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Female Fantasies? The Nose Knows!
Scented candles. What are they for? Ask a man, and you might get varying answers – for masking the stank of indifferent housekeeping; for turning one’s home into a firetrap (bonus if careless children and pets serve as the arsonists); for frittering away money; for making grown men sneeze. Like cushions, scented candles seem an item of home decor most men could do without. Indeed, 90% of candles are purchased by women. Yet candles grace seven out of ten households and come in more than 10,000 different scents for US customers alone.
As the autumn nights draw in, even earlier now that our clocks are set back, the clever advertisers at Glade invite you into the mind of their typical female consumer, so you can see what all the scented fuss is about. “LET TEMPTATION FILL THE AIR,” Glade’s ad proclaims, as a sultry alto invites you to “Dare to let fragrance take you places you never thought you’d go…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MocSwKG7gzA
The first place you never thought you’d go is apparently behind some dark curtains, where a handsome young buck – almost certainly younger than you, the consumer, are – approaches. He hands you an invitation. To a “glampfire”. “Enter If You DARE,” it reads. Glampfires are mad sexy and everyone knows it – his invitation couldn’t scream sex any harder if he’d stapled a condom to it.
You open the French (therefore sexy) doors to enter a Moorish bar with a French (therefore sexy) bartender. The tender gently strokes the length of the bar with a soft cloth. What elixirs does he display to tempt you with? Glade home fragrances, of course! After all, what could be more intoxicating?
Once suitably drunk on the power of home aroma modification, you meander deeper into the bowels of this Moorish palace, hand trailing languidly along an ivy-covered banister. Thanks to the power of Glade, the palace’s interior is overgrown in a riot of vegetation – entire pine trees, herbaceous borders popping out of jars. You turn your head and there, before a bower of autumn blossoms dark as sin, is The Moor himself. He takes you by the hand, teeth gleaming, into a nocturnal bower. He is there to help you discover yourself…
By, er… taking your picture, of course. After all, SC Johnson, purveyor of fine Glade products, is still a family company. (It has a wife company and little kid companies at home.)
Gazing at your own pale, sapphire-eyed image, you realize you are a femme fatale – as exotic as blue-eyed white girls get. Your narcissism thus sated, you draw near to an amber-colored candle. You are Alice in Wonderland, and the tiny orange peyote buttons tricked out like miniature magic pumpkins hold the key to your dreams – and beyond.
The courtyard door, grown impossibly small – dollhouse-like, opens. An almond-eyed Nubianess, grown towering by comparison, beckons. Her swaying steps will lead you to the place beyond your dreams.
What is this place?
A tea party, of course! The petits-fours are all pumpkin-spice flavored; the cups, impossibly dainty. Doll’s cups – all women are secretly children still longing to play tea with their dollies, dollies brought to life in exotic grownup form by the power of Glade’s “magic pumpkins”. The Nubianess’s downcast gaze suddenly lifts to meet your own, and you are transported once more – transported direct into Eden.
You pluck a magic apple (labeled just for you, O fairest) from the golden tree. Through the flaming, aurulent forest wafts flamenco music. Because why not? Don’t apples remind everyone of flamenco? A woman in a red dress appears in the distance. She is sinuous. She is exotic – a femme even more fatale than you are. She is Huma Abedin, and she is dancing just for you.
Now all afire with Glade-scented sapphism, you rush toward her, offering the apple. Once the fruit is within her orbit, the magic of her gaze teleports it directly into her own hand, and she takes a bite…
That is what awaits you with Glade’s invitation. Toldja glampfires were mad sexy. “Ignite your daring side,” the sultry alto croons. The dark curtains rustle. If the Moor, the Nubianess, and Huma weren’t enough for you, that young buck is still waiting in the wings…
So, intoxication and polymorphous perversity. That’s why scented candles are so popular – they’re nose porn for women. Or at least that’s what the good folks at Glade promise. And they would know, right?
“Feel tempted,” Glade suggests, suggestively. And for a microsecond, I am tempted – tempted to suppose Said was onto something with his critique of orientalism: though I’ve never thought ill of orientalists myself, the “exotic”, “oriental” tropes on display in this Glade ad are an intersectional deconstruction just waiting to happen. (Hello, Everyday Feminism!)
Now, perhaps you might still think a woman could be forgiven for believing that all scented candles are good for is making one’s home smell marginally nicer while adding a little ambiance by way of fire hazard. But women, if your scented candle doesn’t ignite your daring, dissipated, exotic side, you’re doing it wrong!
And men, the next time you see a woman in the scented candle aisle, cautiously sniffing the bounteous variety on offer, give her a little privacy…
Image Credit: Jeff Schear, Getty, from Glade’s Autumn Glampfire Event at the New Regal Theater
Published in Humor
I, of course, recommend the mode of dress of Milan or even Florence.
It could be part of a grand project whereby American men make some changes to their manners to please American women.
That is some weird advertisement. I guess it was tested and found it sold to someone. Obviously not me. On second thought, if buy some of those glampfires – is that what they’re called? – could I entice my wife to more…? Might stimulate male fantasies too. ;)
Nicely written piece by the way, Midge.
This was supposed to sell me candles? Most commercials these days are lost on me because I am usually doing needlework and seldom actually “look” at the screen. I can’t believe some executive actually approved this one.
I don’t know if it will be effective in selling candles, but I do think it’s a beautiful ad.
Yep! (Though these intoxicating aromas are also available in home fragrance oils, if that’s more your thing.)
Heh. Somehow it happens. Sometimes even with ads for men’s products…
Almost as beautiful as this one –
Not for the city, Randy, sorry.
Living in Chicago years ago, I was standing with a buddy near our Loop-area office after lunch. In college, he worked at a tubing plant. I noticed the straw from his soft drink and commented, “That’s a wide-gauge straw” and immediately shook my head. “What?” he asked. “You’re the only person that would understand that comment for blocks.” A good laugh ensued.
So, edgers? Not edgy enough.
I’m just dying to know what’s edgy about wide-gauge straws now!…
Apparently, Glade is trying to manufacture a whole lifestyle out of three seasonal candle scents – who are these tips even for? (Glade expects its customers to layer in “Lace and leather and gold lamé, oh my!” – how many of its customers even have those things in their wardrobe?)
If one tip for unexpectedly adding pumpkin does not call for a trebuchet, I shall be severely disappointed.
Other ways to unexpectedly add pumpkin:
I’m on board with three through five.
Okay, here’s the mashup just for you and in honor of this wildly-entertaining post.
Glamour, daring, decadent (love that word), and tempting; “With our daring wide-mouth straw, you live the decadent life, tempting others to your world of glamour…” that includes faster liquid consumption, tempting obesity more than anything else, really. That’s what is edgy about a wide-gauge straw.
Can’t like this enough. Lol.
They are great for thick smoothies. I make mine with lots of ice and frozen fruit and the wide straws are perfect.
Thanks!
Also great for launching tapioca pearls from your bubble tea at the back of others’ heads. Very tempting, I must say!
Yeah, I got your “edgy” … right over by here.
I’m pretty I found the right scent for your situation: