Britney Spears Perfume Ruins Date

by Liz Colville

Remember when Cosmo kindly advised you to pretend you don’t own certain bathroom products in the company of a man, even though the products they listed were completely innocuous and normal and important? Well, it turns out that one of those products could conceivably be a Britney Spears perfume, and it could ruin your life!

A man by the name of Dave wrote in to the Guardian’s advice columnist on behalf of “a friend” (yeah right), and asked the following:

A friend of mine recently went home with a young woman after a party. However, before he, you know, got down to business, he went to use her toilet and spotted Britney Spears’s perfume in her bathroom. He promptly made his excuses and left. Was that unreasonable? And what are other similar style deal-breakers?

Hadley, the advice columnist, takes the Austen approach:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a grown woman in possession of a celebrity perfume must be in want of some psychological help.

But wait, she’s actually serious! Hadley goes on to say that “little things” can and usually do kill relationships. Fair enough, but perfume? Then she decides to give everyone advice on possessions that should cause a person to run a mile from a date, and in the process lambasts the entirety of the Jersey Shore wardrobe aesthetic and then some:

Men Ugg boots; anything by Ed Hardy; anything made out of mesh; jeans that have any kind of embellishment; jewellery of any kind; anything tie-dyed; bandanas; Crocs; leather trousers; T-shirts with writing; T-shirts that claim the wearer went to a posh university; fake tan; makeup (and, yes, concealer counts); cologne; baseball hats (unless you are a professional baseball player in which case, carry on); colourful trousers.

Women Ugg boots in any colour but brown (and even that is a bit of a stretch); anything by Ed Hardy; anything made out of mesh; jeans that have any kind of embellishment; anything tie-dyed; Crocs; leather trousers; T-shirts with writing; T-shirts that claim the wearer is cute/hot/bootylicious; celebrity perfumes; trucker hats; an unused wedding dress primed and ready.

I thought the advice column was going to be an op-ed about how celebrities shouldn’t come out with perfumes. If no one else wants to write that I will.