Careful with that Axe, Eugene: Excessive use of body spray causes school bus evacuation

You are the weakest Lynx

A salutary warning arrived this week for those seeking to impress at the Christmas disco after a school bus had to be unloaded due to an excessive discharge of body spray.

First reported by ABC Action News for Tampa Bay, the bus carrying Buffalo Creek Middle School students required evacuation thanks to an overpowering odour of Axe body spray.

UK fragrance fans will be more familiar with the brand as Lynx. Parent company Unilever is also responsible for that Christmas favourite, Brut. Those of a certain age will remember the late heavyweight boxer Henry Cooper flogging the stuff back in the 1970s.

Alas, Lynx was not available for Cooper to liberally spray around the [boxing] ring back in the day. The bout with Muhammad Ali might otherwise have gone a bit differently.

As for the Florida students, a local EMS was called, according to reports, but nobody required hospitalisation as a result of inhaling the heady odour of adolescent passion. Another bus later turned up to transport the children on to their destination.

While the product has made some grand claims for its pungency over the years and the attraction qualities with which it supposedly imbues the wearer, its marketing machine has yet to add "can empty a bus" to the inevitable festive campaign.

We vultures spend quality time every day rammed nose to armpit on London's finest subsurface transit system, but have yet to detect much beyond the usual fragrance of quiet desperation. And no, we don't plan on seeing if a liberal spraying of Axe will see us alone in a tube carriage.

The Register contacted the UK tentacle of the manufacturer for its thoughts, but has yet to receive a response. ®