Nerding Day: Super Mario Scented Water

Has this happened to you? You’re finally on a date with your crush and you realize way too late that the scent you’re using is Just. Not. Right. Maybe you thought expensive perfume would have impressed that special someone. Maybe you tried on pricey cologne to show them you’ve got class, buddy! But maybe the smell isn’t good enough or it’s too strong or - perhaps - it just doesn’t remind your beloved about the Super Mario Bros.

Good news: Your problems are over with Super Mario Scented Water. Is this a real, official product? I actually don’t know! A friend who works at a video game company and often visits other countries for work sent it to me with no context! That’s not a lie, by the way: My friend will just put things in a box, ship them to me, and I’ll have to work backwards to figure out what I’m looking at. It’s honestly the best. It’s like a prank and a present at the same time. The point being, whether it’s real or the most pointless knock-off ever, Super Mario Scented Water can give you a 1-Up on dating!

Now, to be clear - this is scented water, not perfume. This ain’t just for you and me grownups, it’s also for kids who want to smell good when they’re trying to impress someone at Nobu. Plus, the bottle says “no alcohol,” an ingredient that I’m guessing must be in perfumes and colognes. This is a relief for anyone considering drinking it because the bottle’s contents have the consistency of chunky milk. I honestly don’t remember if it looked like that or not when I received it because - guess what - I put it in a drawer and forgot about it for two years.

So, it’s kid friendly and alcohol free, just like my uncle before the accident. In addition to romance, it’s the perfect scent for first communions, bar mitzvahs, and graduations from elementary school. Be the coolest kid in your class by walking in with Super Mario Scented Water. And then drop to the floor crying when you accidentally have the nozzle backwards and spray it straight into your mouth. I’m not sure exactly what would happen if you did that because this article doesn’t pay enough for a hospital visit. Best case scenario it tastes awful. Worse case scenario, there’s an embarrassing newspaper article about how you died.

But enough of the hard sales pitch, what does it smell like? I’m so glad you asked. When you think about the Super Mario Bros., you probably imagine dashing over bricks to stomp on turtles. All of which have smells that one would want on their body. In fact, it’s hard to pick just one smell you can associate with the series. Fungus? Sure! Flaming castles? Yes! Road-crushed banana peel? One hundred percent! The aftermath of plumbing? Sign me up! Any of these could make a sexy date give you a sly smile and say, “Are you wearing Mario?”

They could’ve just gone with these obvious scents. But no. These are perfumers who cared enough to license or steal the Mario brand. You can’t sell Mario Bros.-themed scented water and make it smell like just one part of the game. You want it to smell like all parts of the game. And the only way to make it smell like all parts of the game is to, of course, make it smell like a living room carpet that was washed a month ago.

After spraying it on my wrist - and trying to take a photo that didn’t look insane - I tested the scent against others you might have in your home. What I found was a complex bouquet. It’s serving college dorm Febreze. It’s serving dad’s bathroom Glade PlugIn.

It’s serving Windex used to kill a roach because you don’t have a can of Raid. More than any other product on the market, Super Mario Scented Water romantically combines all of the familiar, lovely smells from under your sink. Just one sniff and you’ll be taken back to the good old days of having to scrub the kitchen before your judgemental grandma showed up.

So I return to the original question: Is this an official Super Mario Scented Water product? Honestly? Probably not? Almost definitely not? Based on both the smell and the feeling and the inability to find it anywhere else, no. Seriously. Usually you can find at least bootlegs. Somehow this doesn’t exist anywhere. I can’t find it on any site. Not eBay. No matter how many variations I searched.

Nor could I find it on Etsy as some sort of bespoke knock-off product.

No combination of words or phrases or trying to trick the algorithm gave me anything that looks like Super Mario Scented Water. I can’t even find a reference to the Super Mario Scented Water on a forum. True, I didn’t spend more than an hour looking - but also, if I did, I’d then be a person who spent more than an hour looking for Super Mario Scented Water.

That said, there are some things that do exist. Well, a lot of things exist. But in this specific instance, I found there is a recent Princess Peach Body Spray that was based on the Super Mario Bros. Movie. I think Lush had a few Super Mario options over the last year. This is not that.

I wanted to compare the two scents, but when I ordered “Princess Peach Body Spray,” the FBI showed up at my door and took all my hard drives. Hope they enjoy a lot of old King’s Quest games and some low-res rips of the pre-Special Edition Star Wars movies, cuz that’s what they’re gonna get! Sorry, cops!

I also found something that seems official called “Super Mario Water Teasers.”

I think this was one of those almost-fun games your grandparents would have that allowed you to push a soft button to make a little bit of water push microplastics around. Apparently it offers, quote, “HOURS OF CHALLENGING FUN”. It doesn’t say how many hours so I’m gonna guess, oh, two hundred. It’s basically the Elden Ring of soft water toys that leak after two days.

Unfortunately, when I ordered the “Super Mario Bros. Water Teasers,” the FBI once again showed up at my door. And they were like, “Buddy,” and I was like, “I know,” and they were like, “Hard drives,” and I was like, “Already in the evidence bags.”

But the fact of the matter is that - whether official or very, very, very, very, very likely not - Super Mario Scented Water does exist. For too long, perfumes and colognes and scented waters have had the stench of fruit and the fetor of wood. They’ve been disgusting and useless. Today you can change that. And since nobody but me and my friend seem to have ever even heard of this (knock-off) product, it feels good and proper to help them out with a few slogans.

So get your hands on Super Mario Scented Water today. If you can find it, which you almost certainly won’t! And happy sailing, you romantic dog: Have fun out there in the land of love, which as we all know is after the desert and ice levels.

Warning: Super Mario Scented Water does not wash off your wrist no matter how hard you try or what soap you use.

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