The Stress Profile of an FBI Negotiator

AD info: this post is sponsored by Dove Whole Body Deo.

Who better to test out a new deodorant than me?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: there are a million people better suited to testing out a new deodorant than you, you desk-bound twerp! What about world class sprinters? Jockeys? Spies!

People who do high-stress activities that see them perspiring from every single pore on their body? They would be good deodorant testers! Gamblers. Lion Tamers. People who do physically demanding activities all day long. Ballerinas. Paramedics. Road fixers!

And yes, you could argue that any and all of those people would be far better placed to test out Dove Whole Body Deodorant than I am, but hear me out: those people know they’re going to get dramatically less and less fresh over the course of the day. It’s absolutely expected.

The undercover agent working in enemy territory gets ready in the morning knowing they’re going to spend the day rifling through the desk drawers of a megalomaniac, hoping he hasn’t guessed that “Brian the music teacher from Milton Keynes” is a fabricated persona.

The Red Bull extreme downhill cyclist knows that by the time she reaches the last 100 metre stretch she will have sweat rivers running through the ravine of her cleavage, that her top will be stuck to her back, that her feet will be hot and sticky. (I’d have a lot worse things coming out of me if I had to do one of those downhill courses, let me tell you!)

And yes, they would put Dove Whole Body Deodorant through its paces, but it would all just a bit obvious, if you ask me. If you ask me (and I know you haven’t, but I shall continue), a better test of their new deodorant would be on a person who maintains a relatively steady stress level for the majority of the day, with no real ongoing efforts or physical exertions, but who must then withstand sudden spikes of stress and adrenaline so monumental, so heart-stoppingly significant, that it’s a miracle she’s still alive.

It’s me, I’m referring to, in case you haven’t put two and two together. Me, with the same stress profile as an FBI Negotiator: relaxed for hours at a time, all fine and dandy, but with sudden and violent plunges into high-tension situations that I (unlike an FBI negotiator) seem apparently completely ill-equipped to deal with. Situations that send the protruding vein on the side of my forehead into pulsation overdrive.

Take last Wednesday as an example. There I was, minding my own business, working my way through my admin to-do list and putting off writing a blog post that’s been in drafts for a month: I could see the whole rest of the day stretching ahead of me and only one urgent task that couldn’t be deferred. Absolute bliss.

But then the intercom rang for the gate and it was a man selling olive trees - “yours for £850”.

Photo by Vasilis Caravitis on Unsplash

“No thanks!” I said, very politely, but it is a quirk of the gate intercom that anything you say into one end of the receiver comes out the other end an unintelligible, garbled mess. It sounds like a goose is honking through a megaphone.

And so the olive tree man didn’t understand my “NO THANKS” and carried on talking into the camera about the age of the olive tree and the fact it came with the gigantic pot (it was probably quite a good price, in all honesty, considering it was about a thousand years old and eight feet tall, but putting it in my hands would be like signing its death warrant) and so I thought I’d stop being lazy, put some shoes on and go down and tell him I didn’t want the olive tree in person.

Except that instead of turning off the speakerphone button, I pressed the button to open the gate!

If I say that as though it’s an epic problem, me opening the gate, that’s because it is. We have a long and very steep driveway, and once someone starts bringing a large vehicle through the gate, they commit themselves to at least five minutes of pained, extreme manoeuvring at the top. Any big vehicles that absolutely must come up (small skip lorries, heavy deliveries) have to turn around so laboriously (and usually churning up the grass at the sides of the driveway in the process) that it becomes this really tense, high-stakes spectator event that you didn’t want to have to partake in in the first place. Especially if they get too close to where the drive drops off into an almost vertical hill. Whooph!

Anyway, the gate started to open and I was bellowing through the speakerphone - “STOP! DO NOT GO THROUGH THE GATE” and at the same time trying to put my trainers on, but the kids had stuffed my trainers with tissue paper as a joke (story for another time) and I could only get the very tips of my feet into them. So off I went through the door, on tip-toes, with the dog barking his head off, and then the dog managed to get out in front of me which added another layer of peril because it was quite likely he’d go and run behind the reversing Olive Tree Truck, so I had to launch myself down the driveway - gradient akin to that of Mount Manaslu - with my feet en pointe inside my Flipflop trainers, waving my arms in the air and screaming “STOP! STOP!”

And all without a bra on, whilst realising I’d forgotten to put the bins out for collection day and also suddenly remembering I had a dentist appointment at half past two.

But there I was, three minutes later, back at my desk, dog alive and safely under my feet, heart rate back down to a solid 48.

(Apparently this means I’m afflicted with something, the fact I have a default resting heart rate of around 48. But I spoke to the doctor and she said all is fine. She said, “many athletes have this sort of resting heart rate” and I have to say I swelled with pride, despite her clanging error. That is what you get for wearing cycling shorts and a baseball cap to a doctor’s appointment! Flattery! I should probably have corrected her, in that I am absolutely not an athlete, I just do my Peloton classes a few times a week, but I was feeling too good about it all, and concentrated on flexing my quads a bit so that I could really ham up the athlete look.)

Anyway, oh my God, I digress, what I’m trying to say is that my days seem to be peppered with these high-stress moments that send me hot and bothered all over. So who better to test a deodorant that goes beyond the underarms? That delivers all day odour protection and keeps things feeling fresh in places like the back and the feet? Between the boobs? Under the boobs? In between the thighs? (This area specifically seems to be a danger zone for me this year. It must be the cycling shorts!)

I mentioned in a previous post that the spray version of Dove Whole Body Deodorant had won permanent status in my bag (as a teen of the nineties, I am well au fait with the idea of an all-over spraying session, including feet, stomach and a quick spritz in the general direction of the Garden of Eden) but I have been lengthily and dutifully appraising the benefits of the stick and the cream version too.

What I like about the stick and cream is that they have a very soft, silky texture that doesn’t dry down to a tight film, or leave a gunky mess behind: it’s all very neat and lovely and above all gentle, more like applying skincare than anything else. A nice replacement for my usual trick, which is just spraying copious amounts of perfume over myself in the hope that it’ll tide me over until I get home again and into the shower!

They’re not meant to replace underarm deodorant - but then I wouldn’t really want to put underarm deodorant anywhere else on my body, because the texture feels weird (I did try it, to check) - but I do think it’s the more skincare-leaning alternative to what we did in the nineties, which was to spray whole entire cans of Impulse or Charlie Red over ourselves after PE to keep any odour in check.

I think for me that the spray version most easily fits into my routine - it has a similar “silky” feel to the cream and stick, which is unusual for a spray product and the fact that it’s no-contact means it’s easy to apply during the day for freshening top-ups. In the last two days alone, the Dove Whole Body Deodorant spray has seen me through an incident with a bat on the landing (the cat dropped one out of its mouth, Rich was away, I had to catch it in a cereal bowl and release it outside, stress level a solid 10/10), an unexpected encounter with some cows and an extreme driving event that saw me having to reverse alongside an open trench in the lane, where they were replacing pipes, with only about an inch of leeway either side of me because my car is as wide as a cross channel ferry, all whilst a huge tractor bore down on me from the front and my kids argued in the back about how glacé cherries were made. (They’re slowly simmered in syrup over a lengthy period of time.)

So there you have it. Dove Whole Body Deodorant spray, permanent fixture. It has very quickly become the product I think about when I’m going to be out for the day and I know there will be a point where I want to feel more fresh and comfortable. The skincare-led formula feels beautiful on the skin, really gentle, which I think is what keeps me coming back to it, actually, above all else.

Dove Whole Body Deodorant is now available at selected retailers (see here for more info) - my most-used scent is Raspberry and Rose, but all three fragrances are mild (I don’t find they particularly interfere with my perfume) and have that “clean” sort of smell that is comforting and light.