In a recent post on Badger & Blade, I asked if anyone had come across English Leather bottles that predate the 1960s. After some friendly back and forth with a couple of members, I came up empty. One member, however, clarified something useful: older bottles are more likely to list their size in ounces only, not milliliters. That detail led me to consider Shulton's Old Spice. After 1967, Shulton began listing both ounces and milliliters on their bottles. It's reasonable to assume MEM followed suit around the same time—though it's unclear whether MEM did it first or copied Shulton.
The other day, I received the third English Leather bottle I’ve bought off eBay. It’s another 2-ounce cologne, nearly identical to a previous one, but with minor differences. The text is smaller, there’s no dividing line between the fragrance name and its concentration, and the colors are slightly darker. Most notably, the size is listed only in ounces. That suggests it predates 1967. But it also has a ZIP code on the label, and ZIP codes were first introduced in 1963. So it was made sometime after that year. This puts the bottle’s age between 1963 and 1967. Old, but not old enough. And that’s what baffles me.
The lotion I have also falls into that same post-1963, pre-1967 window. All my bottles are, at most, 62 years old. But I’m looking for one that’s 76. There’s a 14-year gap in English Leather’s early history. Where are the bottles from that period? Every example I’ve seen online includes a ZIP code, so none predate 1963. That’s remarkable.
Even more curious is the inconsistency in how the cologne smells. The post-1967 50 ml bottle I featured in my last article smelled flatter and less citrusy, less dimensional. That didn’t surprise me. But the older bottle pictured here? It’s crisp, bright, fruity. The citrus sings. The mossy base feels balanced. What’s going on?
I’m starting to wonder: is English Leather the first mass-market fragrance to fake its release date, and get away with it? Everything points to MEM fabricating the 1949 launch year. But why? What would they gain by lying about it? Or maybe MEM never mentioned a launch year? Maybe someone else just randomly invented 1949, made the claim to the public, and it stuck for no good reason?
To be clear, I’m not searching for a bottle that might predate 1963. I’m looking for one that definitely does. No ZIP code. No milliliters. Just "English Leather Cologne," the size in ounces, and maybe a short New Jersey address, if any.