On Scent Burnout and Starting Over with Sun Basin

From thirteen colognes to something much simpler (and better) | By Malikai Smith

Embarrassing story time: in my early twenties, I used to be a scent guy. I think at my “lowest low”, I had THIRTEEN different bottles of cologne gathering dust and taking up far too much room in my bathroom cabinet. Here’s the kicker: I didn’t even like the way most of them smelled on my skin. Upon first olfactory inspection in any random department store, I’d be hooked. I’d buy a bottle, take it home, and be excited to put it on and smell it throughout the day. Fast forward an hour post-shower, and I was burnt out on bergamot. Sick and tired of sandalwood. Rinse and repeat—this happened time and time again… thirteen times, if you’ll join me in recounting this dark period in my life.

You’re noticing a trend, and your observations are correct. I’m slow to learn, but like the tortoise and the hare, given enough time, I can get myself to the finish line—albeit slowly, and not as steadily as I’d care to admit. I noticed a trend too, however. Once I’d fast-forward an hour, the thing that was burning me out on so many scents was the notes that lingered a bit too long. Anything synthetic, anything overpowering, anything too terribly noticeable followed the same inevitable path. I’d grow exhausted with it in a short matter of hours, wondering why my nose had led me astray in that dang Macy’s.

Time for a Michael Bay–esque time jump (insert explosions and special effects). Now aged 31, I’m thrilled to report that my relationship with my nose has become much more harmonious. The answer was in front of my face my entire life. It’s been right in front of all of our faces for all of our lives, even before our common ancestors became bipedal or started worrying about how they smelled. Here’s the truth: a field of lavender cooking under the dry New Mexican sun smells nice. Invigorating mint can cut through the heavy drowse of an early morning as effectively as a cup of Keats & Co Coffee. The trend I noticed, with the clarity of sight provided by a few decades on this rock, was that if I kept it simple, there was no more scent-induced burnout an hour or so after my morning shower.

Lesson learned.

Luckily, I wasn’t the first person to realize that keeping it simple was the way to go, but maybe I’ll be the first person to tell you that if you’re like me, Sun Basin Soap is the one-stop shop for you as well. They’re an all-natural producer of luxury soap and shampoo bars (and bath bombs, but more on that later) that will leave you smelling like your favorite scents in nature and leave you squeaky clean in the process. They’ve dedicated 100% of profits to the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone, so you can be clean and smell nice like your mama intended while helping other mamas get the healthcare they deserve. Mamas, this is your time to rejoice.

Here’s something I’m not embarrassed to admit: after a particularly long week of work, I’ll get home and make a beeline for the bathtub, and before you can say “Maternal Center of Excellence,” I’ve got a Guinness in one hand, a book in the other, and a bath bomb foaming up and going crazy in the tub. One of the best days of my year so far revolved around the Trailblazer bath bomb, the Dew Drop Rosemary Mint Shampoo bar, and the aforementioned Guinness and Vonnegut novel. Talk about relaxation, cleanliness, and smelling like a million bucks. That’s what Sun Basin Soap can do for you, so you can skip the embarrassing thirteen-bottles-of-cologne phase of your life and go straight to the smelling good, feeling clean, and supporting-an-incredible-cause phase—a much better phase. Take my word for it.