 |
| It's Back |
Brut Special Reserve is no longer discontinued. Sorry, eBay scalpers. You'll have to forget about charging $125 for 89 milliliters of this stuff, because it can be had for $18 again. And, I have more bad news for you: the $18 formula, new from High Ridge Brands, is better than the old version from twelve years ago. So go fish.
Is there a lot to say about this new Brut? No, not really. I finally understand what High Ridge Brands is doing, and it makes me feel a lot better about my life. Back about four years ago, they reissued Brut 33 (the plastic bottle drugstore version) with a beautiful formula that took Brut back to 2000. I was awestruck by it, because I never expected anyone to buy an old, over-reformulated legacy drugstore cologne and "fix" it. But that's exactly what they did, and it smelled great. I bought two backup bottles.
Then HRB did the unthinkable, and quickly reformulated it, cheapening the top notes and messing with the warm, ambery finish by adding shrill white florals. Not terrible, and still miles better than what Helen of Troy had brought us to, but why? Well, now I know why -- they decided to take their first formula, increase the concentration by 10%, and put it in a glass bottle, to be marketed as the new Special Reserve. This new stuff smells rather similar to Brut Special Reserve 2013, but it's smoother, drier, more put together, and a bit less crude in how it impacts the nose. I like it better, let's put it that way.
Brut remains one of the most difficult fragrances for me to pin down, given its myriad incarnations and the simple fact that it's been around for 61 years. I find myself obsessing over Brut in much the same way I obsess over Creeds, and indeed, I have a bottle of the original glass Fabergé cologne on the way, so I'll be taking my obsession to its logical endpoint. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you're someone who has been gnashing his teeth over Special Reserve's discontinuation, and you had not, until now, heard of its re-release, well, you're very welcome.