Odd News Show

Axe Body Spray Used To Tame Wild Beasts

Get the flock out of here! According to some shepherds, it may not be music that soothes the savage beast, but Axe Body Spray, also known as Lynx, which appears to be a well-known way to calm angry sheep down and otherwise confuse them.

By Bram Teitelman · April 24, 2024

Let me Axe you something, on a scale of Ed Hardy to Jersey Shore, how do i smell? Loico/Wikimedia Commons

The mere mention of the words “Axe Body Spray” likely transports you back to the early 2000s. As an awkward teenager with raging hormones, you didn’t know much, but if there was one thing you learned from the frequent ads in between Pimp My Ride and The Osbournes, it’s that the ladies went wild from just one spritz of the deodorant/cologne hybrid. It turns out that, just like most of your other teenage dreams, the opposite might be true. If Axe Body Spray brings out the animal in ladies, that animal is a sheep that goes mild instead of wild when confronted with the stuff.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the discovery, profiling retired police officer Sam Bryce, who got into being a shepherd after years of shepherding criminals into other pens. After one of her more aggressive rams started, er, ramming another ram, she asked the Facebook group “Ladies Who Lamb” (yep, it’s for real) what she could do to make him less aggressive, and the answer was Lynx. Nope, unfortunately, not a wild cat, but Axe Body Spray, as ‘Lynx’ is what it’s called in countries where the “Axe” trademark was already taken.

Specifically, one of their scents is called Africa, presumably because it smells exactly like the band Toto, and that’s the most highly recommended of the many scents to calm them down. Unilever launched Africa, which it describes as “deep and sensual with a fresh top note set on a warm oriental base,” in 1995 and it’s the most popular scent in the UK - or is that the Ewe K?

Ewe smell amazing! I don't even know what we were going to fight about before, but I'll bet we can both take that dog...  Bernard Spragg. NZ/Wikimedia Commons

Evidently, the distinct smell of Axe/Lynx masks hormones, which causes Bryce’s sheep to take things down a notch and stop fighting. “There’s no argy-bargy, no rowing,” she tells the WSJ, instantly making her the most British Brit that ever Britted. Apparently, it’s not just for angry sheep, either. The Journal also mentions another lady who lambs, or shepherdess if you must, who uses the body spray to convince ewes to mother orphaned lambs. With ewes identifying their young by scent, spraying both of them with the stuff, specifically the strong, distinct smell of Africa, confuses the ewes into believing the lamb is their own. And also causes both of them to subscribe to Maxim. Either way, if Axe/Lynx has the same effect on humans as it does on animals, it may lead more to the friend zone than the erogenous zone.