It depends.

Part of what makes a cologne or perfume really work is how it interacts with your own body.

There have been “tests” that indicate some do better than others specifically for attraction, but I’m dubious about the reproducibility.

In any case, I have a few that I receive consistent compliments on, particularly from women that ended up doing more than just sniffing me. From men too, as far as that goes, though none of them did more than sniff since that’s not my orientation.

The single most significant one has actually had strangers sniffing at me in places where you wouldn’t expect anyone to sniff you. Lagerfeld. Their standard cologne. It hasn’t been a month since a lady got uncomfortably close to me and said I smelled so good. My wife calls it the panty dropper. My dentist asked me what I had on back when I first started going to him. He wears it now, but it smells a little different on him.

I started using that back in high school. I had been doing the usual teenage boy stuff. Old spice, brut, avon brands, basically junk (except for one of the Avon, but I’ll get back to that). But my grandmother had one of those hyper sensitive noses, and started complaining about not being able to breathe through her nose and got involved in my scent choices lol.

Lagerfeld was my uncle’s cologne, that my aunt had picked out for him. She recommended Lagerfeld for me, and out of the various types they got me on a shopping trip, it was the one that I loved. It’s an amazing scent by itself, but on me it really is great, it takes on this extra woody note with a hint of musk that isn’t there in the bottle. I really could tell a page of stories about being sniffed and followed around when wearing it, it’s fucking crazy.

Anyway, it didn’t bother my grandmother’s nose, and everyone liked it. The girl I was dating at the time made note of how good or was compared to the junk I’d had before.

I have met a few guys over the years that it didn’t smell right on, but none where it smelled bad unlike some popular scents like polo that can end up smelling like cat spray on some guys.

Now, back to Avon. They have a scent called wild country that is very spicy. It really is a tad too heavy overall, but if you go light with it, spraying into the air and walking into it, then moving as it dries, it can be nice. There’s hints of amber, sandalwood, maybe some cedar in there too. But it’s mostly like allspice to my nose, right out of the bottle. It was a runner up with my grandmother, but if I went too heavy, it was all she could smell.

There’s always cool water. It gets a bit over citrusy on me for my preferences, but not offensively so. And I’ve never smelled it on anyone where it smelled bad at all. It’s a bit cheesy because it got too popular and every frat boy would bathe in it, but if applied properly, it’s a fairly clean scent.

Aqua di Gio is one that’s been reliable over the years for me. Not my favorite, but sometimes you want a change just for the heck of it. It’s floral, with hints of citrus. On me, it ends up muted, like it’s been sitting on a shirt in the sun all day and is about gone. But I’ve smelled it on other guys over the years, and it tends to hold its own scent more than most, so it’s one I tend to recommend guys try out if they’re having trouble with cologne not smelling right on them.

But, again for me, Lagerfeld tops everything. To an extent that I sometimes won’t wear it out. My wife isn’t the jealous sort, but even she gets annoyed when there’s one of those extra effective moments of it. And I’m not actually a big fan of being touched by strangers, which has happened before because of the scent (also my beard, and also my shoulders. Women can cross boundaries about that kind of thing where men wouldn’t. Like, I’ve never had a dude cross the line and touch my beard, but I’ve had a double handful of women do it over the years).