Hot boy smells
Choose your fighter: Luigi Mangione fragrance edition
I don’t think I need to tell you who Luigi Mangione is. Nor do I imagine I need to tell you that the internet is collectively hot for him. But perhaps I can be the one to bring it to your attention that, in addition to trying to unpack his motive and politics, the internet is also trying to identify another key part of his persona: his fragrance.
There is no consensus to Luigi’s smell. Some say he’s a Le Labo guy, akin to saying he’s a stylish if basic Williamsburg bro who aspires to taste but lacks originality. Some believe he wears the Ariana Grande mega-hit fragrance Cloud, meaning he is in touch with his teenage-girl-who-shops-at-Ulta-side and he’s not afraid to show it. Some say he wears Acqua di Parma, which is to say, he’s Italian. And then there’s the classic “X as Y” thread showing Luigi Mangione photos as fragrances. That is to say, Luigi contains multitudes.
Unlike with his reading choices, I don’t think we will ever know the answer to what fragrance Luigi wears, if any (though at this rate, I’m not writing off someone discovering his Fragrantica profile by the year’s end). But the desire to identify his fragrance is just another way to imprint a persona — and a desirable one at that — onto someone we still know relatively little about.
Fragrance, even just the idea of it rather than the actual smell, is a particularly efficient way to craft a persona. It’s in part why teenage boys have become such avid fragrance collectors in recent months. Maybe you don’t have the time or resources to clear your skin or style your hair, but with a spritz of fragrance, you can (or so many hope) become the kind of guy who hangs out on boats or drives a Rolls-Royce. In short, the kind of guy who gets girls. What fragrance does the kind of guy who becomes an overnight vigilante icon wear? That is still up for debate.
Girls do this too, of course, sharing recommendations for “soft girl perfumes” or “cool girl perfumes.” But women also often have so many more tools at our disposal to craft our persona, from makeup to jewelry to hair styles, while the majority of men are drawing from a more limited toolbox when it comes to communicating their style. Areas where they do feel permission to experiment, like fragrance or say sneakers, subsequently carry particular weight.
Most users projecting an idea of Luigi’s fragrance are presenting him as desirable by default, even with the limted purview we have of him. There’s nothing strange about that as anyone who has ever used a dating app is well-versed on how to project a fantasy onto a few photos, height, and a reading list. But fragrance is an especially effective conduit to bring that fantasy and eroticism to life. You’ll never actually know what fragrance Luigi Mangione wears, but you can imagine him to smell like whatever your heart desires.