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Axe Body Spray is proof that just because you're the butt of everyone's jokes, that doesn't mean you can't be a successful product. I don't know one single person who wouldn't jump at the chance to rail on Axe Body Spray, from its horrible line of too-too-strong scents, to its mind-bogglingly sexist ads that leverage rape culture for marketing purposes. And yet, people - mostly teenage boys - are buying Axe in droves.

But this is no longer the case at one Pennsylvania high school, where a teenage boy was hospitalized after experiencing a severe allergic reaction to Axe Body Spray. The boy is recovering well, but the school has been forced to request that its students abstain from Axe in the future, in order to avoid setting off the student's allergies.

This leads me to wonder whether the boy wasn't surreptitiously paid by the school to fake an allergic reaction. I bet if you spoke to any high school administrator or staff member, they would be more than willing to pony up some cash for the pool to bribe a kid into faking a reaction. How much would it be worth to YOU, if you had to spend every day trapped in a classroom full of Axe fog, not to have to smell it ever again?

I also suspect that a lot of other schools will soon be following suit. Ostensibly in order to spare any students who might be harboring a heretofore-undiagnosed Axe allergy. But actually just to spare themselves the daily Axe-pocalypse. Can't say that I blame them.

All joking aside, scent allergies are a real thing, and they can cause serious problems. Scent sensitivity can cause headaches, asthma attacks, hives, or uncontrollable sneezing. And unfortunately it's almost impossible to avoid strong perfume smells if you live in a modern Western nation, since we insist on scenting every single product for sale everywhere (and our bodies besides).

Image courtesy Flickr/knitwick