What does confidence smell like?

According to the young men profiled in a recent New York Times article titled "Masculinity in a Spray Can," about how tween boys, like their older brothers, are now into wearing (or rather spraying, dabbing, and/or dousing themselves with) men's grooming products, confidence smells a lot like Axe. (Just an aside: considering the subject matter, maybe the editors should have called the article "Smells Like Tween Spirit.")

Equating smelling good to feeling good, or feeling confident and sexy, however, is nothing new, as the author of the article duly noted. Indeed, Hoffman (I'm not sure if "Jan Hoffman" is a he or a she) went so far as to prove the point by linking to an old Hai Karate commercial on YouTube featuring Regis Philbin and Joey Bishop. Though she (he?) really should have linked to this Hai Karate ad instead:



Of course, YouTube being YouTube (and me being me), one ad led to another which led me to this classic ad for Irish Spring. ("Manly, yes, but I like it too.")



(Interesting factoid: Irish Spring is a sponsor of TheOnion.com. Manly, with a sense of humor!)

So is confidence or sex appeal something you can just spray on or acquire or do you have to be born with it? Let me know what you think via a Comment.

For the record, while I find confidence very sexy, I have an extremely sensitive nose and colognes and after shaves completely turn me off. Though for some reason the smell of edge sensitive skin gel on a man drives me wild (as does the smell of barbecue sauce and sauteed onions).