Ah, Axe! The scent of my youth’s making a comeback
26.3.2026
Translation: Megan Cornish
Pictures: Michael Restin
No other deodorant sells so little common sense and so many dreams as Axe. Now I’m experiencing déjà vu – because the next generation’s also being bewitched by all its advertising tricks. Luckily, with different messages.
In the beginning, there was underarm sweat. Not a pleasant topic, unless Axe is tackling it. After all, it’s not about glands, secretions and discreet protection. Oh no, then the advertising world would explode. It becomes colourful, gaudy and garish. Lots of bare skin, even more mad goings-on. Every spray a promise. Every other fragrance note a crime.
At least to older noses such as mine, which wrinkles up when I walk behind a group of teenagers and into the inevitable Axe cloud.
The next generation’s bringing this stuff back into my life – and with it, a whole lot of memories. Some are hazy, others best forgotten. A few have stuck in my mind as clichés. The brand’s almost as old as I am, but our paths diverged after our shared school days. We went through puberty together. And it’s stayed in that era in my mind ever since. Ah, Axe.
Moving on up – but no further than below the belt
I’m sure my teenage self would reach for it again today. Like everyone else. To fit in. To drown out all self-doubt with those one or two extra sprays. Because, who knows, maybe there’s something to it after all. Maybe Axe’s damned mojito and cedarwood scent really does turn a prepubescent weed into a man.
The Axe story’s all about rising, albeit initially to just below the belt – which for a long time meant being at the very top. It’s a story of gradual decline, because the times had moved on from the old role clichés and «sex sells» as the sole message. And it’s also the story of reinvention as a funny brand that appeals to all genders with grown-up fragrances.
Axe has been around for 40 years, long before underarm sweat became a serious issue for young people. On the shelves, in advertising, in people’s minds. In other people’s gym bags and rucksacks. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. It’s all thanks to perfect marketing. Things were a lot different in 1983, when body spray for men (and all those aspiring to be manly) was invented. It was a completely new type of product.
The 1980s: Unilever has a good nose for business
Before Axe, the world of men’s grooming looked very different. There was soap. And deodorants marketed without much enthusiasm. They weren’t to make you smell good; they were to stop you smelling bad. And there was often just one product for everyone – my Bac, your Bac (ad in German). With the exception of perfumes and aftershaves, which were too expensive for teenagers and often too old-fashioned for younger men.
There’s no such as thing as a body spray that combines fragrance and deodorant yet. At least not for men. For women, the consumer goods giant Unilever already offers a strongly scented deodorant called Impulse, which turns heads with the advertising slogan «men can’t help acting on Impulse».
It’s a success the company now wants to replicate with a male demographic. With Axe. Developed and launched in France, legend has it that it was originally supposed to be called Champs Élysées (article in German). Due to legal issues, the project team went with the Parisian-inspired Axe historique before settling on just three iconic letters. A stroke of luck. Although Lynx also works as a brand name – it’s what Axe is called in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
It all started with Musk, Amber and Spice. Successful long before Elon Musk and the Spice Girls, these three deodorant fragrances launched in France in 1983. They were a hit. Unilever had a good nose for business, which is why Axe arrived on store shelves in Germany in 1985, bringing a breath of fresh air to the industry. Although, from today’s perspective, the erotically charged advertising of the time seems amazingly dated.
So, what does the sophisticated gentleman choose? Amber, musk, or cedar? Axe in any case. The «eau de toilette deodorant» for men. Aftershaves and shower gels with the «fragrance that drives women crazy» followed. All still relatively harmless. It’ll take a few years and several advertising campaigns before women start loudly proclaiming just how much and why they can’t resist Axe (no, it’s not the scent).
First, everything starts to be geared towards commercialism. Commercial TV arrives (article in German), opening countless colourful advertising windows. This brave new media world fills airtime with little substance, lots of slapstick and increasing degrees of nudity. Axe, Lynx… is there another word that ends with x? Oh yeah: sex.
The 1990s: Axe sells
Initially, Axe focused primarily on scents linked to places that seemed exotic at the time. In the early 90s, they were given names such as Java, Inca, Nevada, Alaska and Africa – the latter’s a top seller to this day. In the UK alone, it’s sold over 400 million units. It’s a kind of rite of passage for young people and a meme-worthy last-minute gift.
The musty advertising of the 80s is slowly fading. In Axe ads, jacket-clad men are increasingly giving way to broad-shouldered hunks in open safari shirts or with towels around their hips. Women’s glances are no longer subtle and submissive; they’re provocative and assertive. But it’s the Axe effect that truly changes everything. It captures the spirit of the time with a narrative that most people fall for.
Baywatch is on TV. Britney Spears is outgrowing the Mickey Mouse Club and will soon be dressed like a schoolgirl. Meanwhile, the media landscape of the late 90s is peppered with the Axe effect. It promises to turn average guys into heartthrobs. The pheromone in the can’s aimed straight at the libido. Women are transformed into mindless creatures. The lift goes up, and the slogan goes through the roof.
It’s a marketing masterpiece, if you’re only measuring commercial success. Boys especially are snapping it up in droves and doing what teenagers do: exaggerate, overdo it, act tough and collectively mask the fact that nothing’s happening for them, not just in the lift.
To achieve this, they invent Axe bombing and popularise creating a cloud of the deodorant, polluting changing rooms, causing asthma attacks or allergic reactions and forcing schools to issue bans. Unilever starts running campaigns on «proper usage». In retrospect, it’s all a bit too much.
Calls for bans are also coming from women’s and media organisations, who feel the sexist advertising goes too far. So, what do the advertising strategists do? They go even further, because – wink, wink – it’s all just meant to be funny and satirical. It’s accepted. For now.
The 2000s: (no) reason to complain
Axe turns bom chicka wah wah into pop culture. In the «Billions» ad, thousands of women in bikinis spring from the undergrowth and emerge from the sea to chase a man on the beach. Spray more, get more.
«The Chocolate Man»’s constantly being nibbled on to promote Dark Temptation. A single spray transforms the «victim» into the sweet guy whose bum women bite uninvited or whose arm is ripped off as he drives past. The ad’s banned in India, but the fragrance later becomes a cult classic. Unilever tests boundaries and keeps pushing them ever further. The more it’s talked about, the better.
Axe conquered the USA in 2002, when the brand launched one of the most aggressive and successful market entries in consumer history. With stars including Ben Affleck, who was outshone by the fragrant nobody. There were parties in Axe-branded houses. It was the main sponsor of MTV shows. And concerned parents had reservations about the Axe effect. What could make a brand more attractive to teenagers?
After just three years, Axe was number one in the USA. From Unilever’s perspective, there was nothing to complain about in this decade. The brand’s fame grew almost effortlessly thanks to the internet. In 2009, Indian businessman Vaibhav Bedi reportedly took Unilever to court, demanding £26,000 in damages for a lack of Axe effect.
The company cheated me because in its ads, it says women will be attracted to you if you use Axe. I used it for seven years but no girl came to me.
The story appears in the fake news section (article in German). Nevertheless, it’s picked up by media outlets worldwide. It’s just too good not to make the headlines. On one side, an awkward plaintiff who meticulously documented his Axe consumption. On the other, the global corporation’s lawyers, who make easy work of him. It’s all puffery, which, Unilever apparently argue, is permissible advertising exaggeration – and it wins.
It’s PR gold for the company, but the hype surrounding the Axe effect is nearing its peak. Where will it go from here? Perhaps even higher. Perhaps into outer space. Perhaps downhill.
The 2010s: all the greatest stories come to an end
Axe is dropping angels from the sky (ad in German) and hiring a hero to send nobodies to heaven: the Axe Apollo Space Academy promises a trip to space in 2013. The face of the campaign will be Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Presumably only because the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, died back in 2012.
Over a million people apply, and a handful of candidates are invited to the Global Space Camp at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Axe assembles its dream crew, and the elite group completes parabolic and fighter jet flights. There seem to be no limits any more.
School lockers and classrooms are now a distant memory, and the exotic scent of the 90s is left behind. Africa and Java are in the past. The world isn’t enough. Now, it’s outer space that’s going to unite Axe as a brand for everyone. We’re moving from the wannabe heartthrob towards a genuine hero image. Apollo’s still one of the bestsellers in the USA to this day.
The campaign ads are also cinematic, because «nothing beats an astronaut» (ad in German). But the flight never takes place. XCOR Aerospace goes bankrupt, and a financial settlement’s reached. It’s a sobering end to the big story.
At the same time, the good old Axe effect finally alienated the mainstream in the early 2010s with its lowest common denominator approach. The first part of the slogan «Reizt frauen, nicht die haut» (gets a reaction out of women, not your skin) is definitely true.
There are online campaigns where the average man can launch deodorant cans like rockets at a woman’s hot pants-clad backside on an aircraft carrier. If even the model – who eventually even gets to show her face (article in German) – encourages people to visit the site, then it must be okay, right? Because, of course, it’s all «meant ironically, wink wink».
There’s just not as much winking back any more. No more turning a blind eye – instead, there’s open criticism (article in German). For a while, it still tries to be as provocative as possible in the mainstream with posters and ads before following up online – where the children of the outraged are still reachable – with «apology videos» where, as usual, the subjects apologise wantonly for the ads. Sorry, we’re just too hot for your parents’ generation. Brilliantly simple. Simply brilliant. At least as long as young people think it’s all cool and like the immature ads.
But by the middle of the decade, things have changed. For Gen Z, the narrative of the Axe effect wasn’t just crumbling, it was counterproductive. Axe guys were now immature loudmouths who polluted school changing rooms, with meme potential fuelled by outdated ideas. Cringe. A real threat to the brand.
Unilever conducted a large-scale study and concluded that almost 70 per cent of advertising now rejects the old clichés. The slogan «in a world that’s getting louder, less is more» used to launch Axe Black seems like a self-imposed stop sign.
Unilever pauses briefly – and then reverses course. Because the new generation demands, promotes and celebrates individuality above all else. What was magical yesterday just seems weird today.
The about-face to «find your magic»
Axe uses all the tricks in the book to make it clear that the old days are over within seconds of its reinvention: «Come on, a six-pack? Who needs a six-pack?» It just sweeps away the previous three decades with a dazzling array of new, diverse products. The message? «Find your magic». With Axe, the old chick magnet now just subtly enhances your personality. It’s as simple as that.
New, subtler fragrances were intended to finally free the brand from its teen-focused image. The turnaround was a success. Axe is still stocked in the men’s aisle, but it’s now for everyone. Including women and girls, who were first directly catered to with Axe Anarchy for Her in 2012. And they now fit perfectly into the brand’s new, diverse strategy.
Axe Unity arrives in 2018, adorned with rainbow colours and finally fading the haha hetero humour of the Axe Effect into the background as a relic of another era. Be who you want, live how you want. It’s okay. But buy our stuff. The image makeover works – and opens the door for the brand to move into a higher price bracket.
The 2020s: fine fragrances instead of a cloud of deodorant
Axe’s next evolutionary stage aims to consciously shed its former tacky image. With a new era come new demands: young men now spend hundreds of francs (article in German) on expensive perfumes. Compared to that, what are a few francs for a deodorant that at best even qualifies as a «dupe» – smelling deceptively similar to an expensive fragrance?
Axe is deliberately targeting this market with its Fine Fragrance Collection, marketing its new cans as affordable luxury. It’s partnered with well-known names in the perfume industry to create the new scents, and enlisted stars including rapper Lil Baby to help launch the new Axe, which has been immodestly dubbed the GOAT of fine fragrances.
There are fragrances such as Black Vanilla, a kind of superior Tom Ford because it smells similar to his Tobacco Vanille. Blue Lavender was reportedly more popular than Bleu de Chanel in a blind test with the target audience, and Emerald Geranium is meant to evoke Versace Pour Homme. And Gen Z loves it.
Axe launched in Paris in the early 80s, and it’s returned to the perfume capital. The brand has matured more than I expected. Less restricted, more diverse. Almost a bit more refined. Axe is no longer the butt of jokes, but it’s still firmly in the men’s fragrance department, where you’ll now find scents including Cherry Fizz, which boys used to be playfully sprayed with – held down by four classmates. Today, they wear it willingly.
I realise I’ve long since been disregarded by the algorithm as a target audience no longer relevant to advertising. None of the current social media campaigns (video in German) reach me. I actually have to search for them. And it seems that Axe looks back on its teenage years with the same head-shaking disbelief as I do. The corny humour, the embarrassing ads and the pungent scents. I pick up a can of Alaska and spray some into the room. It immediately triggers memories. But they’re hazier than I expected.
Unilever even aims to wean the next generation off clouds of deodorant, thanks to new spray devices and the instructive message that less can sometimes be more.
Ah, Axe. How classy.
Presumably, this only applies as long as sales aren’t at stake. As far as how much teenagers should use, I can say from my own experience as a father that they still tend to overdo it quite heavily.
There’s still a bit to do for the first campaign, which I sincerely wish every success.
Michael Restin
Senior Editor
Michael.Restin@digitecgalaxus.chSimple writer and dad of two who likes to be on the move, wading through everyday family life. Juggling several balls, I'll occasionally drop one. It could be a ball, or a remark. Or both.
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