Do you remember, about a 1,000 years ago now (five, actually) Mick Fanning, Bede Durbidge, Joel Parkinson, and Josh Kerr came out with a cologne called Ocean’s Mist? It wasn’t real, of course, but everyone laughed because surfers often smell bad.
Surfers smell like either piss-covered neoprene, kelp, and sewer water or sunshine, coconut wax, and SPF30 Banana Boat. The latter option, of course, is preferable, but it’s not an option for those in colder climates. Well, Ralph Lauren has you covered if you are one of the surfers who smells bad, and Gabriel Medina (along with Leila Jabour) are the faces of it. Surely, they are two surfers who fall in the SPF30 Banana Boat camp, but here we are.
The advertisement, which appears to have been directed by someone who went to film school twice and wants you to know it, is for Polo Deep Blue Parfum by Ralph Lauren, “a powerful parfum inspired by the cool deep ocean, refreshing ocean mists and lush island scents that fill the air.”
According to Ralph Lauren (the brand, not the person), Deep Blue is “infused with notes of sea mist and oceanic aromas,” which may or may not be a good thing. “Oceanic aromas” is a broad term, and if we’re being honest, oceanic aromas are not often very good. Oh yes, the spray from a whale’s blowhole looks majestic, but have you ever been downwind from that putrid, watery whale snot? And sure, those kelp forests that drift in the currents underneath beams of broken sunlight look beautiful, but have you ever buried your nose in a pile of bull kelp rotting on a beach?
This is not the first time Medina has starred in a commercial for a huge brand. Not even close, actually. And it makes sense, because Medina is huge. Like, Neymar huge. A few years ago, Time magazine put him on the list of the 100 most influential people, and SportsPro named him number 43 on its list of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes. He shaved his armpits for Gillette, sprayed his chest with Coppertone, and worked with Samsung, Oi, and Mitsubishi, just to name a few. Far be it from me to poke fun at Gabriel for lining up with Polo — get it where you can get it, Gabs.
