I don't understand how assaulting someone with a mix of chemicals that have long been proven to often carry serious health risks (e. g. https://www.bcpp.org/resource/right-to-know-exposing-toxic-fragrance-chemicals-report/ ) has become socially acceptable when it's not only a serious health risk, people are allergic to it and it's the equivalent of holding a Bluetooth speaker to someone's face and blasting a song at full volume.
Probably worth noting that the vast majority of Japanese people carry a gene that prevents them from producing BO. They tend to see BO as a foreign thing, because they don’t deal with it on a daily basis. Their antiperspirants are often minimalistic powder cakes that you need to mix with water to apply. They are often unscented, because they don’t need to worry about masking BO every day. And they can be downright difficult to find in stores, because they just aren’t frequently used by anyone except foreigners.
The common perception among native Japanese people is that white people smell like sour milk. Because when you don’t encounter BO in your day to day life, you aren’t nose-blind to it. Then you come across a white tourist who has BO, and sour milk is the closest approximation you can think of since you don’t have a baseline “this is what BO smells like” to compare it to.
Back in the 80s, spraying behind the knees was also mentioned in fashion magazines, because as fragrance tends to rise, a lower point of application helps to cover more of the body in a subtle way.
I would thinn scents tend to sink, not rise, or best case they just disperse and given the volume of a sphere goes up at a rate of r^3 you just want the scent to be as close to other people's noses as possible.