My '70s Vintage Pinaud Eau de Quinine: The Hair Tonic of Actor John Wayne (Well, Not Exactly My Bottle, but a Bottle Exactly Like It)

John Wayne's Toiletry Travel Kit, Electric Razor Fetish Intact. (Click to Enlarge)

My Near-Identical Bottle of The Duke's Tonic.

Guys that Used Quinine. Bunch of Damned Colonizers!

Let's talk about cancel culture for a moment. (This is usually where people get up off their campfire log and say they're going to bed early.) When it comes to the actor John Wayne, who died in 1979, cancel culture actually has its moment; if you're going to cancel anyone from that era, he's not a bad pick. In several interviews that he gave later in his career, he openly criticized people of color, saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that until they change their culture, "white supremacy" should remain the status quo. He actually used that phrase unambiguously, so there's no mincing his words. 

It's an ugly sentiment, something nobody should express, and certainly not publicly, least of all an influential actor with millions of fans. He also said (and again, I'm paraphrasing) that there was nothing wrong with how America was colonized, and that the native peoples were just as awful as the European settlers, and should have "shared" the land without being so ornery about the whole getting pushed-out and murdered thing. Again, not great stuff from Wayne there. Totally can see why someone in 2024 would take a hard pass on engaging with any of his material, or his historical legacy. Few wore their political ideas on their sleeve as openly as he did, and it's impossible to not take umbrage at his remarks. 

With that said, there is an important caveat, and one the cancelers will dislike: Wayne was a product of his time, and you can't judge people of the past by the moral standards of the present. It's tempting, naturally. Who doesn't want to condemn Thomas Jefferson for his ownership of hundreds of slaves? What possible objection could there be to erasing the legacy of George Washington, who refused to publicly condemn slaveholders years after he stopped imprisoning African people for his own benefit? Why wouldn't you want to cold-cock a beer-drinking John Wayne fan if you know that he idolizes a bigot, a wealthy and "privileged" colonizer who said that African Americans are inferior to whites? 

But two things can be true at once; Wayne can have toxic opinions, and also hail from a bygone America. John Wayne began his adult life a century ago; he was born 117 years ago and graduated high school in 1925. He grew up in a time when crystal radio sets were wowsers technology. He came of age during the Great Depression. When he was making his bones, our great-grandfathers were just getting themselves together and figuring out their lives. And guess what? If you emerged from the twenties and thirties, you had vile tribal beliefs about ethnicity and race, and your firsthand everyday experiences with institutionalized segregation ingrained and normalized all of them. 

I bring this up because I find myself able to set aside my disapproval of Wayne, the man, and appreciate that he had good taste in toiletries. There is no getting around the now-proven fact that John Wayne had good taste in personal care products, as evidenced by the discovery of a travel kit owned by The Duke, which led to a sale of the whole lot by Heritage Auctions in 2016. HA states, "These items were originally sold in the Heritage Auctions (Los Angeles) auction titled 'The Personal Property of John Wayne,' sale 7045, October 6-7, 2011, Lot 44521, final price realized was $1792.50; included is the original COA (Certificate of Authenticity) from Ethan Wayne, John Wayne's youngest son." 

I assume they were resold via Heritage to the current owner, who is apparently "actively responding to (though not necessarily routinely accepting) offers," whatever that means. For $3,750 or more, JW's toothbrush is yours. Apparently he used both Lilac Vegetal and Eau de Quinine, the mark of a true Pinaud fan, which is rather surprising -- celebrities are usually associated with fancy-pants fare like Acqua di Parma, Creed, Christian LaCroix, etc. When you think "wealthy," you think niche. Even for a guy like Wayne, who was getting his nuts bounced around on Morgans long before any of us were born, the assumption is that he used expensive toiletries, as befitting a millionaire. 

Yet this was markedly not the case; Wayne's bags contained hum-drum items like Johnson's baby powder, Pepsodent toothpaste, a comb with "A personal gift from Cary Grant" on it, and the Pinaud items. I do take issue with the Pepsodent, however. It doesn't really look like a true vintage tube from the seventies, or at least it seems a touch newer than it should, but I could be wrong. The rest all looks legit, although I have to ask, what on earth was Wayne doing with Cary Grant's comb? Of all the actors, he's the last one I'd associate with John Wayne (Grant never appeared in a Western). 

Does this change Pinaud's cachet? Does it go from lowly drugstore aftershave to Hollywood royalty because we now know that John Wayne preferred it? Lilac Vegetal is widely derided as smelling like cat piss, and suffers the "Veg" moniker on countless forums, yet we learn that it enjoyed the esteem of the most macho man of the silver screen. Does this change your impression of it? Will people think twice before they wrinkle their noses and say it smells like feline water? And what about Eau de Quinine? My bottle looks a touch older than The Duke's, perhaps by five or more years, judging by how the volume is printed on the bottom, and the natural browning of the label on mine, versus the fairly bright label on Wayne's. His is probably late seventies (newish when he died), while mine looks like it might be mid-sixties, maybe early seventies. 

Unlike Lilac Vegetal, which smells quite different in vintage form compared to the current stuff, my vintage Eau de Quinine smells identical to my new bottle. There is absolutely zero difference in the scent, other than the vintage smelling a hair stronger, with slightly better projection and longevity. Same rosewood and smooshed cherries smell, same strange, vaguely antiseptic drydown, and I notice a bit more tackiness on skin with vintage that I do with the new version. This feels like it could hold hair, albeit weakly, while the current stuff couldn't hold the down on a baby's butt. I truly believe that Eau de Quinine is overlooked as Pinaud's oldest surviving product; by all measures, a quinine-based product is a thing of the early-to-mid-nineteenth century, and only survived into the Edwardian era thanks to the extensive colonization of South American and African territories. 

The anachronistic nature of Eau de Quinine makes it a novelty nowadays, and it is now associated with world-famous cinema gunslinger John Wayne. It doubles as a cologne, and in vintage form, more so than current, it actually performs like a solid fragrance, with enough tenacity to at least make it to lunchtime. I'm never sure what the "feel" of this fragrance is, because it's so old-school, so not of this snowflakey post-woke world, and it has more functional than fashionable connotations, what with malaria and all. Malaria, that disease mosquitos spread like peanut butter across third-world countries. You've heard of it, right? Anyway, forget the cat piss, cheap aftershave, and the like; JW was worth $6.5 million when he croaked, and if Lilac Vegetal and Eau de Quinine were good enough for him, they're just fine for me, colonialism be damned. 

From a Once-In-a-Lifetime Bottle to a Once-In-a-Lifetime Buying Opportunity: My "Like New" Vintage Pinaud Lilac Vegetal

It's all good now.

It's true: my midcentury drugstore bottle of Lilac Vegetal bit the dust. However, I also stumbled upon a situation on eBay that allowed me to purchase a pristine vintage barbershop replacement bottle for under fifty bucks at auction, and without a single opposing bid. I think of it as a once-in-a-lifetime buying opportunity.

To recap, my original vintage bottle was perched precariously on a bathroom shelf, and the inevitable happened. I don't blame anyone but myself. I accepted that shelf location without argument, knowing that it was likely a terrible place for something so rare, and then had to live with the consequences of my neglect. To be sure, I should never have let it leave my house. Some things are better left in one place. That's history now, and what transpired afterward is fascinating because it's also something I'll never see again.

My first thought upon hearing that my original bottle had been smashed was, "Okay, it's just a glass bottle of something; stuff like that happens." My second thought, kind of a delayed reaction, was "Wait, that's not just any glass bottle. How the hell am I going to replace it?" It wasn't all that difficult, but only because fate smiled upon me. As soon as clean-up was complete, I hopped on eBay and typed in Vintage Pinaud.

The initial results were pretty abysmal. There were several twelve ounce bottles in varying stages of decay, most of them looking pretty rough with missing caps, worn-out labels, and filthy insides. But then I scrolled down to two back-to-back auction listings for what appeared to be the exact same late seventies barbershop bottle. I can't be sure of the exact date, but judging from the green cap and label style, it appears to be roughly from the era when the movie "The Jerk" came out. 

Unlike my previous bottle, which looked to be a Walgreens item from the early 1960s, this one was "for professional use only," denoting its class as an official wholesale barbershop product. I happen to like this style, still in use, still with the same label design, except back then the bottle was a bit larger, heftier, and solid glass. It turns out the seventies formula for the product was also significantly different from the current stuff, and smells almost exactly like my other vintage, with perhaps just a little more of a raw-green "vegetal" edge, which nudges it only slightly closer to how the current stuff smells. 

So I'm on eBay, and I see this bottle with a starting price of $45. Then I see an identical post next to it for what looks like the same bottle, price, and seller. I message the seller and ask him if he has two identical bottles, or if he just posted the same item twice. He tells me he has two bottles, but doesn't send a verification photo. I ask him for one, and he sends me this, after which I spend five minutes rubbing my eyes in disbelief:

I take a look, and my mind is blown. I've never seen two identical barbershop vintages of The Veg with zero differences and in pristine condition. The only slight difference I could spot was that the liquid on the left was a little darker than the one on the right (which is the one I got). I apologized for doubting him. He told me, "No problem." This was clearly going to be a unique buying opportunity.

The facts were clear: I had to maneuver for one of these bottles with no competition from anyone else, and this would probably happen because there were two identical bottles at the same price. I immediately posted my max bid at $200, with eight days until the auction ended. A few days later, I upped my bid to $300. I didn't touch the other bottle. I sat back and waited. Unless the seller reneged on the auction sale, I knew the bottle was mine, and I didn't even have to think about it. 

The seller made one crucial error: he posted photos of the same exact bottle in both listings. Had he posted the genuine bottle, buyers would have spotted the very minor differences between them, particularly the little smudge on the glass of the bottle on the right, and they would have known that the seller was legit (i.e., not scammy). But with two postings of the same bottle, and one of them requiring a max bid higher than $300, the whole thing suddenly looked super sketchy. Few would want to venture into that void.

There was also the fact that if other buyers messaged the seller, they would get the same photo that he sent me. They would then figure that if eBay wants a max bid of over three hundred for one bottle when the other one hasn't been bid on at all, the one with no bids is their best shot. The path of least resistance was bottle #2. The auction closed on day eight. I was the only bidder on the first bottle, and I won the auction at $45. (The second bottle sold for the same amount the next day.)

It's hard to overstate how beautiful this bottle is. It doesn't have the back label of the drugstore bottle, with its funny and whimsical marketing copy, but it was kept in clean condition, out of sunlight, and smells fresh. The red Pinaud stamp that says "A Basket of Flowers" is as clear as day (and quite large), the embossing of "Pinaud, Paris, New York, London" is not worn down on the back, and most importantly the "Lilas de France" slogan is crystal clear in brightly silkscreened color on the front. Absolutely magnificent. The bottle arrived with about ten ounces in it, and although it was previously opened and used, it was not tampered with, and smells perfect. 

Lilac Vegetal was released in 1878 in New York City, according to David Woolf, executive vice president of American International Industries, which manufactured the Pinaud line in the 1990s. The fragrance was sold to barbershops and athletic clubs throughout the twentieth century, and survives today. I find it funny to think of myself retiring into a sedate life of golfing and country club brunches, only to find this big glass bottle of Lilac Vegetal by the sink in the men's lavatory. It appears as one of several common masculine colognes lined up by the mirror in the bathroom of the fancy restaurant that Ferris Bueller crashes in the hit John Hughes movie. Vintage smells different from the current stuff - powdery, soft, a little sweet - and I think every wetshaver owes it to himself to find a bottle. 

I want to close on this note: Pinaud, unlike every other fragrance brand out there, is special. It changes at a snail's pace. Up until only a few years ago, Clubman aftershave was still being made with real oakmoss. The other day I picked up a bottle from CVS and noticed it no longer contained oakmoss. It no longer contains any moss, not even treemoss. I'll be reviewing the new "moss-less" formula soon. It took Pinaud an extra twenty years to bend to IFRA regs on that. While most brands were stripping moss out of their formulas in the 2000s, Pinaud kept it in. Clubman Musk still has it, as far as I know, but then again I bought my bottle several years ago. 

My point is, Pinaud is the last of the Mohicans. Even with IFRA compliance, they still make a nineteenth century Lilac Water, and from how it smells, it seems like they reverted the formula back to something from that time period. They still make Eau de Quinine. Think about that. In 2024, there's a company that sells a product that smells like a colonial quinine tonic. They even still make Eau de Portugal. Pinaud is probably of greater value than any other brand I own. If you're reading this, you have one direction. Get a Pinaud and value it highly, because it is a national treasure. 

How to Value Vintage ED. Pinaud Aftershave Products (And Why I Prize Them More than Anything)

One of a Kind

There was an accident in the bathroom the other day (not that kind, no toilet paper needed), and my vintage Lilac Vegetal, which was three-quarters full, was shattered on the tile floor. My immediate thought upon hearing that this had happened was that it was no different than if someone had dropped a common drinking glass on the floor, as it was simply a glass object containing a lot of fluid. But it also occurred to me that the passing of this particular glass object posed a larger problem: replacement.

If you're a member of Badger & Blade, or just a guy who collects fragrances, you know what it means for something like this to happen. I considered myself lucky to have found an unopened midcentury bottle of Lilac Vegetal, and to be the first (and I hoped only) person to open it and use it. I still believe I'm lucky to have had it in my possession, and to have worn several ounces of its contents. But when I considered the ramifications of its being broken, I realized that the odds of my ever finding another bottle of that quality again were exceedingly slim. Sure, there are other vintages of Lilac Vegetal out there, and yes, some of them are quality specimens and deserving of buyer reverence. But chances are I will never find another new vintage of untouched midcentury stock again. That was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and even the luckiest are not that lucky again. 

With that said, what's done is done, and I can't resurrect the bottle, so there's no point in crying over spilled Veg. The task now is to find another vintage of comparable value, and to take no prisoners in securing it. I scanned the various merchant sites for items, and found only one of comparable quality, a barbershop bottle from the late seventies or early eighties, with label in good condition and, most importantly, the phrase "Lilas de France" clear and unsullied. For some reason many vintages that pop up online seem to have excessive fading and/or tearing on that part of the label, so finding a bottle with it looking close to new is exciting. The image of this particular item is below:

This is a different kind of Pinaud bottle than the one I lost. The bottle I purchased in 2020 was for general public use, and was easily found in drugstores. The bottle above was sold wholesale to barbers for exclusive use in their shops, and thus was designed with the "long neck" for an easy grab. The peril of owning any of these bottles is that they're made of glass, and it's an antiquated type of glass that fractures into a bajillion pieces, so keeping them secure is important. I view the above specimen as being of a different caliber than my former bottle; Pinaud's "professonal use" bottles are collectible not just because they're vintage, but because they weren't available to the public, and thus are sought after by those seeking vintage barbershop-specific collectibles. 

I paid about $84 for my former bottle after winning it at auction, which of course came down to the last split second. It was a tight bidding war with two other eBay members, one of whom dropped out a little early and left the other to spar with me up past the sixty-dollar range. Time and date matter with vintage Pinaud. In 2020 there were a few more readily available items on eBay, and it wasn't uncommon to see at least three good vintage specimens every week ("good" being defined as any aftershave or cologne housed in glass). Thus finding the "new old stock" Veg was exciting but not surprising. I found it gratifying to win the auction, but was also of the mind that a similar bottle would appear again, and indeed at least one has in the time since. 

This is no longer the lens through which to view vintage Pinaud products. There is increased scarcity in 2024, as several more years have passed and supplies have thinned. As with any vintage fragrance, Pinaud vintages have been winnowed by time until scantly anything but the unaffordable are left. Take for example the Eau de Quinine tonics on eBay this season: None of these are reasonably priced, except for one bottle that was priced under one hundred dollars because someone was stupid enough to write "$5.00" on the label in black magic marker. There is a large bottle of the tonic priced at $1K, which is exorbitant at any size. There is a four-ounce bottle priced at one hundred dollars, which is a bit high, but the point is that Eau de Quinine in shampoo and tonic form is one of the most expensive due to its having been mentioned in a James Bond novel, so a bottle of either form of this scent at or over 100 ml. is reasonable for between eighty and three hundred dollars. (If I were into it, I would pay the max price without a second thought.) 

There are four things I look for in vintage Pinauds, and all four must be present for me to see value in owning them. The first is the bottle must be glass. The second is the labels must be in at least good condition with the name of the fragrance and any marketing slogans legible. The third is the interior of the bottle must be clean, i.e., free of black sludge, dried detritus, or evidence of secondhand abuse. The fourth is the cap must be included, preferably the Bakelite/plastic version (the metal caps give me the willies, as I'm never sure if lead was alloyed into them). Because glass is key, I attend to any of the older formulas in glass, and am always on the market for things like the discontinued Naturelle Sec (I would pay over one hundred dollars for a bottle), Lime Sec, Citrus Musk, if they made it (I've never seen a vintage bottle), the original Clubman in glass, and any of its flankers, and the coveted Bay Rum, as well as Lilac Vegetal. Any of these in a size larger than 1.5 ounces commands top dollar from me, and I would gladly pay it.

I prize these so highly because they're never coming back. Due to market pressures, Pinaud switched from glass to plastic sometime in the late nineties or early 2000s, and in doing so have been saving a fortune on both shipping and collateral costs (everything cheaper because lighter; no broken bottles). It would be an incredible thing if Pinaud ever offered the glass bottles for a limited time, and if they did I would probably buy them up outright for resale value alone. But I doubt they will bother. As it stands, the glass bottles are becoming a rarity, with fewer and fewer appearing in decent condition, and those that have intact labels and original contents have become nearly impossible to source. Given that I paid almost $85 for my bottle in 2020, that is the baseline value that anyone should be paying for a similar bottle today, and I think if you locate something better than what is pictured at top, you ought to be prepared to pay at least twice what I did. Once in a lifetime opportunities are exactly that, and no small amount should be asked. 

Checking in on Pinaud's Lilac Vegetal After Three Years in Glass

Back in 2021 I decanted my supply of E.D. Pinaud's Lilac Vegetal into the glass bottle shown above. I got it for five dollars at Home Goods, took it to my crib, spent ten minutes washing it out in the sink, and let it dry out completely before decanting. My goal was to see if I could eliminate the plasticky off-notes in LV, as decanting in glass works wonders for Clubman, and in early 2022 I revisited it. 

I found that the plastic odor (the result of off-gassing, a common issue with cheap plastics) had reduced, but had not entirely disappeared, and realized that LV was far more resistant to "mellowing" than the 1940s Clubman, which only takes a month or two to lose its plastic "ick." I decided to stow the bottle and let it sit longer. I figured the product was worth waiting for, and if it took a few years to truly smooth out, so be it. I have something like fifteen aftershaves in my rotation, plus a full, NOS (unopened before my ownership) vintage glass bottle of LV from sometime before the Nixon administration, so there was no rush. Lilac Water is the sort of thing that collects dust quite well.

The other day I decided to give it a whirl. Popped the cork, splashed some in hand, and applied it liberally over face and body. The result? Noticeable improvement. Its formerly aggressive stewed-cabbage top notes now smell powdery and very close to vintage, while the "pissy" musk is drier and not nearly as pissy as it once was. It now reads as a properly funky Victorian floral, sans plastic. With light application, a powdery element, which is even more prominent in the vintage formula, seems to be the main feature, and the musk is deeper yet less noticeable. Go heavy and the muskiness rapidly gets overbearing. It's like going from a gentle safety razor to Lizzy Borden-with-axe; there is no middle ground with this stuff. You need to go easy, it gives you no choice. 

The vintage stuff has a bit of what smells like sassafras in the powdery notes, particularly in the first five minutes, and the floral note is muted in the drydown. The current formula smells dissimilar to its predecessor when stored in plastic, but changes into something much closer to it after three years in glass. It's basically a hint of medicinal powder, a burst of lilac sweetness, and a synthetic deer musk accord that smells overtly animalic at the wrong dose, and simply like a sweet powdered musk in the correct one. I am sure that Lilac Vegetal is the only true surviving representation of Victorian cologne, and it galls me that Pinaud sells everything in crappy plastic these days, but I guess there's no sense in banging that drum over and over again. It is what it is. 

My suggestion to serious wetshavers who want to experience LV in its "pristine" form is to decant into clean glass, let sit for no less than two years, and meanwhile use other stuff. Come back to it when it's ready, and you'll be in for a treat. Lilac Vegetal is a pleasant and easily wearable springtime aftershave/cologne that works best when used lightly, and in glass it smells softer, drier, and rather like it never touched plastic. 

A Brief Note on Decanting Pinaud's Lilac Vegetal

About a year ago I decanted my entire supply of Lilac Vegetal into a glass bottle I'd purchased from Home Goods, in an attempt to eliminate the funky plastic off-notes that haunt its otherwise-pristine beauty. I'd had pretty good luck doing this with Clubman, which goes from a cheap-smelling powdery fougere to a beautifully soft and elegant citrus musk within two months of decanting. I figured it was worth a try with Lilac Vegetal, which suffers much more than Clubman does in regards to off-gassing (the unfortunate leeching of plastic odorants into alcohol-based fragrances). 

I shaved the other day, and found myself with a choice between two lilac waters. Bear in mind that I also own a full vintage 1960s glass bottle of LV, which contains mostly unused fragrance that smells as new as the day it was made. The differences between the vintage and new stuff are unmistakable, as the former possesses a sweet and powdery ambergris aura that is entirely missing from the plastic-bottled version. Now that I've decanted and let sit, I was eager to see if the newer formula's pesky urine-like plastic problem had dissipated, or if it is as die-hard as the internet chatter says it is. 

To my surprise, the result is inconclusive. I figured it would hew one way or the other, but it's entirely possible that I haven't given it enough time. While it smells significantly better than it did in plastic, with a fresher and more floral profile, and much more of that powdery ambergris-like base, there's still a hint of plastic tainting the lilac note. It's fainter and far less intrusive than it used to be, and I'm hoping that another six months in glass (with air in the bottle) will improve things further. One can certainly make the argument that Lilac Vegetal improves when decanted into glass. 

Even if the plastic note doesn't disappear entirely, it has diminished down to a far less noticeable degree. The trick with Pinaud's products is to decant them into quality glass that allows aeration without evaporation - a tight seal is necessary. My bottle came with a pretty good cork. You could experiment and mix with witch hazel to see if that cuts the plastic note, but I'll wait on that. Lilac Vegetal is a delicate floral scent with a powder-puff cushiony drydown, pure heaven for a wetshaver, and it should be decanted if it's to be enjoyed at its best. I'll update on this later in the year.

Clubman Country Club Shampoo (Pinaud)

When it comes to shampoo, people are scornful. I'm guilty of it, my derision aimed at the cheap work perfumers must offer shampoo makers. I imagine the chemical composition of generic shampoo limits their options, and the result is a yawniverse of apple-tini and cherry blossom hand soap. Some five-star luxury hotels and resorts bring their A-game by spending cheese on A-list perfumers to perfume their toiletries, presumably with good results. I'm just another rube, so my hotel experiences are limited to the average airport layover boarding houses where they decant Prell into little plastic squirt bottles with the hotel parent company's logo stamped on them. 

This doesn't deter me from fantasizing about what my luxury layover hotel would offer, if I were wealthy enough to golf with the Hiltons at their easy-entry country club (Paris, call me). The grounds would have male peacocks roaming freely, the lobby a tireless piano player, and every suite a jet-black tiled bathroom stocked with Pinaud products, with a smallish bottle of Country Club Shampoo up on a black shower stall shelf. It isn't by any means luxe, as it simply smells like the granddaddy Clubman aftershave, but customers would quickly realize that Clubman is just so goddamn good. That powdery barbershop fern smell is timeless and comforting, exactly what a guest needs after twenty-six hours in a cramped tin can with three-hundred disgusting strangers. Clean is king.  

What would the guest experience be like? It's a surprisingly dense shampoo that sits like half-set jello in hand and lathers very rapidly, filling the shower stall with Clubmanny goodness that admittedly requires an extra minute to rinse out. I do notice that the scent disappears pretty quickly during the rinse stage, but it leaves my hair feeling fairly soft and clean. Pinaud markets this as being pH balanced, protein-rich, and of course, for professional use only, despite there being a barcode on the back. Naturally my hotel's mini bottles would be customized for my brand; instead of touting Panthenol, they'd say Fitted for Theft Deterrence, and cables would tether them to the hot water knobs.

Eau de Quinine (Pinaud)

British Colonial Soldiers, early 1900s

I'd like to get this out of the way first: Pinaud's hair tonics are not meant to provide hold. Compare the ingredients to their aftershaves, and you'll find the hair tonics are merely alcohol, fragrance, preservatives, and artificial color. The only difference is it says Hair Tonic instead of Aftershave on the label. Hair tonics are meant to de-flake the scalp and soften the roots for healthier hair, and that's it. Use styling gel to mould your coif, but be sure to run some Eau de Quinine through first to clean your head. 

Pinaud's Eau de Quinine is the brand's oldest surviving barbershop product. According to the Smithsonian, it was originally released in the 1850s, and has survived nearly two centuries in various iterations. Today it is labeled for hair-care but easily doubles as an aftershave-cologne, and I find its scent to be one of the most durable in the Pinaud lineup, a lovely shaving foam tune with a bracing quinine and cherry chord instead of anisic lavender, followed by a minuet of patchouli and vanilla in the dry-down. 

People ask, why Eau de Quinine? What place does quinine have in a barbershop? The answer takes us back to nineteenth century England, when Britain's Imperial Century saw the expansion of its empire across Africa and Asia, continents where malaria was everywhere. The Brits knew quinine was useful in fighting mosquito-borne diseases, and put it in anything they could - water, tablets, alcohol, toiletries - and it became an essential tool in the belt of the English colonizer. Pinaud marketed their Eau de Quinine shampoo, hair tonic, and cologne to safari-bound parties, and it caught on in the 1870s, when expansion was fully underway, becoming popular as hair-care for women, and an all-over bug repellant for men. This required copious amounts of quinine extract from the bark of the South American and Caribbean cinchona tree. 

Synthesis of quinine was first achieved in 1944 by organic chemist Robert Woodward and Professor William Doering, and Pinaud's hair tonic made a comeback around that time, although natural quinine retained its status. Ian Fleming featured Pinaud's Eau de Quinine shampoo in chapter two of the 1963 novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service, detailing how a road-weary James Bond found hotel respite in a bottle of champagne and a cold shower using "Pinaud Elixir, that prince among shampoos." I find this interesting because it shows that Fleming himself used the shampoo, and held it in high regard. He likely booster-shot new life into Pinaud's product line, although sadly the shampoo has long been discontinued. Bring it back, Pinaud. 

Today, Eau de Quinine remains a historical novelty, but I think it's amazing that Pinaud sticks to its guns and continues making it. I wouldn't recommend it as a hair product, but heartily endorse using it as an aftershave and cologne. I get several hours of noticeable longevity from it, and find the smell very much in line with traditional barbershop tonics. It has a freshness, yet also a smokiness, a hint of tobacco, a subtle earthiness, and a masculine vanilla powder at the end that is tooled finely enough to compete with pricier fare. It gets mixed reviews, with one notable blogger calling it "utterly boring and uninspired." I disagree - this is historically inspired, and thus unavoidably interesting. 

A note on unicorn vintage hunting: for several years now some jerk has been listing a 30 oz bottle of 1960s Elixir shampoo on eBay for $1k. So far, no buyers. Let's keep it that way. Vintage Pinaud is best priced between fifty and a hundred dollars, unless the bottle is from the eighteen-hundreds, pristine, sealed, and full. 

Citrus Musk (Pinaud)

Years ago, Pinaud discontinued a cologne called "Naturelle Sec," which I believe was their one official eau de cologne, pre-2000. Sometimes you can find vintage Naturelle Sec on eBay in glass bottles, and it even survived long enough for Pinaud to put it in plastic, so it's a recent memory. It is described on Badger & Blade as a straightforward lemon cologne with a very light white musk dry down. It may have been recast as Citrus Musk, which is currently the most "eau de cologne" fragrance in the line.

Interestingly, Citrus Musk smells like 7-Up. It's mostly a sweet, one-dimensional lemon, spiked with Lime Sec's monotone lime. That's all there is to the smell. I applaud the perfumer for creating a five-and-dime cologne that doesn't grey out or become Lemon Pledge. The only viable option with citrus on a college budget is to steal (borrow?) from the pop aisle of the grocery store and hope no one is tempted to guzzle the stuff.  

It Preceded Fougère Royale, Chypre, and Mitsouko: How the Luxury Brand of Ed. Pinaud Mainstreamed Modern Perfumery With Its Simple Masterpiece, "Lilac Vegetal"

"Perfumes are really the most delicate beholders of our past life”. (Pinaud, Memoirs, 1860)

Lilac Vegetal, currently sold online for around $1 an ounce, is one of history's oldest survivors. It's also one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood perfumes in existence. When it comes to LV, I've seen and heard it all.

People call it by its nickname, "The Veg," and repeat the tired joke, "You don't choose the Veg; the Veg chooses you." There are numerous dodgy claims about it: that it was made for the Hungarian Cavalry on behalf of Napoleon Bonaparte (which makes zero historical sense); it emerged in 1810 as Édouard Pinaud's first composition; it once contained the essence of lilac flowers, and now contains a deftly-balanced blend of kitty litter and fresh urine.

I've researched Édouard Pinaud's story, and discovered that the tales of Napoleon and Hungarian Cavalries are pure fiction, that Pinaud was not clutching a bottle of Lilac Vegetal from the womb in 1810, and the essence of lilac is virtually impossible to attain, as its flower joins muguet and gardenia in having unworkably low yield. Pinaud's history is nothing like the rumors circulating around wetshaver forums. In truth, the company is even more interesting and unlikely than its legends.

Lilac Vegetal is the only perfume by Pinaud himself still in production. Its date of origin? David Woolf, executive vice president of American International Industries, stated in a New York Times interview published on February 16th, 1997, that it was released in NY City in 1878. Woolf's firm owns and manufactures the Pinaud/Clubman range.

If he's correct, then LV was issued a decade after Pinaud's death, making it older than every groundbreaking perfume of the last 150 years. It is more noteworthy than anything in your wardrobe today. It's not insignificant that Pinaud tinkered with various lilac waters in the years preceding LV; its concept, and the proliferation of similar floral colognes, helped to launch the brand. That pale green drugstore aftershave under your sink is a piece of perfume history that predates Guerlain's Mistouko (1919), Coty's Chypre (1917), and Houbigant's Fougère Royale (1882).

Age alone doesn't make it interesting. There are plenty of eau de colognes and esoteric European perfumes from companies with "royal warrants" that remain on the market today. LV's creation is a story because it's one of the first synthetic colognes to be mass produced on an international scale.

To fully unpack this, it pays to review the legitimate Pinaud history. The facts can be found in the Dumberton Oaks Research Library in Washington DC. Records there show that Ed. Pinaud founded "A la Corbeille Fleurie" in 1830 at 37 Boulevard de Strasbourg, Paris. In the 1850s he partnered with fellow businessman Emile Meyer. After Pinaud's passing Meyer's son-in-law, Victor Klotz, took over the company and renamed it "Victor Klotz et Cie," while continuing to sell perfumes under the Pinaud name. He wasn't running a corner shop - this was a heavy-hitter in the business world.

Pinaud Boutique, Paris, 1870

So where did that "1810" date come from? Well, a man named Besancon founded a perfume shop in Paris in 1810. It was sold to someone named LaGrand, who eventually sold it to Pinaud in 1830. So Pinaud bought a business originally founded in 1810, but the Pinaud enterprise wasn't founded until 1830, when Pinaud himself was twenty years old. What about "royal warrants?" Queen Victoria traveled to Paris in 1855 to visit that year's Universelle Exposition. Pinaud attended that exposition and named a perfume after her, gaining her lifetime patronage. He also won over Napoleon III (not THE Napoleon) and Empress Eugenie. This lofty clientele elevated his brand, most notably in England, and made it an international commercial success.

The company made serious efforts to capture the American market at the turn of the century, when Klotz opened an 11-storey office building on Fifth Avenue in NY City. Bear in mind that this was, for its time, a very large enterprise. Pinaud's Paris operation was large by 19th century standards, with about 700 employees at its factory in Pantin. The employees were given retirement accounts, securing their lifetime loyalties. A Pinaud showroom had chandeliers and columns and fountains and marble islands of his elixirs, so it's not surprising that the invasion of America started as early as the 1840s, with small adverts in 1845 editions of The Hartford Courant.

"He wasn't running a corner shop - this was a heavy-hitter in the business world."

Pinaud's products were marketed alongside those of Guerlain and Lubin, and by all appearances the brand was not considered "downmarket" or "drugstore." Nineteenth century perfumeries hadn't yet embraced the Industrial Age apparatus of mass production and widespread distribution. Pinaud was a pioneer in that regard, and while it garnered his line wide appeal and an ever-growing customer base, it ultimately diluted the brand's status in much the same way Pierre Cardin did in the 1970s. One can also blame a perpetual shift in cultural trends for why something as well conceived as Lilac Vegetal would be forced to retreat to the discount bins at Walgreens. In 1900, lilac waters were a thing. In 2020? Not so much.

Yet Pinaud was an international entity in the 1800s, and crafty ad campaigns sustained the brand's momentum for years to come. Consider that an 1893 Merck Report stated, "Long ago, demand for the Ed. Pinaud’s goods necessitated the establishment of branch offices in London, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Melbourne, and other leading cities of the world . . . " By the turn of the century their NY branch manager, Emile Utard, rained heavy advertising campaigns on American buyers. Utard credited his campaigns as the catalyst for Pinaud's success in the 20th century.

The Merck Report goes on to laud Pinaud's soap line: "This famous manufacturer recognizes that purity of ingredients, important in all toilet preparations, is most essential in soap; and uses only Sweet Almond Oil, Albumen, Spermaceti, and Filbert Oil, all of the finest quality."

Clearly this level of positive press influenced Pinaud's success, and was further bolstered when the report described the company's presence at the World's Fair: "the Pinaud exhibit is housed in a salon of the purest Louis XV style, exquisite in design, appointment, and finish. The furnishings are strictly in keeping with historical accuracy, and are the delight of all beholders. The following particulars have been kindly given by Mr. Utard; - 'The pavilion is upheld by toned marble pillars, the outer face being a portico of lattice-work, with intertwining wreaths of flowers, and along the pediment are scant draperies in soft hues. The walls, a la Watteau, due to the touch of the painter Ch. Toche, of Paris, stand out in dainty relief from the groundwork of blue and gold. Facing the aisle is a lovely fountain, in ivory white, of cherubs distributing flowers, balanced on a pedestal of rams' heads, upholding shell-shaped bowls, into which run continuous streams of delicious perfumes of the latest importation, emitting a soft fragrance which pervades the atmosphere of the whole department. This charming and artistic gem was specially designed for Ed. Pinaud by Noel Ruffier, of Paris.'"

Such descriptions cemented Pinaud's legacy as a global luxury brand, with the requisite flair its pedigree is known for. Merck adds: "[Pinaud's] preparations are so numerous, it is a most difficult matter to single out absolute specialties. Of perfumes, it may be well to mention their 'Musque Reine' Eau de Cologne. This, while remarkably delicate, is nevertheless so pungent that the odor has been detected on a handkerchief after two washings." I interpret this statement as a possible clue to Pinaud's use of synthetics. While it's possible a natural deer musk (or even civet) could render this judgment, I perceive the durability of Musque Reine as something entirely new to the author, and quite literally remarkable to Merck's editors.

Towards the end, the author gushes, "Famous among their toilet preparations are their widely advertised 'Eau de Quinine' and 'Extract Vegetal Lilas de France;' the shaving cream 'Au lait de Roses de Turquie,' and their brillantines and cosmetics."

"Facing the aisle is a lovely fountain, in ivory white, of cherubs distributing flowers, balanced on a pedestal of rams' heads, upholding shell-shaped bowls, into which run continuous streams of delicious perfumes"

In the 1997 Times interview, David Woolf describes Ed. Pinaud's most famous men's toiletry as being "Made from natural ingredients, including lilac and ambergris, until they became difficult to find or harvest, in the 1960s."

This is interesting for a company that was positioning itself for the mass market in the USA. Pinaud split into two entities in the early 20th century; one was French, the other was American. Over time, the interests of these branches diverged. As blogger Keith wrote in Teleport City, "Pinaud France felt the American operation was cheapening the lofty heritage of Pinaud as the brand of kings and queens . . . Klotz, however, was adamant about becoming the preferred brand of middle class men rather than upperclass women."

This is a sound assessment of how Lilac Vegetal became famous. It is necessary to trace the timeline, however. Victor Klotz died in 1906, and the momentum for Pinaud's American product line gained speed a full thirty years later, with FDR in office. Control of operations passed to Klotz's sons, Henry and George, neither of whom were as charismatic or capable as their father. Their personalities were overshadowed by Victor Klotz's nephew, Louis-Lucien Klotz, a French politician who pushed for reparations for Germany after WWI.

They had a difficult legacy to uphold. Pinaud had products selling not only in Europe and North America, but Asia as well. Customers hailed from India to Japan, with Pinaud's "Lifeguard Cologne" popular in the latter nation. There is photographic evidence of bottles of Lilac Vegetal as old as 1919 that bear stamps from that year, and by this point Ed. Pinaud was a household name everywhere except America. The onset of the Great Depression did little to help, and it was during this period (the 1930s) that the Klotz brothers passed the company to a Frenchman named Roger Goldet.

Goldet breathed new life into the company, using pop culture references to name new perfumes, and rebranding Pinaud's makeup and mascara line (oh yeah, Pinaud was in the makeup business also, competing with Guerlain for market share). Coming from wealth himself, Goldet fearlessly infused the brand with its 20th century identity and finalized its split into two separate companies on two continents. He carried the French company until 1979, when he turned it over to his son, Olivier. Goldet sold the American company to Zvi Ryman, CEO of American International Industries.

As of 2015 (the most recent info I could find), Pinaud Clubman's online business is licensed to a company called Corrado Cutlery, run by a man named James Bilger. However, American International Industries appears to hold primary control of the American-based online retailer. Also as of 2015, Ed. Pinaud remains a separate entity, with a couple of low-visibility perfumes, and not nearly as much market share in Europe as the brand once held. The name "Clubman" is basically the brand associated with Pinaud in America, but interestingly Lilac Vegetal remains the only product attributed to the man himself. The brand appears in literature by famous 20th century authors, including works by Clifford Odets, William Faulkner, and Ian Fleming. None bear mention of Lilac Vegetal, but there's still some cool associations to be made.

LV is a special fragrance. Marketed as an aftershave, it was once called "hygiene de toilette," and stands as the flagship fragrance that best symbolizes Pinaud's American marketing strategy, if not the American market itself. It is a utilitarian product available to middle class men of nearly every social strata, now sold for almost nothing in drugstores everywhere. Well, it used to be, up until about 2010, when it suddenly disappeared off store shelves. Its availability shrank down to online-only, likely due to poor sales at retail outlets. This is unfortunate, but as I mentioned earlier, the change in American tastes since the 1960s (which is when I suspect LV began to decline in popularity) precipitated its retreat to the nation's bargain bins.

"Pinaud France felt the American operation was cheapening the lofty heritage of Pinaud as the brand of kings and queens . . . Klotz, however, was adamant about becoming the preferred brand of middle class men rather than upperclass women."

Considering that the Merck Report mentions Lilac Vegetal as a popular toiletry product all the way back in 1893, and taking into account that men of that time wore suits with top hats and perfumed handkerchiefs in their breast pockets, it's no surprise that a fragrance from Victorian times is ill-suited for 21st century sensibilities. The problem facing critics today is that sourcing an unopened vintage bottle of Lilac Vegetal that predates the 1970s is nearly impossible. Occasionally used bottles from the 1980s or '90s crop up, but pristine midcentury vintages are generally scarce.

From my perspective as a critic, the ideal situation would be to have an unopened bottle of at least late 1950s vintage to compare to the current version of LV. I'm sure that you, the faithful reader, would be interested in that comparison also. Well, we're both in luck! I happened to score a vintage bottle from that era, unopened and in mint condition, and also happen to possess a brand new bottle for comparison. I went into this comparison with an interest in three things: freshness (did the vintage hold up, or has it spoiled?), quality (is there really natural essences of lilac in there?), and fidelity (how close is the current stuff to vintage?), with the concession that my assessment may be tempered by my own imperfect perceptions.

It's important to remember the time period LV is from, and balance its intended effect against what will be the humorous real effect on this Millennial snoot of mine. Powdery lilac with a crudely-distilled "green" top note is bound to smell peculiar, outdated. I had a bottle of LV back in 2009, and while I appreciated its uniqueness and its history, had difficulty getting past its smell. It was the weirdest thing my then-novice nose had ever encountered. I think I got through half the bottle before I chucked it. In fairness, I did the same with Clubman Special Reserve, an aftershave that annoyed me enough to act against it without remorse. I regretted chucking LV, and sorta regret SR, although I'll eventually repurchase that one, just to round out my Clubman collection.

First let's discuss the current stuff in the context of how lilac flowers smell. Today's Lilac Vegetal is in plastic, à la American International Industries. Before the 2000s, bottles were glass. It should be said as clearly as possible, Pinaud aftershaves and colognes need glass bottles. Their fragrances suffer, albeit minimally, from plastic. I find that they carry a bit of the plastic smell with them for the first minute, after which the effect fades and allows the scents to evolve correctly. This is particularly true of the new Lilac Vegetal. The plastic is definitely not kind to its scent, and from the bottle the fragrance clashes, throwing urine-like off notes that surely put potential buyers off. Remember, people cheat and steal sniffs of these products in the store. One bad whiff of LV is all it takes to ruin its sales potential, even though the plastic is responsible.

Lilac is a difficult note to render. According to William Arthur Poucher's 9th edition of Poucher’s Perfumes, Cosmetics and Soaps, a "Lilac Bouquet" requires no less than 22 materials, apparently in parts per thousand, to smell adequately of lilac.

It's clear lilac requires "reconstruction" to work. In this basenotes thread, a hobbyist mentions a formula similar to Poucher's, with many of the same chemicals. Another member mentions using lilac tincture, with a picture of an ink-colored liquid. Its darkness might be another reason why natural lilac isn't used in commercial formulas.

This thread gives brief insight into the difficulty of attaining lilac via solvent extract. A member suggests the "pomade from enfleurage" approach, a time-consuming process that is unlikely to yield high amounts of usable extract, but interesting nonetheless. More information on the pomade approach is given in this thread, in which Chris Bartlett hints at Pinaud by saying, "At one time this was made as a commercial product by one of the big, French players so it can certainly be done." As I read through the thread, I saw that member "mumsy" struggled to extract usable (practical) lilac essence, with various problems cropping up along the way. Another member, "indigo," notes that a blend of beef tallow and pig lard worked fairly well. However, the moral I gleaned from this story is that rendering lilac essence with the pomade method is difficult and unreliable.

An easy answer to why that is can be found in a simple assessment of the lilac flower itself. Your typical purple lilac is a fairly thick-petaled bloom that bruises easily and has a gentle, elusive scent. A healthy lilac tree has hundreds of flowers working together to emit a sturdy "headspace" aroma, but in isolation the flowers smell weak. The density of their petals, relative to rose and jasmine, is due to their high water content. Water is an enemy to the extraction process because it dilutes and obstructs the essence that perfumers wish to extract, and yields a "vegetal" smell instead of sweetness.

Reading through the threads, I'm amused by how people struggle with this material. It supports my argument that any successful lilac perfume is either (a) delicately and painstakingly constructed using millions of flowers (and thousands of pounds of fat), and therefore expensive, or (b) synthetically reconstructed using readily available chemicals. Given that Lilac Vegetal is a mass-produced product, and always has been, I'm inclined to believe that Ed. Pinaud's formula has always been a reconstruction.

"The problem facing critics today is that sourcing an unopened vintage bottle of Lilac Vegetal that predates the 1970s is nearly impossible."

The current Lilac Vegetal smells unchanged from the bottle I had eleven years ago. What has changed since then is my nose. I was a total newbie to the fragrance scene back in 2009, and hadn't developed an understanding of how to parse notes, hadn't gained familiarity with subsets of scent profiles found in perfume organs, and hadn't honed an ability to describe what I was smelling. For those reasons, smelling LV today is a different experience altogether.

Sniffing the bottle, my first impression is of a powerful animalic musk, tinged with an undertone of raw earthiness and a hint of floral sweetness. The musk is intense, and from what I've read about Musque Reine and its atomic persistence, I'm fairly certain the musk I smell in contemporary LV is a good quality synthetic deer musk, an analog of the male musk deer. This is a commendable thing to smell in a drugstore aftershave being sold on Amazon for $10. I'm impressed that American International Industries has refrained from reformulating LV into a tamer and less musky scent, which they could have easily done in the last thirty years. They've instead opted to maintain the musk profile, using an aromachemical musk (probably four or five of them) that replicates the intense and eclectic nature of true animal musk.

On skin the effect is greatly magnified. The top note is an overpowering animalic musk, one so strong that I'm certain the only other fragrance that rises to its caliber is Kouros. This is not a green vegetal note when you recognize what you're smelling. However, a minute's time brings out a powdery, galbanum-like off-note that gradually segues into a diffusive rendition of lilac flower. This powder "bridge" in the drydown is key. It marries the acerbic musk to the greener, fresher floral base. What I'm left with is an obviously synthetic but well done floral accord that smells oddly abstract and restrained.

The Current Lilac Vegetal.Note the faux Pinaud Stamp Printed Adjacent to the Label.

As a wetshaving product, Lilac Vegetal is a gem. The Victorian musk, the intense drydown arc, the discreet floral base, all smell authentic and true to the traditions of the genre. It has retained its identity for 150 years, and for that reason I consider it a masterpiece, and a rare piece of unaltered perfume history. Sold as an aftershave, its concentration is potent enough to use as a cologne. As you can see in the picture, the label is basically the same as its always been, with the trademark "Lilas de France" at the top. On the back is a description of the fragrance that acknowledges its floral tones and a "warm musk" in the formula, as well as an encouragement to splash it all over the body after "cleansing." This isn't meant to elicit shocked responses. It's meant to do exactly what it did in 1878: smell great.

If I had a complaint about the current stuff, besides its plastic bottle (and ugly barcode), it would be the sharpness of the musk. Synthetic musks, not unlike natural musks, are large molecules that possess several facets, often described as "sweet," "fecal," "powdery," and "soapy." (Oddly enough, companies must employ at least three or four different musks to ensure you smell any musk at all, as everyone is anosmic to various musks.) Had they used a couple drops of natural deer musk, the effect would have been a mellow explosion of each of these qualities. The synthetic musks that are actually in there convey an aggressively fecal and powdery aura, which does blend well with the base, but comes across as a bit unbalanced. I suppose there could be an analog of ambergris in the mix, but with a musk this strong there's no way to isolate that note.

What does it take to wear this today? The current formula is not especially challenging to someone like me. I've explored a variety of musky orientals and "power" ferns of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and I find LV an enlightening experience. It requires clean skin and an extensive understanding of form. Most guys smell this stuff and crinkle their noses. They often say it smells of "stewed cabbage," and it's fascinating how the power of suggestion affirms that. Green label, green liquid, "vegetal" in the name - it must be a boiled green vegetable note. This doesn't smell "fresh" or "crisp" or "modern." It smells Victorian. So why do men today associate it with skunked greens?

The untrained nose smells a mutant urine puck vegetable, but mine detects a complex animalic musk with a floral finish. The perfumer crafted the current formula simply by wedding a sophisticated musk (almost complex enough to be its own perfume) to a few drops of synthetic galbanum, and a mild "lilac" reconstruction that complements the musk's natural drydown. The resulting scent is "barbershop" - simple, sweet, powdery, and not especially feminine. Also, it makes for a great talc scent.

I'd like to touch on a sentiment expressed by some about LV's drydown, which is that it smells a bit like "Play-Doh." In my experience the far drydown does yield a Play-Doh-like effect, although I encounter it in the airspace after I've left a room and re-entered it again. It's a plasticky, iris-like accord. Hobbyists compare lilac reconstructions to lavender and iris accords, so perhaps there's a connection. I think it's a hangover from the intense musk that comprises 95% of LV's pyramid.

"The top note is an overpowering animalic musk, one so strong that I'm certain the only other fragrance that rises to its caliber is Kouros."

My vintage of Lilac Vegetal dates from between 1959 and 1965. It's not a 1930s/40s vintage because many bottles from the early Goldet years had (ironically) the "Club Man" of Clubman's logo on its label, with his top hat and tuxedo. The graphic changed sometime in the late 1940s or '50s, and reverted back to the original "Lilas de France" image of text bannered against a bouquet of flowers.

Lilac Vegetal Ad From 1937.The "Bombay" Reference Wasn't a Joke.

I date my bottle to a later period because of its cap. Early 20th century bottles used cork stoppers topped with metal. By midcentury the cap had switched to plastic screw-tops, which my bottle has. It's cream-colored and a bit smaller, but otherwise identical to the brown top on my contemporary bottle. I do not date it to any later than the early 1960s, chiefly due to its price. My bottle has a sales ticker printed right on the regular label, discounting the 12 oz size from $1.75 to $1.19. By the late 1960s and 1970s, very few items of its caliber were being sold for $1.19. The US inflation calculator suggests this sale price in 1960 is equivalent to $10.36 in 2020, which sounds about right.

Another giveaway that my bottle predates Nixon is the presence of Helvetica on the label, front and back. The Helvetica font was invented in 1957, became commercially accessible in 1959, and maintained popularity until the late 1960s, when the hippie movement foisted curlier and less "rigid" fonts on the culture. My bottle has more Helvetica lettering than the entire NY subway system.

Below is a photo gallery of the bottle I received after winning a recent auction on eBay. It was a contentious bidding war because this bottle wasn't just vintage - it was sealed. It's a 12 oz bottle, hefty glass, and feels like it weighs almost two pounds. Given its size and heft, I'm not surprised they switched to plastic. There are several details of note in my pictures: the plastic seal around the cap, the product attribution to Ed. Pinaud under the seal, the "Sale" ticker printed across the label, the embossed glass on the sides of the bottle, the absence of a barcode, and the playful, quasi-poetic blurb on the back label. Also note the pale green color of the liquid, which is crystal clear and hasn't faded to yellow. Collectors often seek vintage Pinaud bottles because they're graphical treats, visual feasts for enthusiasts of bathroom antiquities. Had mine been listed as empty, it would have been no less difficult to procure.

There's something to be said about the presentation of this vintage bottle. For one thing, a four-color print job on the label with intricate silkscreened graphics is indicative of a firm with serious cash. Consider that Old Spice only had two colors, Brut 33 usually had two, and the average drugstore-grade product manufacturer usually limits the palette to under four colors whenever possible. To have intricate paisley detailing and several vivid colors is quality design.

Embossing adds to the cost, and they didn't skimp in molding and manufacturing. The bottle is history, a remnant of a time forever lost, and I'm melancholy about it. The screw cap, snug on the glass, and the ornate label, all imbue this commonplace product with luxurious flair.

The aftershave itself is starkly different from the current formula in every conceivable way. Instead of emitting a raunchy synthetic musk, the top is very fresh and sweet, with a serious perfumery accord of marine-like musk that reveals itself to be genuine, beach-cast ambergris. There's a sassafras effect that gets sweeter, almost like bubblegum, but it veers into medicinal territory with a light interplay of herbs and something akin to mint. This quality is amplified by an anise note that gets muskier and slightly animalic as it dries. Five minutes later there's just a light base that more closely resembles the current stuff - powdery, with a ghostly lilac effect that never really detaches from the ambergris and musk notes.

Oh, the ambergris. Before smelling vintage, I assumed David Woolf's comment about sourcing real ambergris and lilac tinctures was marketing hype. Now that I've smelled what he was referring to, I'm sure there's a few drops of ambergris tincture in there. Having smelled several older Guerlains and Creeds, I've developed a positive sensitivity to ambergris, and it jumps out at me now. It isn't nearly as well articulated in LV as it is in full-fledged Parisian perfumes, but it's there nonetheless, a salinity that imbues this Pinaud tonic with sparkling, mineral-rich dimensionality. Imagine a discreet musk with a warm, powdery, milky vanilla finish, each facet kaleidoscopically presented to your nose, and you've imagined the base of vintage Lilac Vegetal.

The lilac note is barely there. The intensity of the musk in the current formula convinced me that "new" LV is simply an exotic musk that uses marketing psychology to convince users that lilac is present. Vintage LV confirms my belief. Any lilac I may smell in there is simply the power of suggestion. I mean sure, there could be a couple drops of actual lilac oil in the formula, which might explain the vague floral element woven into the pyramid, but the midcentury stuff is mintier, more medicinal, and altogether brighter than the current blend. It actually smells more modern than the new stuff. And I can't get over the ambergris note. Ambergris is both a note and a fixative, and here it acts as the former more than the latter. I get up to five hours out of the new formula; vintage lasts two hours before vanishing, and most of that time it's a ghost.

I would be remiss to tell you all this without noting that my bottle is at least sixty years old, and thus can not be considered 100% reliable scent-wise. Time has had its way with this product, but it was merciful. Maybe when new it wasn't so medicinal, maybe the lilac note was more obvious, maybe its longevity was better, maybe a lot of things. I'm not one to use old aftershave - it generally skeeves me out - but I use this one without a second thought. It looks, smells, and feels right. Doesn't bother me in the least. When I slap it on, I'm surrounded with a sweet, slightly medicinal, anisic musk. It leaves my skin feeling smooth, tight, and hydrated. Not much alcohol sting - newer Pinaud aftershaves have more bite. It is the definition of a barbershop fantasy.

How to account for the difference in smells between new and old? Is it possible the formula changed sometime midcentury to better reflect the minty, vanilla-forward trends of postwar aftershaves? Could the company have dispensed with the Victorian musks and reverted to something closer to Skin Bracer? It's entirely possible. Does that mean the current formula is a reversion back to an even earlier formula that preceded WWII? Perhaps from the 1870s to the 1920s the formula smelled closer to the current blend, with an animalic skankiness up top and a drydown that evokes lilacs. My vintage bottle doesn't really evoke lilacs at all, at least compared to the newer stuff. I sense there's another chapter to the story here, but lacking the ten or twelve vintage bottles needed for a chronological side-by-side-by-side comparison, I just don't know the answer. All I know is I winced a little when I cracked the seal on this bottle. After all these years, all the guys who swore they'd never take its virginity, I come along and do that.

If American International Industries reverted back to the midcentury formula, the jokes about "The Veg" that I'm constantly reading in wetshaver forums would disappear overnight. There would be no "The Veg has chosen me" jokes, because there's nothing challenging or unpleasant about the old formula. Literally nothing. Truth is, every man with a strop and blade would "choose the Veg" over most of the other aftershaves on the market today. But I enjoy both versions, and feel they're special in their own ways. Lilac Vegetal is more an intellectual challenge than an olfactory one. It's a simple, solid, expertly-crafted masterpiece. Every serious wetshaver should seek out a vintage bottle. They're out there, but they're extremely difficult to find. If you want one, go to estate sales. Go to tag sales. Visit antique stores. Check and recheck eBay every week. Eventually a bottle will show up. When it does, do not hesitate, even if there's only a half ounce left in it. Even if they want $200 for it. It's worth it. Trust me.

In closing, I thought I'd mention that when the vintage is gone, which will likely happen a couple years from now, I'll decant the new stuff into the vintage bottle and see how it mellows in glass. I suspect it will retain its musky character, but it will probably ditch the plastic undertone and become considerably smoother and more rewarding to use. God bless Pinaud for still making Lilac Vegetal. It is truly the prince of wetshaver tonics, and makes this wetshaver feel like a prince.

A Tale of Two Bay Rums

Guess which one sucks.

I recently bought a bottle of Lucky Tiger Bay Rum, and tried it out. I can safely say that Lucky Tiger is currently being run by those useless Millennials I mentioned a few months ago in my Old Spice post. How do I know this, you might ask? Because Lucky Tiger Bay Rum smells absolutely nothing like bay rum. It smells crisp, and powdery, and "fresh," but has no discernible notes of bay or rum in its formula. It's basically a generic aftershave with a hint of powder in the drydown, and some vague green floral note that I can't make out.

This prompted me to sigh in frustration, and pull out my bottle of Clubman Virgin Island Bay Rum, which I consider a "reference bay rum" of sorts, due to the clarity of its notes, which are rendered in a traditional fashion. VIBR also has the advantage of about an hour of longevity on a temperate day (a bit more or less depending on the season), so it's a perfect measuring stick for other bay rums. I compared it to Lucky Tiger, and it's night and day. Where LT smells watery and only the slightest bit piquant, VIBR is bursting with cinnamon, clove, sweet rum, and heady bay notes.

Perhaps the most offensive thing about Lucky Tiger's aftershave is its pedigree; the brand dates back almost a hundred years, and its bay rum is supposed to be a robust throwback to the 1950s, when this particular style enjoyed a Rennaissance. Instead it smells like a 30 yr-old doof had no clue what bay rum is, and created a brief sometime in the 2000s that was equal parts puzzling and easy to fill. It smells like someone mixed a few drops of "green" with a few drops of "powder," and called it a day. It's like they bottled the smell of laziness.

For your own reference, consider VIBR a "can't go wrong" bay rum that can be had for less than $10, and which always works, regardless of the weather or circumstances. If you need something similar but much weaker, you can try Royall Bay Rum, or Lustray Bay Rum Compound, which literally lasts a minute before vanishing (your girlfriend might get a faint whiff when she comes in for a kiss, but otherwise forget it). If Lucky Tiger is on your radar, just know that it's not a bad smell, and it works fine as an aftershave, but it sure ain't no bay rum.