the whole point of the product is to smell like something out of the ordinary, but that’s the kind of thing that’s REALLY hard to get across in the written word. Take it from a guy whose written about everything from murder trials to making out with a girl wearing Juggalo face paint — adequately conveying the sense of smell in the literary form ain’t easy. And yes, we will get to the whole scent thing in just a bit. But first, let’s talk about the packaging on this thing.
I’m not sure how deep anybody expects me to get on the lore of freaking Old Spice underarm deodorant. It’s made by Ohio-based ultra-conglomerate Proctor and Gamble and honestly, the only thing I know about them is that there was a rumor back in the ‘90s that they were owned by devil worshippers. Which I choose to believe as fact, even if it isn’t. The language used on the stick is pretty indicative — if not outright damning — of who the target audience for the product is. It’s pretty much a brazen display of fragile masculinity, with the product itself quasi-apologizing for being a semi “fruity” novelty. This is clearly a toiletry designed with insecure teenage boys and college guys who ain’t doing nothing on Friday nights except playing Magic: The Gathering in mind. Just kidding … like MTG players have discovered deodorant yet.
If Axe Body Spray is the tenth grade, I guess this is a slight step up to the eleventh. It’s pretty hard to get dudes excited about not stinking in public, as if offending odors is some sort of sacrosanct element of manhood itself. You know it’s having a hard time preaching to its own choir when the back of the package literally recommends wearing deodorant daily. But I’m pretty sure everybody reading this has been to at least one fan convention of some kind or another and our olfactory glands can already attest to it.
I’m not even going to bother getting into the “ingredients” of this thing. Maybe it’s all experimental goo that’ll make us grow gills someday or maybe it’s just potassium or something. It does make a pretty big deal about being aluminum free, though, which I guess is important to some people. Like, is aluminum bad for your skin or something? I’ve been out of the loop a while, folks.
Of course, the only thing that truly matters here is whether the Pumpking deodorant … works, I guess? The good news is that not only is it a perfectly functional antiperspirant, it does indeed smell a LOT like a pumpkin spice latte. Well, more like a coffee cup you just washed out that had a pumpkin spice latte in it the day before. It’s a bit foggy, but you can still make it out. Basically, if the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon appeals to you, you’ll probably be A-OK with this particular deodorant. And let me tell you something, fellas — there is NOTHING that drives women crazier than a guy who smells like he may or may not have been to a pumpkin patch recently.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s also a special, limited time only Pumpking body wash on sale by Old Spice, too, plus another seasonal deodorant variant that kinda-sorta smells like apples. I figure if we’re going to collect EVERYTHING from popcorn buckets to soda bottles these days we might as well start hoarding novelty deodorants as long term investments while we’re at it.
I get the feeling this is one of those “tip of the iceberg” deals. I’m sure next year we’ll get deodorant that smells like candy corn, or Mountain Dew Pitch Black or elder goths that smoke Marlboro Reds and never floss their teeth. Heck, why not get a co-branded promotion going on and give us some Saw or Scream or Friday the 13th tie-in deodorant while we’re at it? Old Spice X Freddy Krueger is just too good of an idea to pass up — I mean, how hard is it to make a consumer good that smells like an elm tree and an old fedora at the same time?
