4/26/12

The Old And New: Old Spice Fresh & Pure Sport



Sometime in the last few years, Old Spice reformulated and re-released its famous "fresh" variant as Old Spice Fresh. Fragrantica puts the start date at 1988, but in fact basenotes has it right - Old Spice Fresh was originally released in 1980 as Old Spice Fresh Scent, and was a minor player in the lineup until its discontinuation sometime in the 1990s. I don't know what prompted Proctor & Gamble to give Fresh another go, but apparently someone was nostalgic.

Fresh always struck me as being a product of Calone's "first wave," one of a handful of discreetly-clean and sea breezy masculines that were mass produced from the 1970s to the late '80s. Stuff like Wind Drift, Blue Stratos, New West. These weren't overtly aquatic, nor were they fruity bubblegum scents, but they all employed a clean Calone molecule that was subtly woven into their compositions for ozonic effect. The basic Calone smell is very marine-like in nature, and mimics the saltiness of a sea breeze. In Fresh, this clean sea spray element is central to the composition. It isn't sweet. It's bitter, mineralic, ozonic, salty, and a little green. It's Calone the way we're supposed to smell it, somehow relegated to the cheapest stuff in the men's aisle.

Even today, Fresh smells very old school and a little clunky. But here's a major point in its favor: it's an excellent ambergris scent, for anyone curious to know what amber smells like. Fresh opens with an incredibly bitter melange of salted lemon, bergamot, and frosted galbanum, and bitchslaps my sinuses for a good fifteen minutes before softer notes of dry cedar and amber emerge, perfectly haloed in Calone - or whatever they're using to imitate Calone nowadays. It smells like a cold Atlantic wave breaking against grey shale somewhere along the coast of Maine. 

I also find Old Spice's newest brand of "Fresh" next to them in massive 6.5 ounce bottles, labeled Pure Sport, from 2004. This fragrance is a more modern OS variant, and has seen immense success in bodywash and deodorant form. I like that they make it in aftershave form as well. Pure Sport is not your average formulaic sport scent. In fact, it's not a sport scent at all. A basenoter called Cipriano accurately states that Pure Sport smells of 60% Old Spice and 40% Allure Homme. Actually, I'd reverse the poles on that, as I get a stronger Allure vibe. But Pure Sport isn't really a fresh fougère - it's a fresh oriental, and to be honest, the aftershave version smells a lot different from the bodywash and deodorant. 

The bath products smell "sportier" and brighter, while the tonic is warm and smooth, with distinct notes of sandalwood and opopanax under light touches of grapefruit, clove, and anise. The fruity undertow is attributable to some variation of Calone, no doubt a cheap stand-in for the fruity Water of Joe Calone of the '90s. This is more wearable than Old Spice Fresh, but not nearly as interesting. Still, it's excellent value for the quality - Pure Sport smells like it should cost four times as much as it does.

If you're looking for respectable "fresh" scents, and don't have much dough to blow, P&G offers two excellent options for a combined total of $15. You won't smell like a big spender, but you'll definitely smell good, and a whole lot better than that fat asshole on the S-train who douses himself in L'Eau D'Issey.