Get a whiff of the male fragrance market: Hoo-ah!

By John Katsilometes

LAS VEGAS SUN

They are all names of men's colognes. But what are they supposed to smell like?

Cigar -- a famous race horse? Fidel Castro's beard?

Nike -- a basketball shoe?

Iron -- a barbell?

Harley Davidson -- exhaust fumes?

Old Spice -- the bottom of a pepper shaker?

English Leather -- Freddie Mercury?

No, it's never been easy selling scents to men.

Remember Hai Karate, which sounded more like a Bruce Lee movie than a bottle of cologne? Or baseball star Pete Rose (whose surname was coincidentally reminiscent of an odoriferously pleasant flower) pitching Aqua Velva by intoning, "When a man wants to smell like a man."

As opposed to, say, a radial tire?

But men are increasingly becoming a force in the fragrance industry. Experts have noted a jump in sales and boutique "traffic" from male customers.

"We have noticed more and more men coming in, maybe not for the specific reason that they want to buy something, but out of curiosity," Mary-Clare Sharp, boutique director at Chanel of Bellagio, said. "The beauty and fragrance section is our busiest, and if a woman comes in to buy lipstick or whatever and there's a man with her, it's more likely he'll ask someone on our staff about a brand we're selling."

The business is still predominately from women, who buy between 70 and 80 percent of fragrance products, Sharp said, but men are dropping by and willing to take the plunge (or squirt) out of pure adventurism.

According to numbers tabulated by the New York-based Fragrance Foundation, a 50-year-old nonprofit organization that produces monthly newsletters, holds annual conventions and counts the world's leading cologne companies in its membership, the percentage of men using fragrances has more that doubled, climbing from around 10 percent 25 years ago to more than 20 percent today.

Dan Martin, a medical supply sales representative from Baltimore, is one such man. Martin and his wife, Deborah, were visiting Las Vegas recently and happened into the swank boutique Hermes of Paris at Bellagio.

Deborah sprayed a couple of colognes on a small card and both sniffed away. The first, Eau D'Orange Verte, was "too fruity," said the man who sells swabs, gauze and rubber gloves to Maryland health care professionals. But he did like the more "woodsy" Rocabar, one of the more popular Hermes brands, and paid $70 in cash for a 3.5-ounce bottle.

Call it a professional expenditure.

"I've never been much of a cologne person, but when I got into sales I paid much more attention to grooming and appearance," Martin said. "My wife was a big part of it, too. She thinks it's sexy and a lot of people I deal with, men and women, also wear cologne or some type of fragrance.

"Nothing obnoxious, but something that smells nice and pleasant."

Sharp said men are often more agreeable customers than women.

"With men, it's show and tell," Sharp said. "Women can be much more selective and can take a lot more time in determining what they want. But men seem to be more open to suggestions, and I do find that when men find a fragrance they like, they stick with it and will go to the ends of the earth to find it because they don't want to change."

That was the case with Martin.

"I was a Polo person for years," he said. "Finally, my wife said, 'Why don't you be a little adventurous and try something new?' That was kind of new to me. Try something new? Why would I do that?"

Hermes store manager Kathy Sakamoto often recites a list of do's and don't's for her customers.

"Spray it about a foot away from your body," she said. "A lot of times, especially with men, they'll spray it an inch from their wrist and you can have a very strong scent."

Or, hold the bottle a few inches from a tester card (or, in the cases of some shops, cotton ball), to let the fragrance breathe. And Sakamoto also says the wrist-grinding both men and women perform to "work in" the scent is a no-no.

"Doing that just breaks up the scent," she said. "It makes it something different. Don't do that."

Instead, spray the scent a few feet in front of you and just "walk through," Sakamoto said.

Also, when testing colognes, test no more than three in any store visit -- your sense of smell becomes dulled after sniffing multiple fragrances and might not be able to differentiate between the subtle odors of Chanel's new Allure for Men and the more pedestrian Brut.

At Hermes, Sakamoto even has a little bowl of coffee beans customers whiff between testings.

"It's the same as cleansing your palate," she said.

At places such as the two famed Bellagio shops, men are prone to impulse buying, Sharp said.

"We're getting more and more situations where guys will be walking by and just stop to see what we have," she said. "Not too long after we opened, a couple of younger guys stopped in to test the Allure and really liked it."

A few hours later, the swingers returned.

"They wanted to buy a bottle," Sharp said, laughing. "They had met some women who like the scent and it was wearing off. They figured it worked, so they bought some. It was really cute."

Men just entering the fragrance universe might find the other cologne facts of interest:

* Each person is born with his or her own "smell fingerprint" and no fragrance smells quite the same on two different people.

* Women do have a keener sense of smell than men, which most industry experts say is a learned trait stemming from smelling a wider variety of fragrances than men.

* The sense of smell, like most senses, is not as sharp in the morning as it is later in the day.

* Both men and women lose some of their sense of smell with age, which is one reason why elderly men and women are apt to use more powerful fragrances.

* A cold or flu can dull a person's sense of smell.

* Fragrances are not formulated to last throughout the day and it is advised that any cologne should be refreshed approximately every three to four hours.

* Heat increases the strength of any fragrance. In hot weather, lighter or less-concentrated fragrances should be used.

* Fragrances are to be applied to skin only. Don't use it on clothing or hair.

* For men, cologne is the least-concentrated fragrance. Eu de toilette is slightly stronger, and the most powerful (and also most rare) scent is perfume, made for men by just a handful of companies.

"It's all in the application," Sharp said. "Here, we have a super staff and if someone's going in the wrong direction, we'll give them other options. We've had a long and successful history of making people look and smell good."

On the opposite end of the scent spectrum occupied by Chanel and Hermes is the Perfume Depot, near Mervyns on Meadows Lane. Reese Kelle and son Kyle operate the family business, which sells all varieties of male and female fragrances at wholesale prices.

"We keep the overhead down and can sell lower than department stores and much lower than the high-end shops at the major resorts," Reese Kelle said. "Our place is a good example of how many different directions you can go."

A four-ounce bottle of Brut retails at around $10. English Leather costs about the same. The same-sized bottle of Boucheron costs $70, and the shelves of the Perfume Stores are filled with bottles and brands of all shapes and sizes.

There are colognes bearing the famous endorsements of celebrity heavyweights such as Julio Iglesias, Michael Jordan, Luciano Pavarotti and Elizabeth Taylor. There's Obsession for Men (Monday Night Football?) and macho brands such as adidas, Bad Boys, Animale, Captain and Dallas.

And what to make of Versace's Black Jeans? Or Realm, which is made with "human pheromones" and claims to be the only male fragrance proven to sexually arouse the opposite sex?

"Realm is really popular for that reason," Kelle said. "Men like that concept."

There's the fast-selling Calvin Klein One, a "uinsex" fragrance (more popular with women, Kelle says) and some truly imaginative packaging. Jean Paul Gaultier's Le Male is sold in what looks to be nothing more than a large tin tomato sauce can.

"We can't keep enough Calvin Klein in supply. It sells through the roof," Kelle said. "Jean Paul Gaultier's a really popular brand and was very innovative in its packaging. Most of the expense goes into advertising and packaging. Making the fragrance is relatively cheap."

One of the more distinctive-looking containers is Bvlgari, a cologne from Italy sold in a bottle that bears the size and shape of a hockey puck. A bottle of A-Men is shaped like a lighter and can be refilled, just like a Zippo.

Kelle said the trend for men's fragrances in the '90s has been for less powerful scents.

"In the '70s and '80s, the stronger, the better," Kelle said. "There were some really powerful fragrances put out in those days that are still around. Now it's a lot lighter, more pleasant, maybe because men are taking the lead of women and not just trying to bowl someone over with the scent of their cologne."

Kelle said the celebrity colognes don't sell too well.

"We might sell one bottle of Julio Iglesias a year," he said. "Luciano Pavarotti, we might sell four bottles a year. People like the famous name brands, but not necessarily the names of famous people."

Some fragrances can last generations -- even back to the early '20s -- and others fade away, seemingly for no reason.

"Some of it is good fortune, some of it's the quality of the product," he said. "I can't say what will sell and I'm not an expert."

Kelle does know some brands have died and aren't likely to be resurrected.

"We get questions about some brands I haven't seen in a long time," he said. "Hai Karate? It's gone."