Brut Classic (Fabergé/Unilever)

My bottle of Brut Classic by "Fabergé" is the 1990s formula that was only sold from circa 1989 to circa 2000, after which point Unilever sold the North American license exclusively to Helen of Troy/Idelle Labs. I had never smelled this formula of Brut Classic until recently, having only owned several bottles of the 2000s stuff, which I was always a bit wary of. I'd spent years hearing older guys reminisce about how the current Classic smells like the original stuff from the 1960s, but I always questioned it. The fragrance smelled much better than the plastic bottle version sold in drugstores, but I felt it lacked something and seemed suspiciously thin in the drydown, a wispy white musk and powder vibe. 

The first five minutes of Fabergé's Classic smells very similar to the Idelle Labs reformulation, but the main difference that jumps out at you (if you have experience with the newer stuff) is that the vintage version has way more depth in its lavender and geranium accord, with brighter, mintier aromatics, and a sort of sparkling quality to the citrus and greens. The stearyl acetate accord really glows in Unilever's older version of Classic, and as it dries down the lavender remains lucid, guiding me through an array of powdery white florals and into a musky sandalwood and patchouli base that smells classy and overwhelmingly "adult" and sophisticated. Wearing it, it's hard to believe Brut was once the "cheap cologne" that anyone could grab at a Woolworths or K-Mart. Its projection exceeds the safety zone of three feet by at least another three, and its longevity is nuclear at 15 hours plus. Classic indeed, especially when you consider my bottle is the cologne and not the eau de toilette spray that was also available at the time. The Idelle Labs formula doesn't come close to touching this one in quality or strength. (The Parfums Prestige formula, also Unilever, is a different story.) 

It's interesting that Unilever kept the Fabergé marquee going for another decade after it was all but moot to associate the name of a Baltic jeweler with an inexpensive American barbershop scent, but I guess when a British multinational firm of its size buys something as iconic as Karl Mann's 1964 fougère, the incentive to maintain is there. Of note to me is how their post-'89 formula doesn't smell the least bit cheap or simplistic -- there's quite a stew of notes at work, and all of them smell sprightly, dimensional, and, for lack of a better word, solid. It stands apart from its powdery post-shave brethren, reminding me more of Trumper Wild Fern than Pinaud Clubman. If you have the cash, I say get this. 

The Mystery of Brut . . . I Can't Solve

Brut is the one fragrance I've encountered on my fragrance journey that I haven't fully understood. Unlike most fragrances, there is no single pristine vintage specimen that I can reference, to shore up my olfactory memory and guide me past the imposters. There have been so many iterations of it that figuring out which one is worth the time hasn't been easy. For my entire adult life, men have said that Idelle Labs' Brut Classic (now discontinued) was the closest thing to the original sixties formula, and for a while, I believed that. I loved Brut Classic, a fresh and summery green-floral beauty that shared its brightness for far longer than the drugstore plastic-bottled version. But looking back at my 2012 review, I wrote something that now reads wrong for Brut: "The usage of ylang-ylang and jasmine is genius in Brut. Without these floral notes, the scent would smell like Mennen's Skin Bracer (which by the way isn't really made by Mennen anymore)." 

I wasn't misrepresenting or misunderstanding what I was smelling; Brut Classic did smell a few floral notes removed from Skin Bracer. But that isn't how Brut Classic should have smelled. It should have greeted me with those notes, and then dried down to a smooth and slightly animalic amber. Nothing like Skin Bracer at all, really, and even if there was a fleeting resemblance in the top or mid notes, that should have only been a mild perception. I purchased a bottle of vintage seventies Brut 33 Splash-On Lotion after using up my bottle of Classic, and it taught me that musk ambrette changes everything I thought I knew about Brut. My little Millennial pea brain had to struggle to comprehend how, from my birthday in 1981 to the present, my olfaction had missed out on what Brut used to smell like. My father never wore anything when I was growing up, so there were no real-life references, and because my parents rarely took me to drugstores or pharmacies, my opportunities to sneak a sniff from a store shelf were virtually nil. I know, hard to believe, but true. 

Last year, I bought the clear-glass (squat) Brut EDT by Parfums Prestige/Unilever, and that version is slightly better quality than Brut Classic was. However, it's also a unique spin on Brut, in that it smells woodier and a bit more vanillic than any other formula I've crossed in the wild. But these differences are piddling, and ultimately it's almost identical to Brut Classic. It's also disappointingly weak, and I've relegated it to being the Brut that I spray on clothes, just to get more than ninety minutes out of it. I'd read that Unilever had another version of the EDT in the original sixties-style green glass bottle, but assumed that it was merely the same formula in a different package. Then I rewatched a shaving video on YouTube in which a Brut fan exhaustively outlines which version of contemporary Brut compares the closest to an actual sixties vintage bottle that he'd borrowed from a friend, and he said the Unilever green glass was by far the closest. This piqued my interest, so I figured I had nothing to lose, and bought a bottle. 

There are a few things that are unclear about this version, and so far I haven't found enough information on it. First, there are several iterations of this formula out there, all from different countries, the most notable being Israel and India. The Israeli version is identical to the bottle pictured above, but has a gold cap and medallion, and is colloquially referred to as "Brut Gold." I read on Reddit and a few other places that "Gold" is the sturdiest and most reliable version of this formula, and it comes from a few European countries, but always smells immaculate (i.e., quality control is sound). Then there's "Brut Silver Medallion," which is my bottle. There are no Unilever markings on the packaging (that I noticed), and it comes in a clear plexi-plastic case, so the logo would be on a sticker, and mine came without one. My understanding from what I've read online is that my bottle might be from India, where they apparently import the fragrance compound and bottle it straight from bottling factories (i.e., the quality control is less sound). 

Another weird thing is the packaging says the bottle has a "measured spray." I'm not quite certain what "measured spray" means, because I've never heard of it before. I'm assuming it means the atomizer is designed in such a way as to release a specific amount of fragrance with every pump, and unerringly does so (no half-sprays allowed). But I'd always assumed this was the case with every atomizer bottle of every fragrance, so I'm not sure. Not super important, just strange. I tested the "measured spray" after priming it a few times, and indeed it shoots a fairly compact burst of fragrance, and the juice hits skin with a thud, which usually indicates high oil content. I expected it to smell identical to the other EDT, and frankly wasn't even anticipating enjoying it that much for that reason. As soon as the bottle freed that first spray, my nose perked up; this stuff was immediately and obviously different. I raised an eyebrow. I fumbled around for my make-believe detective monocle. I stroked my imaginary mustache. Something was afoot; I was experiencing yet another version of Brut. This one was, yet again, different. 

To put this in proper perspective, I should back up and recap my experience with my 3.5 oz. bottle of early seventies Brut 33 Splash-On Lotion, which I bought in 2013 and used up by 2015. That stuff smelled really, really good, save for a touch of plastic contamination tinging its scent in the first five seconds. Otherwise it opened beautifully, a burst of soapy aromatics, rapidly followed by a drydown I had never associated with Brut before: a touch of musk ambrette. My understanding was musk ambrette had been gradually neutered down over the years, until it was eventually removed entirely. Nobody has come forward with clear information on exactly when this happened. Nobody has described the neutering process either, save for Luca Turin obliquely mentioning this unfortunate devolution in the 2008 Guide. Everything I've read and watched about musk ambrette has said that it lasts forever on skin and fabric, and smells fantastically clean/dirty and ambery. I got the clean/dirty and ambery vibe, but it was completely gone within two minutes, which isn't what I expected. My guess was that 33 percent of the fragrance wasn't enough to allow musk ambrette to sing. But, again, this was just a guess. 

Since then, I've purchased another bottle of Brut 33, this time in the 7 oz. size. This bottle appears to be a bit newer than my other one, and I'm guessing it's mid eighties (guessing, guessing), just based on the graphic design of the bottle, which looks like a later attempt at streamlining and modernizing the look of "entry-level Brut." The fragrance in this one has also been preserved better than in the previous bottle, and there is almost no plastic contamination detectable. 

This bottle smells the way my other one did, except it's a little "cleaner" in the base, and it lasts noticeably longer on skin, at least three hours at low volume. Even though the musky element lacks the raunch of its seventies predecessor, it's still much dirtier than anything on shelves in the past twenty years. It feels like a virile amber scent, and whatever musk is in there has presence. The seventies 33 smelled like bright soap for about fifteen seconds, then like really "sooty" musk for about ninety seconds, and then vanished completely. This eighties 33 has the same trajectory, but the sooty aspect lingers and smells more dimensional and soapy, just a touch better overall. 

These two bottles of 33 tell me that either one of two things is true: Brut used to smell like them, and the glass bottle version from the sixties was the same but more concentrated, or my new bottle from Parfums Prestige is how all of these smelled before time macerated the base accord of the vintage drugstore splashes into something that smells burlier than it really was. When I sprayed on the silver medallion PP formula, it smelled very aromatic and oily-green in the first twenty minutes, before getting brighter, drier, and more powdery, smelling the most similar to everything that I'd smelled before in this phase. Then I got to work, and about ninety minutes after application (and during a meeting), I suddenly caught whiff of this divine musk, and my heart skipped a few beats. It was strange, because at first I thought I was smelling someone else, but then I gave myself an up-close sniff, and it seemed as though my fragrance was the culprit. 

The aroma was potent but suave, semisweet but not sugary or bitter, woody without smelling natural or dry, and a bit sooty in the old way, but lacking overt raunch. It was also weirdly elusive, wafting in and out of my perception. The vintage Brut 33 formulas both smell of some sort of dry-sooty musk that feels very masculine and "alpha" for the duration, but the current green-glass version adopts an ambery tone that isn't quite as sooty, yet still alluringly masculine. No specific notes stand out, other than musk and amber. Complicating the comparison even further, I happen to have a late nineties formula Brut 33, which is at least seven or eight years newer than the 7 oz. bottle pictured above, yet smells raunchier and muskier in the base! 

This bottle seems to date from when Unilever took over in 1990, probably sometime before 2000, but as usual, hard to say. I tend to think they removed the Fabergé branding by 1999, but either way, this was likely on shelves when I was in high school. The weird part is how it smells, relative to its predecessors in opaque plastic, which don't hold a candle to it in the musky department. What was going on in the nineties? A raunch revival? I wore this formula the other day at work, and by mid-morning realized there's a fairly common nineties-era designer animalic musk tucked in the base, sort of that soapy clean/dirty thing found in stuff like Balenciaga Pour Homme, but in a much lower dose. Whatever it is, it really sings, lasting twelve hours with little to no change in tonality. 

The mystery is clearest in this particular formula: was this how it smelled new? Or is it how it smells now, no less than twenty-five years after production? Am I smelling Brut the way Brut was meant to smell, or am I smelling time-altered Brut? If it's truly preserved well, why does it smell stronger and burlier than stuff twenty years older? And why do I get the feeling that the silver medallion green-glass Parfums Prestige bottle is a more faithful rendition of how the original 1964 formula smelled? There's something about the ambery depth of the base in that one that seems to align well with how it might turn out smelling in thirty years; in other words, the vintage Brut 33 from 1985 might have smelled like my new PP bottle when it was new. There's no way to go back in time and find out (yet, that is), so for now I'll just have to settle on not knowing. 

I have one other point of "vintage" reference, a splash-on bottle identical to the one above, but sans Fabergé logo, and in that one the sooty/animalic musk is gone almost entirely (stripped down to a feeble whisper), with another musk that smells closer to the current stuff in its place. I put that bottle at whenever Unilever divested from the Fabergé Brut brand in North America, circa 2003. Both the nineties bottle and the early 2000s bottle seem to struggle with the plastic they've been housed in all these years, as I sense there's some contamination that especially effects the newer bottles, oddly enough. I have four altogether, and one was so rough I dumped it. They're clear plastic (green, but light goes right through), and that may be part of the problem. 

However, when I decanted a couple of them into an empty and much newer Helen of Troy bottle and let the fragrance sit for a couple of days, the funkiness disappeared. So even going to a new plastic bottle benefitted them! The only thing left on my Brut journey is to find a vintage Fabergé green-glass bottle from the sixties, but that is daunting, and I'm not easily daunted. The problem is that vintage Brut is a crapshoot. Brut clearly changes with time, and without knowing what I'm getting, or if what I'm getting is even legitimate, the risk is all on me. I also realized that musk ambrette is not restricted in India, so the thought did occur to me that they might be sneaking small amounts of it into the silver medallion PP bottles like mine, which might account for the stunning beauty of the drydown. 

But that seems unlikely, given there's no incentive for them to bother spending money to "adjust" the formula Europe sends over. Whatever is going on there, I can't actually suggest one version of Brut over another. I can just tell you that whatever version you buy is one of many. If you want what maybe feels like the truest original formula, I would say avoid spending a hundred bucks on Special Reserve, and put that money to better use by picking up a Parfums Prestige medallion bottle, either silver or gold. 

They Already F*cked With It.

What's this?

So, remember when I told you that Brut's new licensee, High Ridge Brands, had actually improved the fragrance? Do you recall that little post about how they had taken a turd sandwich from Helen of Troy/Idelle Labs, and tossed it out the window to make room for a vintage formula from 25 years ago? Remember how I told you that HRB had taken the unprecedented initiative to actually listen to their customers, and not cheap out on something that was already cheap to begin with? 

Well, that's already history. After five minutes of doing the right thing, High Ridge Brands went and reformulated their product down. Goodbye excellent reboot. Hello not-as-excellent reboot 2.0. The worst part is, they're proud of this shit. And boy am I pissed. 

I'm not going to type a gazillion paragraphs about this, because there's no point. You can go to your local grocery or drugstore and pick up a 7 oz. "Splash-On" bottle for a few bucks and smell for yourself. You'll be disheartened. Just make sure you hunt down a bottle of the previous version, pictured on the left below. I have two backups of it.

Very Good Formula                   Very "Meh" Formula

As you can see, the latest formula is on the right and has a name and logo change on the bottle. The whole "For Men of Character" schtick is apparently the new High Ridge Brands catchphrase for Brut. We're back to the oversized shield logo, although this time with shiny gold trim, which I have to admit is actually not bad. Also, "Signature Scent" is no longer the fragrance's moniker. It's changed to "Classic." Again, if we're talking graphics alone, the bottle on the left isn't terribly designed or anything, but it's a little hard to read, and frankly the bottle on the right is easier on the eyes. But that's where the improvement ends.

Quick recap: the bottle on the left opens with a surprisingly good citrus top note, followed by a fairly cheap but honestly executed bushel of typical fougère aromatics. It then segues into a rich herbal coumarin note, with lavender and musk in attendance through to the base. It smells simple, but also inescapably smooth and coherent, a beautiful and affable everyday fragrance, much like Fabergé used to make. 

The bottle on the right opens with a disgusting rubbery note of no discernible origin, which rapidly burns off and becomes unexpectedly soapy and fresh-floral. It's a little like a "slice" of Kouros, its musky, neroli-esque brightness, only here there's just no budget for it, and it smells like laundry musk. I sense a bit of grassy coumarin, but now it's competing with that odd freshness. Weirdly, after two hours, the same lavender and musk of the previous formula returns, but at a much lower register. 

It's not surprising really, not if you stop and consider what the deal is with Brut. HRB execs wanted to try a Fabergé-branded late Unilever/Chesebrough-Ponds mod of this stuff (there must be at least fifty different mods for Brut accumulated over the years), and they settled on one that was likely used sometime between 1997 and 2000. They wanted to live dangerously for a change, and take a chance on a pricier formula. 

But here's the problem: the public doesn't really know what it wants. For twenty years, guys on wetshaver boards have been conversing about how pissed they are that Helen of Troy fucked-up their favorite drugstore fougère. This incentivized HRB to do that rarest-of-rare thing, and take a risk. They gave the public what they claimed they wanted: their "old" (i.e., as old as HRB could realistically manage) Brut back. 

And then, what happened? Did guys celebrate online? Did word spread? Did sales pick up? Sure it did! As in, yeah, no, none of that happened. I'm not privvy to the sales stats for how Brut has done in the last two years, but I'd bet my house that despite the increased formula cost, things stayed pretty flat. Despite all the years of kvetching about the crappy Idelle Labs formula, and the discontinuation of Brut Classic, and the eventual clown show of Helen of Troy's ultimate defilement of Brut, the majority of wetshavers and men over forty ignored the little gift HRB gave them. So now it's gone. 

I have some thoughts on why this is. I'm just going to come right out and say it: the way all of these companies have been marketing Brut has been dead wrong, and it's been wrong for decades. The clear mouthwash-sized green bottles. The stupid shield logos. The weird blurbs about "men of character." The lack of any company branding ("Brut" is not a brand, it's the name of the fragrance). The preponderance of Kelly green on the website. The absence of a video commercial marketing campaign. All of this is wrong.

Here's what High Ridge Brands should do, and what they would do if I were in charge. First, I'd fire the entire marketing team, and I'd also can most of the graphic/package designers. I'd ditch the clear bottles and bring back the opaque earth-tone green plastic bottles in 3.5 oz. and 5 oz. sizes, the aftershave in the larger size only. 

"Brut 33" wouldn't return; it would simply be "Brut." No point using the "33" designator in a world where people need everything spelled out for them. But I'd find a way to get Fabergé back on the bottles. An actual brand, even if it's not the real one, so customers can stop feeling like their local Big Box store is shitting out bottles of aftershave. I'd axe the "Splash-On" and replace it with "Splash-On Lotion." Essentially the whole thing would go back to how it looked in the seventies. 

The formula would get modded back to something from the eighties. Post nitro-musk, but pre-laundry musk. I'd reintroduce a heaping dose of anise, which has gone conspicuously missing in the last half dozen iterations, and I'd make sure the musk is rich, deep, and slightly dirty. There would be a bit of that Kouros dirty/clean dynamic, which was inherent to vintage Brut, but with the naturalness dialed up beyond what it was even back then. 

You see, there's no reason why Brut can't smell alive. Patchouli oil isn't mind-bendingly expensive. Lavender oil isn't going to break the bank. Menthol is cheap as chips. Synthetic analogs of ylang, jasmine, and neroli are pretty commonplace. I'd hire a perfumer who could assemble a formula using small but sturdy doses of this stuff, and would "stack" the musks in the base to ensure that the cologne would last no less than twelve hours with normal semi-conservative application. 

My formula would be way, way more expensive than whatever they're using now. This would cut into whatever amazing margins HRB enjoys. But I'd reduce production. Dramatically. Brut is in no position to be in every single goddamn drugstore in the country right now. Brut has been humbled, and its output should reflect that. I'd slash production volume by sixty percent. Goodbye Brut in grocery stores. Goodbye Brut in drugstores. Hello Brut at Big Lots, Burlington, Target, Costco, Sam's Club. 

But it gets better. All of those stores would carry the plastic bottle cologne and splash-on lotion. You go to Dillard's, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's? Exclusively in those stores, you find the green glass splash in 5 oz. and 2.5 oz, with the cap, chain, and the medallion in 14k gold. The formula would be Creed level in terms of quality, with fine grade lavender, rich tonka, subtle anise, and stuff like methyl dihydrojasmonate and hedione for citrus lift and natural high-grade patchouli blended in with Ambrettex XNM. A 5 oz. bottle sets you back $275; 75 ml. bottle is $195. Brut is junk? It's 1964 again, bitches. 

The profits from the "luxe" Brut would join the marked reduction in manufacturing volume to subsidize the increase in quality and lower profit margin of Big Box Brut. All of this would be spearheaded by an aggressive video marketing campaign on YouTube and whatever lower-tier commercial-ridden package accompanies Netflix these days. The campaign would mimic the Kelly LeBrock ads of the nineties, with a gorgeous cisgender woman telling men what she finds attractive. 

The ad campaign would have two tiers, with one gorgeous woman selling the Big Box Brut, and another hottie selling the luxury version. The slogan for the cheap formula: "I don't wear anything around a man who wears Brut." The slogan for the luxe formula: "Your scent is your destiny." Ironically, the cheap formula gets the chick with the LeBrock-style British accent. The luxe gets the Southern country girl who spends thirty seconds opining about what real women are looking for. 

High Ridge Brands? Call me. 

Is Skin Bracer Discontinued? Look to Brut for a Lesson on Why We Can't Have Nice Things . . .

Recently on the shaving forum Badger and Blade, a member posted a thread asking if Mennen's Skin Bracer aftershave had been discontinued. Apparently SB has become increasingly difficult to locate in brick and mortar shops, with places like Stop & Shop (a grocery store chain), CVS, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid failing to display bottles or marking them all down for sale. Given the nearly 100 year-old legacy of this product, the idea that its days are numbered is distressing to all of us. 

I'm not entirely certain the rumor is true, however. I recall seeing it at Walmart at least six months ago, and seem to remember seeing it at Walgreens not forever ago. It's possible that certain stores have opted out of selling it for their bottom line, and maybe distribution has simply tightened up a bit after the pandemic. Whatever the case may be, some on B&B have suggested that any price ending in seven foreshadows a discontinuation, and if SB is labeled as such, we should consider it the apocalypse. I think prices ending in seven are simply sales prices or are just random dollar-up prices that shouldn't be considered anything other than typical big box pricing. 

But let's say Skin Bracer has been discontinued - what would that mean? You could view it as a black-and-white, hard numbers economic betrayal of the shaving man, with little more than basic balance sheet realities accounting for its being axed from global outlets. This would be the most likely explanation; companies aren't in the habit of shedding hot ticket items. If SB doesn't sell, it doesn't sell. Time for it to go, and Colgate-Palmolive certainly has a right to can it. Okay, fine, but what if we view it as a result of buyer apathy? Is it possible that there simply aren't enough men who care about the product to keep it on store shelves? Or would this be "blaming the vicim?" 

I'd say it's the latter case, except I've been observing the wetshaving community's reaction (or lack thereof) to the recent reformulation of Brut aftershave and cologne. In 2022, High Ridge Brands purchased the licensing rights to Brut from Helen of Troy, and since then has completely changed the fragrance formula back to a late nineties version that I haven't smelled since I was in high school. It's richer, louder, more expensive smelling, and more ambery than it was a couple years ago, when HoT's endless formula tweaks had finally ground Brut into a cheap vanilla paste that wasn't worth the plastic it was housed in. 

For many years under the Helen of Troy license, B&B members lamented the reformulations, and correctly said that they paled in comparison to the Brut they knew in prior decades. The running consensus was that Brut Classic was as close to true 1960s Brut that you could get, but then Classic was discontinued sometime around 2012, to be replaced by Brut Special Reserve, which was basically Classic with heavier accords and poorly-balanced lavender. Essentially Brut SR was just a screwed-up version of Brut Classic, and I have a bottle that I've only used about 15% of in the last eight years. I know they wanted to take Brut back with this stuff, but I simply don't like it, and won't wear it. 

People felt that the Brut you can buy anywhere, which comes in a green plastic bottle, was cheapened Brut 33 that had truly fallen on hard times. It was still an aftershave, but the scent had been neutered into a powdery mess. Brut "Splash-On," which came in a seven ounce bottle, had maybe fifty seconds of longevity before it vanished. The hunt for vintage Fabergé Brut was ongoing, and even a bottle from the nineties was preferable to the stuff available in the 2010s. Never in a million years did anyone expect Brut would be saved by anybody, as it seemed Helen of Troy had an iron grip on the license, and I fully expected they would discontinue it in the 2020s. And it would appear that I was half right about that!

It's clear that the bigwigs there had decided that there were two options going forward: discontinue Brut, or sell the license to someone else. Luckily they sold it, and High Ridge Brands, which must be run by Republican Boomers, wisely opted to ditch the going formula and replace it with something that actually smells like real Brut. Their decision marks the first time in my life that I've ever seen a legacy brand like Brut get resurrected by a buying entity. If High Ridge Brands buys Old Spice, our prayers are officially answered! 

You would think that this turn of events would have led to a massive outcry of celebration in the wetshaver community, and that B&B would have a sticky thread devoted to praise for the "new" Brut. You would think this development would have guys shouting from the rooftops about it, and that their excitment in forums would be palpable. Will HRB bring back Brut Classic? If so, will it be like sixties Brut, with some kind of modern stand-in for nitromusk filling in the base? Will they switch the branding back to Fabergé? Will they actually give men their beloved wetshaver fougère back? You would think that all of this speculation would be happening non-stop. You would think. 

Except it hasn't been happening at all. There have been no celebrations. No shouting from rooftops. No stickies on the return of Brut. Nobody has bothered to raise the questions of what HRB might do with Brut going forward. Nobody has even asked how and why HRB changed Brut's formula back to something that actually smells good. The level of apathy for the new reformulation of Brut is so high that it's almost as if people always hated Brut. Aside from a couple of comments on maybe one or two threads on Badger and Blade, the noise around this not-insignificant change has been dead on arrival. Most of the members do not seem to care. One even asked if the new packaging for Brut aftershave signifies counterfeiting, and openly wondered how Walmart gets away with selling fake Brut. This is where the conversation has gone since High Ridge Brands spent untold millions of dollars to switch Brut back to the way it used to be.

What does this say about the buying public? There's no reinforcement being given to High Ridge Brands for their choice, and how exactly do we expect them to take that? I wonder if Brut's sales have gone down since their takeover. It wouldn't surprise me if HRB discontinued Brut by 2025, and the fragrance simply went extinct. After years of wanting something, openly wanting it, the wetshaver community finally got it, and then pissed all over it by basically ignoring it. This is why we can't have nice things. 

Skin Bracer is an old-school aftershave used by many Boomers and older Millennials like myself, and it's one of those hiding-in-plain-sight grocery store treasures that anyone under 35 skims over and ignores when shopping shaving basics. Dad wore Skin Bracer. Grandpa wore Skin Bracer. I'm 27, I don't wear Skin Bracer. I wear Gucci Guilty shave balm, or Montblanc Legend with a little water after I cartridge shave with canned goo. Cheap? Cheap is cheap. I don't wear cheap. Okay Zoomer, that's fine. But when Skin Bracer disappears and becomes an eBay unicorn, don't pop onto Badger and Blade and start kvetching about how someone needs to bring it back to market, because it turns out that the only thing that's actually cheap in this world is talk. 

Update 2/15/24:

I received a message from a faithful reader on Fragrantica who pointed out that I seemingly contradict myself when I say that I don't like Brut Special Reserve. In my review on this site I say that it's essentially Brut Classic in a different package, and elsewhere wrote that I liked it the same way that I used to enjoy Classic. So, what gives?

Things change. In the last five years, every attempt to wear and enjoy Special Reserve ended in me having a minor allergic reaction to it, with my airways closing up just enough to give me a sinus headache. I find that the first hour of SR is unusually "dense" and heavy compared to Classic's top notes, and the drydown is strangely flat and unsatisfying. If I didn't have the physical reaction to it, I might consider SR to be an adequate substitute for Classic, but given the circumstances and the added fact that it too is discontinued, I don't really have positive feelings about it. 

I do hope that HRB reinvigorates the Brut "Classic" approach, but I hope that the suits there are a little more ambitious in how they do it. Instead of slapping "Brut" on the glass neck, I want them to resurrect the Fabergé labeling, and I really want them to make it a splash instead of a spray. I'd also like them to make the formula more clean/dirty in the true vein of the original from Fabergé, instead of just a gussied-up retooling of the drugstore plastic bottle version. I doubt any of this will come to pass, but a man can dream. 

Brut Actif Blue (Fabergé / Helen Of Troy)

This fragrance is still in production, but is labeled simply "Brut Blue" now, for whatever reason. I don't fully understand the marketing behind any of the Brut products, if you can even call it marketing, and I suppose that when Idelle Labs finally sells the line to someone else, we'll see a big change-up in advertising. The current marketing strategy is an almost comical attempt to bury the brand six feet under. It's a shame, because I see the Brut line as something that possesses incredible sex appeal. These fragrances are the sort of thing that women and men are drawn to.

I vaguely remember Actif Blue in the mid nineties, probably shortly before it was discontinued. It was in drugstores next to regular Brut, and my local CVS had it going for around nine or ten dollars, even back then. In retrospect that was expensive, but I've realized that Blue was Fabergé's one and only attempt to copy Davidoff Cool Water, with a hint of Drakkar Noir in the mix as well. It was one of the earliest clones, having been released in 1994. What else can I say? It smelled fairly pedestrian (still does - I gave it another whirl the other day), but not bad, fresh, but not "aquatic," masculine, but not butch, and rather sweet, which put it squarely in sync with the zeitgeist of its era.

You really have to be cash-strapped (or careless) to spring for Brut Blue today, when Cool Water is only ten dollars more, and of considerably better quality. Nevertheless, some men really don't care, and there are plenty of high school and college dudes who would rather drop that Hamilton on a case of beer than a cologne. Financial circumstances aside, buying, owning, and wearing Actif Blue or its current glass bottle incarnation doesn't hurt anyone. Despite its cheapness, it smells good. Sure, if fuzzes out after forty-five minutes into a nondescript green apple and white musk accord of little distinction, and you'll never win an award for originality wearing it, but it smells crisp, clean, masculine, and approachable. It's pretty good stuff for the money.

Another congener for the same price is Aspen for Men by Coty, which I personally prefer for its clever use of wintergreen and pine sap notes, but I guess there are reasons to favor the more lavender-forward Blue. When you look at what's available to women in the ten dollar range, you find that most of their "body sprays" are awful in comparison, sloppy syrups of shrill floral aldehydes, ethyl-maltol, and fake fruit esters that I wouldn't give to anyone over the age of ten. While thrifty guys may sacrifice uniqueness in the fragrance department, our options are considerably better, and Actif Blue remains a respectable one.

An Unlikely Survivor: Brut 33

This isn't going to be a long, in-depth post about formula changes between the different vintages of Brut 33. I just thought I'd mention that I recently happened across an old 1970's bottle of Brut 33 at an estate sale, and for a few bucks I grabbed it. Contrary to what people think, Brut 33 was never discontinued. The original Brut cologne used to be sold at a higher concentration (from the sixties through to the mid-seventies), and then Brut 33 arrived in '75 and turned out to be a success. Fabergé discontinued the Brut 33 label, but kept the formula and swapped out the original cologne for the lighter "splash-on," presumably thinking no one would notice. Few did. Brut 33, now simply called Brut, continued to sell just fine, as it does today.

Then Idelle Labs pared the formula down further and released a new "Splash-On." The difference between the old and new Brut 33 is negligible. In fact, there is almost no difference at all, save for a slightly dirtier musk in the older vintage. But get this - I smell plastic in the old version, which seems to account for its sooty vibe. I don't get any plastic in the new version, and the new stuff is definitely cleaner and brighter. I seriously think that these mass-marketed colognes have been chemically improved to allow containment in plastic without suffering from scent contamination, a theory bolstered by the fact that they're now housed in clear plastic, which exposes the fragrances to light. My aftershaves haven't turned, despite being exposed to light over the course of several years, so something's up. P&G's decision to house Old Spice in opaque plastic did not adversely change that scent, either.

My only complaint is that the Fabergé bottles look better than Helen of Troy's. You can see in the picture above that Brut 33 from 1975 has an eye-catching look, with a nice shade of dark green, and a silver cap. The eyesore behind it looks more like mouthwash, as Luca Turin pointed out in The Guide, and couldn't be any uglier. If their design division buckled down and revamped the original bottle aesthetic, slimmed it back down, made the green brighter (to reflect the nature of the scent), and brought back the silver cap, even Brut 33 would look dignified again. At the end of the day, it's a fragrance for haggard, war-torn police officers and doctors, and could use a better uniform of its own.