Brut Splash-On Lotion (Unilever)

Closing out May, let's take a look at European Brut Splash-On. Here in America, we rubes are given tacky plastic bottles that look and feel junky and are in an unnecessarily deep shade of green. It's as if HRB thinks the darker color will help buyers overlook the fact that they're splurging on a great big bottle of cheap. But not in Europe -- oh god no. You fancy-pants Euros get the expensive plastic that looks and feels like glass and is finished in a tastefully subdued translucent green. 

How does your supermarket Brut smell? Well, after the initial alcohol bite, which is unexpectedly more pronounced than the American version, the Euro Splash-On settles into a delicate and very sweet sugared lavender fougère with wispy woody underpinnings, reminiscent of the Unilever EDT in glass (squat bottle). My war-torn nose sometimes struggles to get the full picture, but what I glean is that this is an "aura" fragrance, something any bloke with a few quid can grab in a pinch to send olfactorily subliminal signals of very civilized masculinity out to the world. An eau de cologne version of the Unilever formula, if you will. The irony here is that Europe and Asia, where this formula is primarily marketed and sold, is loaded with sophisticated and eye-wateringly expensive haute parfumerie, most of which fails to capture the ethereal beauty of this understated classic. You can find it across from the condoms at Tesco. 

This formula of Brut is sweet, gentle, yet nuanced enough to smell like a real composition. It "feels," more than smells, as if I'm relaxing in a grassy meadow full of wild pink catchfly, their dulcet aroma whirling past my senses on a warm breeze, along with a hint of English lavender from further afield. There's also a warmer hay-like essence, powdery and woody, just underneath. Truly beautiful for a drugstore pong, possibly better than HRB's here in the States. Now for a prawn salad and a bowl of Heinz beans.