Rant: P&G Takes Shortcuts With Nonsensical 80th Anniversary Old Spice Products

A Sad Joke.

It's pretty galling to think that after eighty years of Old Spice's existence on the world market, the best Proctor & Gamble could do to celebrate its anniversary was a minor tweak of the labels for limited edition deodorants and body washes. On its website, they state:

"[The] 80th Anniversary scent smells like 80 years of crisp, clean awesomeness."

Yeah, ok. Great grammar. Apparently they couldn't even be bothered to check the copy editing on their own site. But more importantly, after eight decades of providing a legendary oriental masculine to millions of wet shavers everywhere, and about fifteen years after switching the cologne and aftershave bottles from Egyptian ceramic to plastic, my question is, that's it? No limited edition Egyptian ceramic commemorative "retro" bottle? No brief return to the classicism that made this scent an icon? Not even an attempt to advertise the anniversary beyond a quiet product list on the site? What the hell is going on over there?

I have a theory as to what happened, and it doesn't bode well for anyone under the age of 35. I'm looking at you, Millennials. It's clear you have invaded American industry. You were born in the late 1980s and 1990s, and you were raised on TV, computers, cell phones, and the Internet. You have a "Swipe Left" mentality about literally everything you encounter. You're soft, you're weak, you're pretty stupid (most of you couldn't find Brazil on a globe), but you grew up entitled. Your parents told you that you were wonderful, that you could do anything you wanted to, that you could change the world, because you are special.

And as you moved through the 2000s, your middle school and high school years, you gradually began permeating American culture. It started sometime after The Matrix, but before Avatar, roughly the time Obama was elected, that you took positions of power in the manufacturing sector, and suddenly everything really started going to shit. Pop music, movies, clothing styles, furniture styles, cars, and fragrances all started looking cheap and undesirable. The Millennial mindset - a short attention span, an unwillingness to read books and learn, a self-esteem fueled binge of crude postmodernist creativity - began rendering everything, even simple things like aftershave, as less than they were before.

I would wager that whoever is in charge of the budget for the North American Old Spice Classic division at P&G is under the age of 35, a Millennial, and I'd also bet that he or she is pretty stupid. This person was likely raised to believe that their decisions are always worthy of praise, and therefore thinks their short-sighted decision to take shortcuts in the eightieth anniversary packaging of Old Spice was no big deal. Why should Old Spice fans expect anything to celebrate over?

I'm here to tell you, whoever you are: you really screwed up. You disappointed millions of loyal consumers who yearn for a return to the glass bottle, even if only for a few short weeks, and you made guys like me, born on the furthest fringe of the 1970s, wonder how his contemporaries could be so dumb. Do you think life is an App? Do you think that it's a great idea to end relationships when they begin to get challenging, when they begin to demand more of you and your precious time? Do you think it's a good thing that almost every other movie that comes out these days is from Marvel Studios, the least edifying movie culture phenomenon in the history of film? Do you look forward to the next Taylor Swift song, because you think pop music is fun?

Congratulations, you're a stupid Millennial, and if you're working at P&G, you probably have no appreciation for vintage Old Spice packaging, or for the long history of traditional celebrations that Old Spice has enjoyed over the last eight decades. That anyone over the age of forty who works for P&G would think that just going on Photoshop and revamping a pre-existing deodorant label was enough is nearly impossible to swallow. More likely some simple-minded moron who graduated from college in 2013 told the design department to just cut a new look on existing plastic, and called it a day.

Of course, I could be wrong about this. Maybe the design department and bean counters are all grizzled old guys in their fifties and sixties who just don't want to be bothered. But that wouldn't make much sense, would it? Guys that age would have more interest in reviving their own memories of a wonderful bygone era, when Old Spice was still popular among young men. A time when quality was looked upon as a source of pride in the manufacturing and commercial sectors, and high-grade materials mattered. They'd be cringing at the reality of their favorite cologne being packaged in plastic, and waiting for the day when they could justifiably break free of that financial constriction, even if only for a few weeks, and offer celebratory revival bottles on the anniversary of the product.

To the execs at P&G in charge of Old Spice, whoever you are, read this: your cheap, crappy shortcut approach to your flagship men's fragrance is embarrassing and unacceptable. I know you think it doesn't matter, because reasons, because this apparently forgotten "legacy brand" is just there to make you members of the nouveau rich, and everyone around you thinks you're wonderful anyway. But you're not wonderful, and you're not helping your bottom line, because had you spent a few million dollars and issued glass bottles of cologne and aftershave, you would have seen an incredible return on your investment. As it stands, you're seeing nothing, because you haven't offered this fragrance's faithful users anything at all. 

Wise up. The 90th anniversary better be conceptualized by someone with an attention span significantly greater than that of a fruit fly. If you think manufacturing grey stoppers for 1930s styled ceramic bottles is a bad idea, you're a disgrace to the brand, and if I could, I'd fire you immediately. Would someone please create a startup page for an acquisition of P&G? I don't care if it takes you fifteen years to raise the capital; it's worth it. An icon like Old Spice deserves so much better. This nonsense needs to end.

Old Spice Original (Proctor & Gamble)

It's Definitely Original.

I want to thank my dad for buying my bottle of Old Spice Original aftershave while on holiday in Ireland. (I requested it.) I'd read on Badger & Blade that the European version was a bit different from the "Classic" stuff sold here, but lacked a convenient way to compare the formulas. Now, thankfully, I can compare them side by side.

I really hate to add to the Old Spice controversy, but I'm afraid I must. True to form, the European version is markedly different from the American formula, and also different from the Indian Rubicon formula. My bottle of Original aftershave is labeled "Proctor & Gamble UK, Weybridge, Surrey." The box is not remarkably different from any other I've seen, but but but, drumroll please: the bottle, oh the bottle! Glass! A big, 150 ml bottle, all glass! How nice. I'll never need another bottle again. Any other version I buy, if not in glass, will be decanted into this flacon. I should remind you that I don't value the glass for any supposed advantage it might lend the scent. I've researched the plastic used for Classic, and found that it has no negative impact on Old Spice. It's just a novelty to have a glass bottle, and it's good fun to splash from something this hefty.

Anyway, the scent itself is easy to describe. It's actually a hybrid of the Rubicon formula and the American formula. The top and early drydown phases of Original closely match the Rubicon aftershave, with a fresher, lighter, creamier characteristic. There's a lot less clove, more sharpness to the cinnamon, and the orange aldehyde is brighter, and dries as something sheer and clean. Wait about five minutes and sweetness takes over, the balsamic powder of the American formula gradually taking over, until I'm left with a fairly close match to the stuff in plastic. It's not exact, but it's so close that I'd be splitting hairs if I tried to describe the difference. Some variance in balance and throw may also be attributable to how the skin toners are used in each. If I were asked to do a blind test, I'd immediately identify them, but if pressed about what exactly gives them away, I'd likely come up short.

Despite its best-of-both-worlds nature, Original isn't as good as Classic. The US formula might be "clovier," sweeter, rosier, more powdery in the base, but ultimately it feels like the most complete scent, with a burlier nature. It's definitely the most masculine. Granted, aftershaves are prone to transience, but I get pretty good time out of the American aftershave (an hour or more). I can't say the same for the Original formula, which feels fleeting after ten minutes, and gone entirely after twenty. If you can find it, try the Original formula for yourself and report back to me. I'd love to know what you think. Curiously enough, it's available stateside as a stick deodorant in their "High Endurance" line, and although it's tricky to get a sense of a fragrance formula from a deodorant alone, I'm now able to verify that it matches the aftershave quite well.

"My Old Spice Is Better Than Yours!" How A Classic Drugstore Scent Became The Most Contentious Reformulation Of All Time

The Ship Grand Turk

On February 22nd of this year, I stopped at a store and picked up a few things. On a whim, I grabbed some shaving items, and noticed they had P&G's Old Spice cologne in stock. It was the version with an atomizer. I'd never experienced this scent in spray form, so I bought it, also on a whim. One of the nice things about its plastic bottle is that it hearkens back to the mid 1950s, when Shulton first started exploring plastic for packaging, selling smaller travel bottles and ancillary grooming products in this material.

February was the coldest month for Connecticut in recent memory, and that day happened to be the coldest of the year, with evening temperatures dipping to around ten degrees below zero. It was eight o'clock at night, and I had to get gas, so I pulled into the station and mentally prepared to freeze to death at the pump. I imagined they'd find me there the next morning, my blue claw of a hand still clutching the metal pump handle, my frostbitten ass still leaning casually against the haunches of an icicle-encrusted Pontiac, my body a suburbanized version of Jack Nicholson's corpse in The Shining.

As the bitter cold attacked my face and hands, I realized that a good diversion would be to try the Old Spice spray. It's an excellent way to distract the mind away from black patches of dying flesh. Shivering, I primed the atomizer, and gave myself two sprays to the chest. The cologne practically crystallized in the air, but I used an extra puff for good measure.

A stunning accord hit my nose, a beautiful blend of orange aldehydes, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It was so clean and clear and cheerful that I wondered why I'd been wearing KL Homme all winter. The tank was filled, and I was on my way, still marveling at what I was smelling. By the time I reached my house, the car was full of musky cloves with hints of powdery, slightly vanillic amber wafting in the background.

This got me thinking about Proctor & Gamble's version of Old Spice, a formula much maligned in the wet shaver community as being the utter ruination of grandpa's only cologne. It is indeed a bit different from the "Shulton formula," but I'll get to that in a minute. The past few months have seen me ruminating on the strange dilemma facing today's Old Spice fan, as my experience with the current fragrance could not be more different from what many men on fragrance boards are claiming to smell. If you're someone who likes Old Spice, or is interested in trying it for the first time, you have to figure out which version is best to track down: the Shulton version, the "Shulton" version, the "Indian Shulton" version, or the Proctor & Gamble version.

You may be wondering why I keep putting "Shulton" in quotation marks. Shulton stopped manufacturing and formulating Old Spice when it sold the brand to American Cyanamid, a chemical manufacturing conglomerate, in 1970. This little factoid seems to elude many of the guys who complain about Proctor & Gamble's formula. They act as though the formula was sacred and untouched for seventy years, like the ultimate gesture of all-natural perfumery for the undiscerning male, until those evil assholes at P&G came along and cheapened it with their plastic bottles and vile synthetics. But this is simply not true.

In 2012 a man came forward on Badger & Blade with a headspace gas chromatography analysis of three Old Spices, a vintage Shulton, "current Shulton" (actually a generic, Indian-made aftershave), P&G's version, and the North American generic version of this scent, primarily made by Vi-Jon, with results clearly posted for everyone to see (click image to enlarge):

This analysis suggested four things about this fragrance:

1. An Indian reformulation of Shulton's Old Spice changed the formula, making it spicier (with far more variegated peak activity).

2. The volatility and balance of the oldest Old Spice is possibly a bit degraded after years of storage.

3. P&G's version of Old Spice is only notably different from vintage Shulton's in the tippy-top notes, possibly four chemicals in the early drydown phase, and apparently one base note (where one P&G chemical is noticeably stronger, probably eugenol).

4. Vi-Jon "Spice" aftershave is only mildly different from P&G's, and the significance of those differences is hard to fathom. (It shares more in common with P&G's formula than either of the earlier Shultons.)

Again, "Shulton" is in quotation marks, because the "current Shulton" was actually a Menezes Cosmetics formula, manufactured in India. Many people don't really understand what Menezes Cosmetics did with Old Spice. Let me clear that up.

"Old Spice" was a generic name for aftershave in India. In 1968, Menezes introduced the brand in India as a licensee of Shulton, and continued to manufacture and sell Old Spice for the better part of the seventies and eighties. They officially sold the license to P&G in 1993. Old Spice changed hands four times in twenty years through the eighties and nineties (Menezes, Godrej, Marico, Menezes), most notably to Marico Industries in 1999, until P&G returned licensing to Menezes in 2002, giving them a ten year contract to manufacture Old Spice. Until 2012, P&G permitted several corporate entities, including Rubicon Formulations, Colfax pvt (Menezes' original founding company), and MCPL India pvt ltd (the most recent incarnation of P&G's partnership with Menezes), to sell their aftershaves in India as Old Spice. Again, in India, Old Spice was the generic term for aftershave. ALL aftershave. Hence, several Indian companies made it under the watchful eye of Menezes, and eventually P&G, and were given permission to market it with "Shulton" printed on the bottles, which happen to closely resemble the original bottles.

In December of 2012, P&G reigned it all in when MCPL India's license expired, which means that, as of 2013, these smaller Indian subsidiaries aren't manufacturing and distributing their generic aftershave formula as Old Spice anymore - not legally, at least. Native Indians are now getting the same stuff we get here in North America. So much for Indian Old Spice.

This explains why there's so much confusion regarding Indian Old Spice, and who manufactures and distributes it. Guys are always getting bottles that look and smell different from each other, and with different markings. Yet they rarely investigate why this is. Well guys, now you know why. One word: "Generic." And in India, of all places, the outsourcing of a formula to a half dozen competing companies with access to a wide-ranging variety of raw materials would yield very strange, subtly different, and virtually untraceable formulas, some even coming in questionable plastic bottles, painted white to resemble Egyptian ceramic.

But I digress. My corresponding takeaway from the analysis results are as follows:

1. This is an excellent example of a reformulation that made a scent more complex and dynamic, not less, which refutes the notion that all reformulations are bad. The Indian version sampled is quite a bit more volatile than the vintage Shulton formula.

2. This is yet another fragrance that exhibits some degradation with age.

3. The differences between vintage Shulton and P&G are evident but negligible, clearly showing that the newer formula has better longevity via an added base note.

4. The difference between Vi-Jon and vintage Shulton is far greater than between Vi-Jon and P&G. It even has similar longevity to P&G's, exhibiting the same peak in the base (which is absent in Shulton's). To suggest using Vi-Jon's formula as a substitute for Shulton's version is misleading.

You would think that people who dislike P&G's version would read the gas chromatography charts posted in that thread and seriously question their assumptions about Old Spice. In 2012 (and for several years prior), Old Spice by P&G was lamented as being far inferior to "vintage Shulton." Yet the images of the analysis show a different story. The delicate citrus and spice accord of the top-heavy vintage is barely different from P&G's; the spicy heart accords are quite similar, and the base of P&G's formula is more complex than the nonexistent base of vintage.

Yet the fallacy remains: "P&G ruined Old Spice."

Not one single soul has ever offered a clear definition of those terms. In what way specifically has the scent been diminished? Which notes specifically were removed? Which notes specifically were replaced by nasty synthetics? In what way specifically has the drydown arch of the scent been degraded into something unworthy of eight or nine dollars at a drugstore? Examples are never given. Here is a typical complaint:

"Suffice to say, P&G destroyed Old Spice. It was so disappointing, I used the rest of the bottle while bathing my dogs. Thankfully we can still get the Shulton India Old Spice, which to me is the same as the original before P&G took over the USA operations."

Aside from being a grossly inaccurate statement, this comment reveals nothing about why this person thinks P&G destroyed Old Spice. Now imagine a hundred of these, all from men with the same level of ignorance. No wonder P&G has a bad rep.

We can see from the "headspace" gas chromatography analysis that the formulas have some basic similarities and differences, but unfortunately the analysis given isn't complete in its cataloguing of volatile elements. Had the poster given results of a gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis, a clearer understanding of how exact notes and accords differed might have been reached. As one member said,

"In examining the tracings closely, it appears that the current Shulton has 4 strong spikes (at 10.4, 11.3, 13.2, 13.7) that are either absent or much weaker in the vintage. The spike at 14.0 is much stronger in the vintage than in the current Shulton. The spikes at 14.1 are strong in both, but much stronger in the current. In addition there are other minor variations. The current and vintage do not appear to be the same formulation, and the observed differences could account for differences in odor. Such differences would also depend on the potency of those components, the identity of which are not known. This is not my area of expertise, but I'd like to know why do you feel that the formulations are identical. It might be worth doing a gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to actually identify those components that differ between the two, as they might be quite important parts of the overall aromas."

The gas chromatography charts clearly show that the Indian sample of Old Spice has more volatility than any other sample. There are more spikes in chemical activity at shorter intervals in the Indian version compared to the Shulton version. One might surmise that the Shulton version would match the activity shown in the Indian chart if it had been the same age, but according to the poster, this was an "older" sample. I attribute the wider and more numerous valleys in the vintage Shulton to its age.

The charts also clearly show that there is only a small difference in the top notes of Shulton/Indian OS and P&G OS, as the former reveal three small peaks, while the latter shows none. What is unclear is what those little peaks mean in the non P&G formulas. Are they showing us a difference in volatility between active, or inactive ingredients?

The poster made the crucial mistake of analyzing aftershaves, and not colognes. Thus, not all candidates for olfactory analysis are perfume odorants. There may be some skin conditioning esters with tertiary odorant effects in the formulas, and in P&G's formula these may have been eliminated, marking the absence of those three peaks.

Or it could just be that the castor oil in the P&G version wasn't sitting as long as in the other samples, which again makes sense with a newer product. Castor oil gets funkier the longer it sits. Since this is "headspace" chromatography, one has to wonder whether the slightly ashy funk of old castor oil was taken into consideration with the older samples. I know that the presence of this oil in OS accounts for why the aftershave smells a bit different than the cologne. Yet nobody mentions this element in the thread.

In the heartnotes drydown stage, about twenty minutes into development, it's clear that P&G's formula has a couple of spikes that vintage Shulton's lacks, and vintage Shulton's has a few spikes that P&G's lacks. However, the general "flow" of the drydowns are very, very similar. I can't help but wonder if comparing the two is splitting hairs. The pictures don't lie. Different formulas? Yes.

VASTLY different formulas? P&G's formula is blatantly recognizable as Old Spice.

The P&G formula has the most complex base of the three, which oddly doesn't get mentioned. I guess having a simplistic powder base with no real "spice" to it is preferred by members of B&B, because that's how Shulton's version actually smells. What the charts really show is that P&G's formula has longevity, a trait lacking in Shulton's formula.

Yet many members of the board lament P&G's formula as having "no longevity." The claim is that the new stuff is gone in minutes, while the vintage Shulton lasts and lasts.

Which is complete, utter, totally unadulterated hogwash.

The exact opposite is true. I have owned and worn vintage eighties Old Spice cologne by Shulton. It lasted all of five minutes on skin before vanishing completely. It really was all about top notes, that stuff. Smelled great, but gone in a flash.

P&G's version? Hours. With liberal application, the rich clove note in the base, combined with a few whispery resins, really maintains a presence throughout the day. I honestly doubt that any of the naysayers on Badger & Blade have actually bothered to give the stuff a full wearing. They're too busy assuming it sucks. They are apparently a group of "Feelers," not "Tasters."

But the most ridiculous and perhaps intellectually damning little tidbit to the analysis is that it reveals a major fallacy perpetuated by people online regarding Vi-Jon "Spice Scent" aftershave - that it is more like vintage Shulton Old Spice than P&G's formula. The analysis shows the opposite is true. There is a closer match between Vi-Jon's development and P&G OS's development, and aside from perhaps an airier spice accord in Vi-Jon's top, the two are basically cut from the same cloth. Even their drydowns are a closer match, although again, P&G's has more complexity and hold.

Amazingly, this has been a subject of debate for not weeks, or months, but years. The analysis thread is still active. Three years after it was posted, and about twenty pages later, guys are still talking about the reformulation of Old Spice. Isn't it time to just say "enough," and move on? All of the griping about P&G ruining Old Spice isn't borne out by fact, but by opinion only, and that's not enough to give it real legs. It just fuels conjecture.

I've noticed that "vintage lovers" like to exclude a certain consideration from their thinking, and use its absence to explain why their world is so unpleasant. They foam at the mouth about the destruction wreaked upon their favorite formulas by contemporary manufacturers, but dismiss without a second thought any suggestion that the differences detected between samples could be attributable to age. Refreshingly, one B&B member named "Hank Corbett" wrote in 2010 the following about Old Spice:

"I am one of the few who have changed their position on the OS 'recipe tinkering.' I had, until recently, been convinced that the new stuff was not the same water we all know and love. I now am on the side of P&G on the issue. I think it's a matter of 'freshness,' as it has been stated. A bottle of 30 year old after-shave or cologne is not going to smell the same as a bottle of juice manufactured last week. The Shulton stuff ages well and still smells fantastic after prolonged storage and I do enjoy wearing it. I am of the opinion that the P&G stuff will age just as gracefully. I have been wearing P&G Old Spice cologne exclusively for the past week find it to be the same stuff I wore back in pre-P&G days (but certainly 'different' than Shulton only because it has not aged for years and years). After a few hours of wear, it smells like Old Spice. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, one must actually wear the stuff; not smell from the bottle at the store. But I did sprinkle some in my baseball cap and the next day, it reeked of Shulton."

Is it possible that older aftershaves preserve better than colognes? Perhaps Old Spice has a generous maturation period of several decades, and not years? I couldn't tell you. But this post at least acknowledges the reality of the situation - you can't expect to make an accurate comparison between something made thirty years ago, and something put on store shelves yesterday.

A member named "Goss" responded in kind to Hank's comment:

"I agree and have changed my position on this subject also. I believe it has to do with aging of the 'recipe.' I have a brand new bottle of Old Spice AS and plan on tucking it away for the next 20 years. I'm sure it will age just like the Shulton O/S."

An even more prescient sentiment was shared by someone going by the moniker "WastedResources" -

"The average shelf life for a bottle of cologne or aftershave is about two years. After that, the ingredients break down, and the scent is no longer its original form, but it may still smell pleasant. This has nothing to do with evaporation. It has everything to do with the aging of chemicals in a bottle. It doesn't mean that the ingredients in the 70 year old bottle aren't different than what's in the new bottles. It just means that the 70 year old bottle doesn't smell the same as it did when it came off of the shelf."

It's possible that an older fragrance may smell somewhat pleasant, and certainly wearable, but as I've always said about this subject, would you really want to experience a fragrance that way? Wouldn't it bother you that you're not really smelling the composition the way it was meant to be smelled? That you're experiencing a faded, simplified, and relatively stale version of whatever scent you enjoy? Isn't it better to get a fresh bottle and, if maturation is a plus for you, let it sit for two years or so, and then enjoy, rather than letting it sit twenty or thirty years past its peak? And most importantly, isn't it a miscalculation to assume that Proctor & Gamble "destroyed" your favorite cologne if you've never had an issue with nineties P&G Old Spice, back when it was in glass?

I often feel this way about my bottle of Furyo by Bogart. I love the stuff with a passion, and it still smells good and quite wearable, but I always wish I'd found it back when it was still on the market, new. I wish to God that I'd worn it in the early nineties, and experienced what it actually smelled like when it was fresh.

If you dislike Proctor & Gamble as a company for some specific reason, state that reason when you complain about them as being some sort of "evil empire" that kills good products. Otherwise I'm left reading your thoughts in suspended animation. I have no idea why you hate them; you just do, and they don't give a shit how you feel anyway.

If you dislike P&G's formula for Old Spice, state why, exactly. Saying that they replaced the spices with "synthetic floral and powder notes" isn't saying anything. Yes, there's a synthetic carnation note in Old Spice. Guess what? There was always a synthetic carnation note in Old Spice. And you know what else? Old Spice always smelled like it was made with synthetics. There's no shame in that. That's what perfumery is. Recent batches have a very natural-smelling clove note in the base, which is unsurprising given that eugenol is a readily available, naturally-derived perfume ingredient that smells terrific, if you like the smell of clove. Actually nothing synthetic there, although to read people's thoughts on it, you'd think they distilled "eau de plastic" into the base. Hey, it's in a plastic bottle, so it automatically smells like plastic, right?

I can't help but wonder why nobody mentions this incredibly clear and potent clove note on any of the boards. Do they not know what eugenol smells like? Are they incapable of identifying clove in a composition? Are they even wearing this stuff long enough to smell it? Are they wearing it at all? The fact that clove is never mentioned as a prominent note in the drydown of the new formula makes me think that most of the complainers aren't really giving P&G OS a fair shake.

If you have a real beef with Old Spice as it stands today, I can only make one suggestion. Try it on the coldest day of the year. They say that a rock song's quality is measured by how good it sounds unplugged. The "Perfume-In-The-Cold Test" is a similar metric for fragrances. If it's really shit, it'll literally collapse under the weight of frigid air. But if it's a masterpiece, the cold can do nothing but enhance its beauty further.

I feel sorry for people who believe that Proctor & Gamble destroyed Old Spice. They're "vintage lovers," and are, unfortunately, their own worst enemy. They nix the potential of any new product, based on its association with an equally (and arbitrarily) maligned manufacturer, and deprive themselves of easy enjoyment by seeking out pricier and rarer vintages. Most insidiously, they spread misinformation about new products on the internet, discouraging people from buying them, putting products that the rest of us enjoy on the line. When confronted about it, some will even reject their own culpability in the commercial stakes, saying their words bear no influence on the fate of a fragrance.

But recent reissues of internet stars like Acteur and Red for Men suggest that the internet is very influential to industry decision makers, perhaps second only to sales. And while those are success stories, it's a two-way street; negative press, if repeated for years on countless threads, will eventually jeopardize the subject's commercial prospects.

Meanwhile, there's nothing stopping "vintage lovers" from just dropping the bullshit and accepting that a little change here or there isn't worth throwing an endless tantrum over. With Old Spice, it would behoove them to just enjoy the reformulation and move on, rather than dwell on an ever-dwindling past.

But I suspect this will never happen. It's tragic, really.

Vi-Jon "Spice Scent" Aftershave

Ever since Proctor & Gamble reformulated Old Spice for at least the second or third time since its initial release, fans have sought "vintage" bottles and viable alternatives to the Shulton version that most wearers remember. I've owned and worn Shulton Old Spice from the seventies or eighties (its exact vintage wasn't clear), and presently own and wear the current stuff. While the Shulton version was pleasant, it lasted all of two minutes on skin before vanishing completely, its fizzy citrus and cinnamon spice scent literally becoming little more than a musky staleness, the afterglow of bar soap after a bath. Wetshavers have attributed its fleeting longevity to any number of things - its cologne strength (presumably even lighter in the aftershave), its cheapness, its potential old age - but I felt the main problem with Shulton's formula was its lack of dimensionality beyond top notes. As Luca Turin said, "A man is a woman consisting entirely of top notes."

Badger & Blade's forums are alive with comments about Indian Old Spice, the perfect answer to P&G's notorious reform, but I've never smelled it. The details on it are sketchy. Supposedly Shulton never closed down its Indian production line, even after shuttering every operation in the West (although I believe Menezes Cosmetics actually took over the Indian formula), and those lucky southeast Asians from Calcutta to Bangalore smell incredible, while the rest of us smell like cheap synthetics. Poke through the whole mess with enough patience, and voices of dissent are found. While many appreciate the Indian version, others feel it is noticeably different from the American stuff, and not really worth the hunt. I think P&G's version is about 90% the same as Shulton's with the remaining 10% difference attributable to concentration and the addition of a noticeably potent vanilla in the base, which gives the cologne a better lifespan than its predecessor. But there's another element to the Old Spice saga that gives old-schoolers new hope: Vi-Jon "Dollar Store" Spice Scent, also often referred to as the "Ivy Club" version of Old Spice.

Supposedly Vi-Jon's Old Spice clone is more faithful to the Shulton version than P&G's, and the kicker is that it costs a buck and change from your local Family Dollar (or whatever your local dollar store is called). I've seen it at Dollar Tree, Ocean State Job Lot, and X-Pect Discounts also, which may just be local Connecticut outlets. In May I found it at CVS, sporting the CVS generic label. I hadn't been to a CVS in years, not since their pharmacy made a colossal mistake on an expensive prescription and then gave me incredible attitude when I asked them to rectify it. A new store was erected in Oxford a few years ago, and I stopped by there on my way home to grab some odds and ends that I needed. I decided to let my old grudge go and give CVS another chance. Naturally I wandered into the shaving aisle, and was pleasantly surprised to find Vi-Jon's clone of every drugstore aftershave, each standing antagonistically beside its template, and all for a dollar less.

How does Vi-Jon rate? I like it, but I don't find it to be all that different from P&G's Old Spice, although it is significantly lighter, a little airier, and way weaker, lasting fifteen minutes tops. P&G's formula walks on for a good three hours after application, albeit at a very powdery and diffuse pace. I do recognize that Vi-Jon's initial five or six seconds on skin are perceptibly more textured and fizzy than P&G's, but after that extremely brief duration the formula resolves into a close match, becoming muskier and rather powdery. When smelling the two versions side by side, my nose cancels them both out, which tells me their differences are negligible at best. The bottom line here is easy to see: if you like Shulton's Old Spice but can't be bothered to hunt down vintage bottles, P&G's Old Spice or Vi-Jon's Spice Scent are equally good replacements.

Soap Review: Old Spice Pure Sport & Swagger

I told you I'd review these bar soaps after using them, so here we go. 

I'm happy to report that the Pure Sport and Swagger soaps work well. They lather nicely, and leave skin feeling toned and clean. It's unclear as to why P&G chose to market only three bars - Pure Sport, Fiji, and Swagger - and opted to leave the original Old Spice fragrance out of the mix, but so far I'm pleased with the two I've tried. Let's hope they sell like hotcakes and spur the company to release the "Classic Scent" in bar form. A few points on Pure Sport and Swagger: 

• The bars are generously sized at 4 ounces (Irish Spring is only 3.75 ounces) and they feel  dense, like they've been triple milled (although I doubt they are). 

• They last a while. I get well over a week's-worth of showers from one bar (about ten days), while Irish Spring only yields around six or seven showers. I lather a lot though, probably more than a lot of folks do, so your mileage may vary on this.

• The bars are shaped in a way that prohibits them from splitting in two while being used. Unlike Dial and Irish Spring, which separate into two little pieces about two-thirds of the way through their life, Old Spice soaps remain one solid piece, right to the end, due to the attenuated curvature in their design. 

• Their fragrances are potent, but unlike other soaps, they don't cloy upon lathering. I get olfactory fatigue with these, to the point where I don't even smell them while showering. After I step out and towel off, however, I get whiffs of freshness that remind me of what I just washed with. Those whiffs endure for about five minutes after showering, so there's no doubt these soaps have strong scents. 

The lower curve in the bar shape doesn't effect its solvency in leftover water after showering, so you're unlikely to get that mushy-bar effect of soggy soap. I'm not sure how that is, but I suspect the density of the soap has something to do with it - they're actually not so easily permeated by water. Even in lathering, it takes a little extra effort to get suds. That can be viewed as a negative, in the sense that you have to work a little harder to get the same effect as other bar soaps, but I doubt anyone will mind. The lather isn't super-rich, and won't cover skin completely like Ivory Soap does (stingy bar, awful scent, but decent functionality to that one), but it's pretty good, and a little better than Irish Spring, so I can't complain.

Between the two fragrances, I think I like Pure Sport just a little more than Swagger. It smells fairly close to the aftershave, but a little more top-heavy, like Pure Sport's woody-citrus, without the sandalwood dry down. That's the reverse of  most bar soaps, which tend to feature only base notes. Pure Sport soap is very bright and fizzy-fresh, while Swagger is a little smoother and sweeter, with a muskier aroma. I really like Swagger as well, but it reminds me of Irish Spring Icy Blast for some reason. Maybe the light blue color and the sweetness is what does it. But it's a good smell and performs the same as Pure Sport.

I hope to try Fiji soon. For those of you who are interested in these soaps, I give Pure Sport and Swagger two thumbs up. They're excellent products, and a pleasure to use. 

Old Spice Bar Soap Is Back!

I had read that Proctor & Gamble discontinued all Old Spice bar soaps to make way for an expanded body wash and deodorant line. I don't mind all the body washes (although they aren't soap), and having thirty extra deo sticks to choose from makes life a whole lot easier. But I like soap. Real soap. And real soap comes in bars.

So guess how excited I was to find two kinds of Old Spice bar soap at Stop & Shop today? If you think I was very excited, then you think I'm the lowest common denominator of nerdworthy geeks. And you would be correct. I encountered Pure Sport and Swagger in bar form and felt little chills of delight run up and down my spine. I will eventually try both of them, but I bought Pure Sport first. I understand Swagger also has an extensive history with the brand, but I don't know the original Swagger, and am unsure if the bar soap does it any justice. Pure Sport is an established Old Spice scent with a simple and lovely grapefruit and sandalwood structure. I look forward to trying it. I also hope they bring out Game Day in bar form.

From what I smelled of a dry bar, Pure Sport is more citrusy and less of an oriental than its brethren aftershave. I'll shower a bar down to a sliver and see how my feelings about this new product develop. I'm really thankful to P&G for bringing these back, and hope that any positive words I write about the product encourages people to buy it. Based on the smell alone, I can already tell you Pure Sport soap is worth it. Bring back as many bar soaps as you can, P&G! Reviews are pending.

Old Spice Wolf Thorn (Proctor & Gamble)

Old Spice Wolf Thorn: Cool name (kind of), but super-cheesy packaging. Kind of has an Ed Hardy look to it, doesn't it? There are almost no photos of this in spray cologne form on the internet, so I had to take my own for From Pyrgos. The Walgreens in my area carries a few interesting products, and this new fragrance by P&G is one of them. It's twelve bucks a bottle, so be on the lookout for it, and don't hesitate to buy it. Wolf Thorn isn't complicated and it's not top-shelf quality of course, but its lack of ambition works in its favor, and you definitely get what you pay for here.

Wolf Thorn is basically a redux of Davidoff's Cool Water, a simple citrus aromatic cologne with mostly grapefruit and lemon on top, and a brisk, slightly bitter drydown of violet leaf, neroli, tobacco (surprisingly good), and some smoky-salty-sweet ambergris, the same unusual note found in Old Spice Fresh, diluted tenfold. The main attraction here is citrus, and it dominates most of Wolf Thorn's evolution. Its grapefruit and lemon notes start out very bright, fizzy, and naturalistic. Good, clean fun, without stooping to synthetic sweetness or scratchy ozonic notes. Within fifteen minutes the citrus begins to hollow out and turn rather grey and flinty, but that's the budget kicking in. They spent the bulk of their dollars on that fresh intro, surprise, surprise. But at least it isn't super-synthetic, and it achieves a convincing fresh-clean effect. If you like bitter, unadulterated, breakfast-at-eight-in-the-morning grapefruit, you'll probably like this fragrance. There are better grapefruit notes out there, but for the money, this one is pretty good.

When the citrus notes wane, naked violet leaf appears, very peppery and spare, with a slight floral sweetness behind the spice. Underlying that is an odd gummy note that inhabits all the current P&G scents, sort of a weird cross between ambergris and burnt cigarette tobacco. I think it's a few steps above Pure Sport and Smooth Blast. I could be wrong about this, but Wolf Thorn's spray cologne might be a limited edition thing that P&G discontinues in a year. If you're an Old Spice fan, get this while you can.

Old Spice Smooth Blast (Proctor & Gamble)

Once upon a time, Shulton made a version of its famous aftershave/cologne called Old Spice Fresh Lime. It was the mid 1960s; JFK had just been assassinated, the Beatles were taking over the universe, and man was about to set foot on the moon. The Golden Age of Cinema was unfolding, in remarkable works by Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, Woody Allen, Arthur Penn, and Blake Edwards. This was an interesting time to be alive, and wearing cologne.

Fresh Lime has since been discontinued, for no apparent reason, other than perhaps flagging sales. Shulton has been sold off, its product line recommissioned by Proctor & Gamble. It's typical for fans of classic brands like Shulton to lament such buyouts, and criticize the inevitable reformulations, but I have to say, as much as I could appreciate the original Old Spice, I don't think P&G is doing such a bad job. Sure, they replaced those beautiful glass bottles with cheapy-cheap plastic, and did an awful job revamping the packaging graphics. But the fragrances inside these new bottles are quite good. Some even border on greatness.

Old Spice Smooth Blast is one such product. Consider for a moment the folly of fruity scents: they always smell like hi-fructose candy. You may want to smell that way once in a blue moon, but as far as blue moons go, the occasion for wanting to smell like a spilled can of Mott's is extra-rare. Why? Because fruit is sweet, and too much sweet is nauseating. This is where Smooth Blast got it right - it utilizes just the right combination of fruits, and avoids becoming overbearing and saccharine mush. There's a lovely pop of lemon and lime off the top, with the lime dominant. I can't help but think it's P&G's ode to Fresh Lime. Within minutes this citrus becomes a transparent version of Old Spice Fresh. It's basically ambergris and cedar, but toned way down.

Eventually blackcurrant and kiwi assert themselves and reanimate the fruits. The effect is cool, somewhat green, a little sweet, and totally refreshing. It's perfect for a hot summer day, and never once smells chemical, cloying, or sugary. I suggest giving this one a try - you're not going to impress anyone by wearing it, but it's a good July picnic splash, completely appropriate for days when the majority of your activities involve lighting citronella candles and spooning fruit salad onto paper plates. Two thumbs up.

The Old And New: Old Spice Fresh & Pure Sport

Sometime in the last few years, Old Spice reformulated and re-released its famous "fresh" variant as Old Spice Fresh. Fragrantica puts the start date at 1988, but in fact basenotes has it right - Old Spice Fresh was originally released in 1980 as Old Spice Fresh Scent, and was a minor player in the lineup until its discontinuation sometime in the 1990s. I don't know what prompted Proctor & Gamble to give Fresh another go, but apparently someone was nostalgic.

Fresh always struck me as being a product of Calone's "first wave," one of a handful of discreetly-clean and sea breezy masculines that were mass produced from the 1970s to the late '80s. Stuff like Wind Drift, Blue Stratos, New West. These weren't overtly aquatic, nor were they fruity bubblegum scents, but they all employed a clean Calone molecule that was subtly woven into their compositions for ozonic effect. The basic Calone smell is very marine-like in nature, and mimics the saltiness of a sea breeze. In Fresh, this clean sea spray element is central to the composition. It isn't sweet. It's bitter, mineralic, ozonic, salty, and a little green. It's Calone the way we're supposed to smell it, somehow relegated to the cheapest stuff in the men's aisle.

Even today, Fresh smells very old school and a little clunky. But here's a major point in its favor: it's an excellent ambergris scent, for anyone curious to know what amber smells like. Fresh opens with an incredibly bitter melange of salted lemon, bergamot, and frosted galbanum, and bitchslaps my sinuses for a good fifteen minutes before softer notes of dry cedar and amber emerge, perfectly haloed in Calone - or whatever they're using to imitate Calone nowadays. It smells like a cold Atlantic wave breaking against grey shale somewhere along the coast of Maine. 

I also find Old Spice's newest brand of "Fresh" next to them in massive 6.5 ounce bottles, labeled Pure Sport, from 2004. This fragrance is a more modern OS variant, and has seen immense success in bodywash and deodorant form. I like that they make it in aftershave form as well. Pure Sport is not your average formulaic sport scent. In fact, it's not a sport scent at all. A basenoter called Cipriano accurately states that Pure Sport smells of 60% Old Spice and 40% Allure Homme. Actually, I'd reverse the poles on that, as I get a stronger Allure vibe. But Pure Sport isn't really a fresh fougère - it's a fresh oriental, and to be honest, the aftershave version smells a lot different from the bodywash and deodorant. 

The bath products smell "sportier" and brighter, while the tonic is warm and smooth, with distinct notes of sandalwood and opopanax under light touches of grapefruit, clove, and anise. The fruity undertow is attributable to some variation of Calone, no doubt a cheap stand-in for the fruity Water of Joe Calone of the '90s. This is more wearable than Old Spice Fresh, but not nearly as interesting. Still, it's excellent value for the quality - Pure Sport smells like it should cost four times as much as it does.

If you're looking for respectable "fresh" scents, and don't have much dough to blow, P&G offers two excellent options for a combined total of $15. You won't smell like a big spender, but you'll definitely smell good, and a whole lot better than that fat asshole on the S-train who douses himself in L'Eau D'Issey.

Old Spice Classic (Shulton/Proctor & Gamble)

Quick question: who the hell is Joan Daly? Anyone? Anyone? All well, it was worth a try. Hey Joan, pout a little more and you'll look just like Courtney Stodden!

It's snowing outside, and there's about four inches already on the ground. Seems awfully early in the year for snow, but when you consider how the world is ending, maybe not so much. In a few years, when the polar ice caps have totally melted and we're all living like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, snow and gallons of frozen rain will be old hat. Until then, I'll try not to get too excited by an early Nor'easter.

I finally caved today and picked up a bottle of Old Spice. It was an interesting visit to Walgreens - they already have their Christmas specials out! Tons of fragrance and toiletry gift sets. That's another thing it's way too early for. What's going on here? Can't we at least have Halloween first? There weren't any sets of Old Spice, but they had the usual aftershave and cologne boxes in the men's aisle. I call it the men's aisle, although it's really not. Just that there's tons of stuff in that aisle that only men would buy - face razors, hair tonics, Pinaud talc, a crapload of aftershaves, and a deodorant section that's suspiciously short on lady stuff. You know what? I'm glad that aisle exists. It's one of the reasons I'm a faithful Walgreens guy (I hate CVS and Rite Aid. And with Rite Aid it's personal).

As the cashier rang me up, I could tell that Old Spice had taken a lot of hits. For one thing, the box has a crappy new look. Gone is the big sail boat of yesteryear, and even the newer "shiny" design has been retired. I actually liked that design. The off-red box was eye-catching, and I liked how the over-sized font hugged the corner. The new box, however, is lacking. Proctor & Gamble recently revamped the entire original Old Spice look, favoring an odd "sewn patch" motif on the cologne, aftershave, and body wash bottles. In an amazing display of stinginess, they've pared the color palette down to two - red and grey, and I don't know why they bothered with the grey since it's only used in miniscule amounts. This saves them money because more colors means a more expensive print job. 

Not that Old Spice was ever a vibrantly colorful product, but at least the previous boxes had a few reds, a black, and a navy blue, in addition to the grey. The glossy design that came just before the latest version had a pretty gold font, which is also gone. Now there's just the white of the box, an overload of plain red, and a tiny dab of grey where it says "Classic Scent". It's pretty bad. I hope it was worth it to save an extra buck by eliminating the blue in the logo.

Then there's the bottle. It's now plastic instead of Shulton's exotic Egyptian white sand glass. It sucks. Rather than describe it, a picture is worth a thousand words:

Color-wise it's a negative of the box, with the exact same imagery. The design works a little better on the bottle, but that patch is still . . . not good. Someone over at P&C needs a little tutorial on graphics. You never want to print an impression of anything sewn, stitched, taped, or thumb-tacked. The eye instantly recognizes when an unnecessary visual substitute has been employed in lieu of the real thing. It makes a product look cheap. Either sew a real patch on there, or change the image altogether. It's not like they don't have better material at their disposal - their trademark ship is a terrific graphic, full of fun and easy lines. It's now so small that I can barely see it.

Also, the stopper is red instead of grey. That's no big deal. I think I like red better. Grey is so WWII. Oddly enough, after cheaping out with the plastic, they kept the metal stopper lip. Yet even this is barely there. The metal is whisker-thin and might as well be painted plastic. Shulton used a nice solid steel piece to hold the stopper in place, but even that got trashed. What a travesty.

The scent has also been changed, but that's no surprise. It's a fairly simple fragrance, and they've changed it a few times over the years, with the most recent reformulation for bottling purposes. Plastic does a number on perfume, and here they had to streamline the scent for minimal damage. Still, compared to the old Shulton formula from the 1980s, this version is lacking. My breakdown:

Shulton Old Spice: The scent opens with a crisp burst of orange and aldehydes, followed by a procession of spices. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, sage, benzoin, frankincense, tonka, and vanilla are all present and accounted for. It's definitely spicy, with excellent note separation for drugstore juice. The notes smell realistic, too. Cinnamon from the kitchen rack isn't a spice I enjoy, and here it's putting me out - it's the real deal. The drydown is sweet and rewarding, and very warm, although I wouldn't associate it with my generation. It smells like something old and traveled, an archaic oriental with good sillage and longevity. Nicely done, and appealing to men everywhere.

P&G Old Spice: Aldehydes, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, benzoin, and vague hints of orange fleetingly greet my nose in the first ten seconds of wear, but the drydown is much quicker than it used to be. The cinnamon is synthetic and toned down considerably, which ironically works better for me. The clove is a touch stronger, which adds a cleanness to the scent. The pepper, sage, and frankincense are nowhere to be found. Within a minute, a massive soapiness takes over. It's mostly vanilla, and something resembling anise. 

This accord weighs the base down, making it more aromatic and more linear. The anise note cleverly masks the bitter plastic smell. It's okay I guess. Better than a slew of pricier options, many of which are also sold at Walgreens. So it could be worse. But it's a little too facile now. Perhaps if used in conjunction with the body wash it scores highly with die-hard fans, but I'm not overly impressed. I still like it, though.

Old Spice is something I'd wear sometimes, and probably only on weekends. It has that casual feel to it, like something warm and familiar, a man's olfactory pajamas. I'm not one to delve too deeply into masculine orientals, but at least I know I'm safe with Old Spice. Unless you bathe in it, the stuff is as inoffensive as it gets.

I have to laugh at the new tagline printed on the box: If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist. Thanks, grandpa. I think.