In the world of "non-luxury perfumes," few have a reputation as gargantuan as 1970s Old Spice. Last year I was fortunate enough to find a bottle of early seventies Old Spice cologne for a great price, and bought it. I wanted a vintage cologne for the bottle more than the scent. As much as I appreciate vintage, I hate the Proctor & Gamble bottles (cheap, crappy plastic) more than I love the vintage scent.
I don't even hate the fact that P&G uses plastic. The change in container material isn't a big deal. What pisses me off is the piss poor logo they print on the new stuff. That dumb "patch" with its microscopic ship is an eyesore. I can't understand what the design department at P&G is thinking with that thing. I've ranted about this before, and won't go on about it here, but just wanted to briefly touch on it again. The vintage Shulton milk glass bottles are pretty much the same size, shape, and color as their successors, but are superior in sporting beautiful scarlet script and the iconic grey-blue graphic of the Grand Turk, and at a size I can actually see.
The scent's reputation precedes it, although this is not obvious to casual observers. You have to be a fraghead to understand the extent of cultural murmurings about seventies Old Spice. The decade is known for a plethora of loud and super musky (super "fly") compositions, and the idea is that Old Spice entered a more full-bodied era in the Nixon years, likely following the zeitgeist. The problem in 2020 is that the fragrance is now nearly fifty years old. Orientals are known for having good staying power, and a good formula can likely survive twenty or thirty years with minimal changes. But pushing a half century is, put simply, pushing it.
The fragrance has survived, but only barely. It's wearable, and it still smells good, but its dynamism is nonexistent, and its balance long gone. Instead of the fizzy pop of orange skin, orange flower, ambergris, aldehydes, clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg familiar to me in my now long-gone 1980s vintage (which was only twenty-five years old when last I wore it), the seventies juice emits a super-smooth burst of aldehydes, which last a mere ten seconds or so, followed by an intense bourbon vanilla, very deep and musky, almost as if I've dribbled vanilla extract on my arm, which quickly dries to a powdery skin musk, made extra dusky by hints of cinnamon and clove.
Where the vintage excels is in its depth. Proctor & Gamble managed to make their reformulation shimmery and pert, especially in freezing cold winter conditions, but it rarely gives an impression of durability. Shulton's formula achieves an odd trick; once applied, the wearer is treated to something that seems to radiate five or six inches from skin, without actually smelling like much up close. Although it pretends to disappear ten minutes after application, I often get a whiff of powdery vanilla five or six hours after application, and in a way that seems to drift through the air. This kinetic effect is remarkable for being both softly tenacious and engaging. It's essentially a rich vanilla base that doesn't smell cheap because it doesn't smell like a cologne.
How the chemists for Shulton developed this kind of oriental base is beyond me. I suspect there's real vanilla extract in there. But the powder, talc-like and quintessentially barbershop in nature, lends this simple note an abstract quality that I haven't encountered in recent fragrances. When I wear it, I feel like I'm emitting a vanilla essence from my sweat. The vague dusting of spice lends it animalism, but its sweet song is crystal clear, unembellished by chemical harmonies, a direct example of masculinity as melody. I wish the spices had held up more, and can't detect the ambergris that I know Shulton used, but I like it. It's really good stuff.
I also bought a bottle of 1970s vintage aftershave, but I got rid of the juice. It was probably fine, and I was probably just imagining danger, but something about using fifty year-old aftershave didn't appeal to me, and there was a touch of rancidity in the oils that sealed its fate. I refilled the bottle with current aftershave, and that works fine. The aftershave bottle dates between 1973 and 1980. I imagine it's from the late seventies, judging by the condition of the bottle.
If you enjoy Old Spice as much as I do, getting a vintage bottle is still a viable option, especially if you just want the bottle. But if looks don't bother you, the new stuff is still very good and worthy of use. Just don't make me look at that shitty packaging. I would give my left leg to take control of the package design department at P&G so I could dial the clock back to a more comfortable and less cost-efficient date! But with that said, I'd probably struggle to keep my job.