Here's what to do with men's colognes.

Men of a certain age have accumulated lots of bottles of colognes, either because we thought we needed to smell better back when we were dating, or, more likely, because our loved ones couldn't think of anything else to give us for birthday or Father's Day or anniversary. Men are notoriously hard to buy for, so the easy out -- for the women in our lives-- is to buy us a fragrance that they can stand on us.

That rationale has left lots of guys with scents we'll never use again. Hey, we're not dating anymore, so why all this smelly stuff? Guys really aren't into dabbing a fragrance behind our ear to get a partner. That was always a girl thing, right? And did it ever work? Probably not. It was more likely that the girls of our dreams would size us up as potential partners and select us with no attention whatsover to how we smelled. (If we smelled bad, of course that was a turn-off, but if we showered every day, that was enough.)

So all those male colognes were, really, kind of a waste of time. To the women: Do you recall if your future husband smelled of this or that fragrance? I doubt it. Women are smarter than advertisers and so have always looked for men who seemed stable and affectionate and maybe family-oriented. Skeptical of drunks or poets or musicians or other un-disciplined types. Give me a man with a good job who can kiss and who showers once a day, and I'll be sort of happy.

When I was in my twenties, I thought I needed to exude a certain aroma and bought for myself the most popular fragrances -- Brut, Canoe, English Leather, Jade East, et al -- but once I'd found my mate, most of those half-empty bottles sat on a shelf in my bathroom for the next few decades. Where they rest to this day.

So what to do with all that male cologne on your shelf? If you're like me, you take the caps off and sniff them from time to time, and they really do still smell good -- and may take us back to a more innocent and more romantic time, when we were young and full of ourselves.

Okay, here's what you do. Unscrew the top of any bottle and insert a few pipe cleaners. You know what those are -- you can buy them anywhere -- and you may have used them in the past to clean out pipes you used to smoke something that was illegal. Anyway, you take a few of those and insert them into the bottle of forgotten essence and let it sit on a counter or wherever. Within not much time, the air in whatever room -- I suggest the bathroom -- will begin to smell like Jade East or English Leather or Canoe or whatever. Instant air freshener!

Try it! I have, and it works. The porous nature of the pipe cleaners will suck up the liquid and disperse it into the air, not all at once but gradually, subtly. Sort of like the perfumed things women often put into their drawers. No big surprise: they knew about this before we did. But it does work, so try it. Put those male pheronomes (if they really exist) to good use. Secret an old bottle of Brut with a pipe cleaner in it under the bed and see if it unleashes your mate's primal instincts. Probably not, but what do you have to lose?

I'm into re-cycling, and I can't think of a better way to get rid of all that really nice-smelling stuff we men don't want to slather onto our cheeks anymore, can you?

At the worst, it'll make your house smell better. At no cost. And it might do even more.