Old Spice Original (Rubicon Formulations, Ltd.)

"Smell Like A Man" . . . A man from Mumbai.

Although I've always doubted the veracity of claims regarding the superiority of Indian Old Spice, labeled "Original," to the American Old Spice "Classic," I used the Indian version this week with an open mind. I truly love P&G's formula, and strongly feel that it represents the best version of Old Spice, at least in my experience with this scent, but I did my best to not let bias influence my opinion of the imported version.

I bought the aftershave by Rubicon Formulations, Ltd., now the only Indian manufacturer, and was pleased to find it housed in glass, not plastic. There's nothing wrong with plastic, but glass is classy (and ceramic is even classier). Rubicon's paint job is a little sloppy, but otherwise the presentation is decent. American bottles are throwbacks to the fifties, when inexpensive travel sets of Old Spice were introduced in market tests. Their kitsch factor makes them tolerable, but there's no denying glass feels better in hand.

P&G's foreign subsidiary makes a product that smells very good, but isn't as "serious" as OS Classic. It smells creamily effulgent in ways similar to Vi-Jon's dirt cheap and simplistic "Spice Scent." It's brighter and fresher, which is probably a plus in Bangalore's stifling heat, but what strikes me as particularly interesting is that it lacks the depth and darkness of the American formula. There's no clove, carnation, or cedar. No balsamic wisps or orange citrus nuances. No powder, even. It's mainly a shimmery aldehyde and allspice melange on a puff of musky vanilla, and little else.

Classic is dimensional, with subtle drydown stages. The soapiness of Original is not how I remember Shulton's version; Classic's duskiness is more evocative of vintage. Shulton had a strong cinnamon note, much like Classic, but Rubicon has relatively mild cinnamon. Shulton had an evanescent balsamic heart accord with hints of cedar and amber; Classic gets very woody in its mid. On fabric, Rubicon's scent performs better. It smells deeper, with a mellow, spicy-fresh drydown that lasts an hour longer.

You don't have to hunt for an Indian grocery store to buy and enjoy Old Spice. Just go to Rite-Aid and get the Classic version. You'll be fine. If you do happen to use the Rubicon Old Spice aftershave, a word of warning - it burns twice as much as the American stuff - more alcohol, or perhaps harsher alcohol is the culprit there. In the plus column, it leaves skin nicely toned, even a little better than the American version. For purely practical shaving purposes, it gets the job done very well.

Cigarillo (Rémy Latour)

"Cigarillo by Rémy Latour is an invitation to explore theWorld of precious wood essences from the tropics."

The above statement quotes the text imprinted on the inner side of the paper band surrounding the bottle for Cigarillo. It's translated into six other languages, Creed style, and oh yeah, the rest of the packaging for this strange little fragrance is extraordinarily beautiful, at least by Rémy Latour standards.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I offer the above photo as a visual description of the outside of the box. I didn't take a picture of the back of the box, but there isn't much to see. There's just a small white sticker with a super short ingredients list and a barcode. Below is a photo of what you see when you open the box.

And here is a photo of the side of the bottle, which is sealed with a sticker that matches the one on the outside of the package.

And here is the bottle itself, heavy glass moulded into the shape of cigarillos, the trademark Rémy Latour style. It's really well made, with "Eau de Toilette" and "Cigarillo" embossed on the bottom (not shown).

Cigarillo was released in 1996 alongside Cigar, and that's all I know about it. I guess it was intended to be a promotional product. It's been discontinued, and I seriously doubt there are more than a hundred bottles in existence today. Packages like this aren't made on a large scale. There is absolutely no information about it on the internet, aside from one rather uninformed "review" on an otherwise bare basenotes page.

I can't say I'm very familiar with Rémy Latour's fragrances, but this is a cool place to start. I happened across it on the discount shelf of a local shop for a very good price. The place makes me laugh because its priorities are plainly askew - its owner prices weird trash like Cathy Carden's Space at $50, but asks about half as much for a more extravagant item like this. Go figure.

Anyway, on to the scent: Cigarillo is a misleading name for this EDT. Its composition isn't really about tobacco, although it does have a teeny tobacco note. More prominent in the pyramid are dried fruit notes, and musky, nondescript aromatics, with smooth wood tones, mainly cedar. Conspicuously absent from the formula are any and all floral notes, as I detect nary a single petal in the entire evolution of this scent, on both skin and fabric.

I certainly wouldn't say this fragrance is sweet. Its only edible section resides at the top, which smells of a dessicated, prune-like, ambiguously "perfumey" fruit. Perhaps it's a musky citrus combed into the sugary rind of dehydrated pineapple? Hard to say, as there's no butyric element, but whatever it is, it borders on candy without crossing the line. These qualities are offset by a transparent bay note. It's a strange accord, unlike anything I've smelled before, and it lasts about fifteen minutes. Its dusky delectables draw me in; the grizzle of semi-animalic musks and sour bay hold me there.

Eventually this unique top segues into a ghost of treated snuff, wedded to a very dusty cedar and musk base. The "tobacco" effect is representative of an artificial flavoring, rather than actual tobacco leaf. Fragrances like Cigarillo and Vermeil for Men, which Latour's scent resembles for roughly an hour or so, are priced to mimic the synthetic aromatics of processed tobacco, not the burly radiance of the real stuff. With that in mind, the perfumer hit a homerun. Cigarillo smells like a cheap cigarillo. As a former cigar smoker, I can attest to this firsthand.

This all eventually becomes a relatively simple cedar fragrance. It isn't pencil shaving cedar, or woody amber. It's just a sooty cigar box smell. There's something "niche" about it. They were going for a concept: a perfume that smells of cheap tobacco aromatics at the start, with a little steer sweat baked into the middle, all resting in an Old World wooden container. And it actually comes in that very same container. Well done, Latour. Well done.

The packaging was obviously handmade, probably by a single craftsman, or maybe a very small team. The lettering on the box is a dead giveaway. When I caught sight of this fragrance, it resurrected dormant creative juices from my graphic design days.

I'm friends with a retired designer who was commissioned, thirty some-odd years ago, by Anheuser-Busch. They needed him to create a promotional line of wooden crates, to be filled with beer bottles and sold at company events. Each crate was constructed with plywood. Each had the company logo etched into it. All were hand packed with straw.

The order was overwhelmingly enormous for one person to manage, at ten thousand units. At the time, it wasn't cost effective to outsource, nor practical to fill within the U.S., but that didn't stop him from trying.

The same happened with Cigarillo. Someone at corporate headquarters was riding high on a Clintonian dotcom bubble, and decided to throw a little surplus pocket change at some small time commercial artist, either in Europe or North America. Three thousand man hours and several gallons of blood, sweat, and tears later, this magnificent faux cigar box with its colorful stickers and waxed parchment rolled off a basement assembly line and was shipped to Latour. Now, twenty years later, I'm enjoying it. Ain't life grand?

The "Confounding Factor"

Or maybe she put hers on twelve hours ago, and yours was just applied.

On this page of yet another very lengthy Badger & Blade thread about vintage Old Spice, member "GoneRetroInOH" writes:

"There is a lot of speculation as to whether any reformulation across time (old Shulton vis-à-vis new P&G) or distance (USA / India) ever occurred. IMHO the most confounding factor is aging on the shelf. I have Shulton bottles that I used from time to time. A little always went a long way and I used them only intermittently, so they have lasted 30-35 years. Your 1956 bottle has outlived a lot of people who were babies at the time. Even though the classic bottle stores well, the product still may have subtle changes with age. It is entirely possible that there were no formulation changes, yet the old would seem somewhat different from the new."

This statement nails it. The reason vintage lovers can't reconcile their appreciation of classic formulas with their feelings for reformulations rests simply with the issue of time. For whatever reason, they chronically ignore the issue mentioned above. Time can do incredible things to bottled fluids. Supposedly superior vintage formulas are credited with being "more natural," and "made of better quality materials," and "more complex," but are these traits the result of superior manufacturing weighed against the "cheapening" of classic brands, or are they attributable to their age alone?

Time is the inescapable third variable in comparisons between the qualities of old vs new. When it comes to judging something against its older self, you must consider the discrepancies between the two sets of conditions. On one side you have the "new" stuff, and on the other the "old," but theoretically they're still the same item. Despite this fact, something about the old stuff usually smells better or worse than the new stuff. Why?

Let's think about the "better" part first. Here we suppose that the vintage smells richer, more complex, and chemically superior to its counterpart, based on smell alone. Is this assessment objective? Unfortunately it can't be, because interpreting odors is subjective (smelling odors, on the other hand, is quite objective). You and your buddy will likely agree that the residual odor of the loaf he pinched in your bathroom is vile, but you may differ in opinion on just how good a particular vintage perfume smells. Perfume is harder to interpret than shit.

The reasons for this vary. You may have a broader frame of reference for perfume than he does. Your nose may be more sensitive than his. Your idea of what smells "good" may be, in an abstract sense, somewhat different. The social nature of the perfume may be an influencing factor. If you've had bad experiences with someone who wears the fragrance in question, your association with any version of it may be negatively biased. Conversely, positive associations are made with fragrances that correlate with positive experiences.

Now let's consider the "worse" part. What if you think the fragrance smells "spoiled," and he doesn't? What happened there? Apparently one basenotes member has decided that there are specific issues that preclude fragrance spoilage, and that these issues require consideration by people who might otherwise mistakenly suppose a perfume has spoiled on them. Of course, most of his points aren't based on anything factual. They are assumptions one should never make, and I'll get to them in a bit.

The criteria for assessing whether "spoilage" has truly occurred are simple: you must know what the same vintage of a perfume smells like when it is both new, and not new. If you can identify changes between new and old, and these changes detract from the experience of smelling the old, you have spoilage.

Though simple, this criteria is difficult for people to utilize. It's pretty common to have an isolated sample of a scent that you're generally unfamiliar with. This makes interpretation difficult. How do you know if what you're smelling is "spoiled" if you can't accurately interpret it?

And even if you are familiar with the fragrance, you can't compare accurately unless you have an infallible memory of the way a vintage smelled decades ago. Reformulations change how perfumes smell all the time, making it impossible to trust a direct comparison of vintage to today's formula (they're different vintages). Since you're not Marty McFly, you'll have to settle for an understanding of degrees of spoilage, and how they inhabit the "performance patterns" of vintage fragrances in general.

There are two degrees of spoilage: "extreme" spoilage, and "slight" spoilage. The first degree is very easy to recognize; the second is trickier because it relies on the employment of an inexact methodology to determine quality.

First, the "extreme" spoilage - in this instance, we're right back into objective olfactory territory, the same realm as your loaf-pinching friend. You spray the perfume, and wow! That stinks! Instead of Fahrenheit, your arm wafts extreme odors of sour florals, with a rapid drydown to burnt shoe. You have a recoil reaction, and instinctively recognize the odors as being inarguably bad.

Now, the "slight" spoilage - here the perfume seems wearable. It doesn't offend, but also doesn't impress, at least not as much as expected. There are fuzzy textural qualities, limited movements, and a surprising linearity. The sample appears to be fine, and projects fairly well, with some pleasant qualities, but something's off.

This is where the inexact methodology of recognizing "performance patterns," (otherwise known as the "drydown arc"), is necessary to determine the true nature of the beast. For example: your vintage Fahrenheit smells okay, but its excessively bitter floral top notes segue into a dry, hissy base within thirty seconds, and then this relatively flat accord remains static. You don't know Fahrenheit well enough to make a judgment as to whether or not this smells correct, and you have no other samples of this fragrance on hand. What do you do?

You may not know how to interpret what you smell, but you're trying to interpret the wrong thing. Forget about how your Fahrenheit smells. How does it perform? Make note of the transitions - super brief and unpleasant top, rapidly followed by clumsy base, with no heart to speak of. The fragrance seems very smooth, but also very linear.

Check out a bottle of vintage Cool Water. Does it perform similarly? Same short top, followed almost immediately by a droning, smooth base accord of barely distinguishable notes? How about vintage M7? Vintage Zino? Vintage Drakkar Noir? Do these exhibit the same performance patterns? Some vintages will seem to perform in distinct and measured triads of top, heart, and base, while others will collapse in on themselves within seconds. Those with triads are well preserved and minimally degraded; those that collapse are more severely compromised.

Compare the qualities of performances across a wide range of vintages to the performances of an equally wide range of new fragrances, and make mental (or literal) notes of your experiences. Remember, you're observing performance qualities, NOT material qualities. From this you can create some semblance of a "standard" to hold vintage fragrances against.

This methodology requires extensive experience with fragrances of all ages. You'll probably have to become familiar with at least a few hundred perfumes to really fine tune your nose into spotting degraded performance qualities. Once you've gained this experience, recognizing deterioration in perfumes that you are otherwise unfamiliar with becomes easier.

Most degraded vintages display attenuated or nonexistent top notes. You have vintage English Leather, and you're expecting citrus at the start. Instead you get a bitter epoxy effect, immediately followed by dry, smooth woods. The top notes are gone. With time, that nondescript and usually acidic top note characteristic becomes recognizable in itself, as you encounter it again and again in older perfumes. It gets to the point where you immediately recognize that a fragrance is missing its top notes.

Overly smooth, monochromatic base accords are also common in degraded vintages. These can be the most misleading, because they often smell good. However, they lack note separation, and tend to remain "frozen" on skin. Once this base arrives, it just stays there, unchanging, for hours. Good smell, but no distinct complexity, and very little evolution. In most of the vintages I've encountered, this effect is usually musky/woody, like an invisible finger smudged a handful of wood notes and a couple of sweet synthetic musks into one semi-sweet wood note, which usually resembles sandalwood. I've experienced this quality in vintage Feeling Man, Zino, Grey Flannel, etc.

Balance issues are also a recurring theme. This is really a question of compromised movement, not elemental deterioration. I once had a vintage bottle of Green Irish Tweed, dated to 2001. The crisp violet, powdery iris, warm amber, and clean sandalwood notes were offset by an unbalanced musk note, which had somehow pulled free of its tether and plowed its way to the front end of the drydown. The result was something that smelled like a musk scent with some light green nuances shimmering in the background.

When you employ the inexact methodology of performance patterns, don't miss the forest for the trees, as our friend on basenotes has. Sure, liquid in atomizer tubes could spoil sooner than the rest of the juice, but there's no evidence that this happens, nor is there any evidence people have recurringly had this issue. Sealed spray bottles are no more or less prone to spoilage than splash bottles, though the latter are easier to tamper with. I'm not sure where the idea that splash bottles should be excluded from these considerations came from, but suspect it's another instance of this particular basenotes member "moving the goalpost" of how to assess spoilage.*

In the end, weighing the merits of a vintage rests with how accurately you know a fragrance. Those who have smelled and compared fresh perfumes to aged perfumes of the same vintage can determine whether degradation has occurred with the greatest ease. But even then, they must account for changes. This brings us to the confounding factor in any study, scientific or otherwise, of vintage against new: the simple test of time.

If the supposition is that yesterday's perfumes are chemically superior to today's, I suppose a simple CG analysis could shed light on the veracity of this claim, but it wouldn't convey the nature of the drydown arc, or its variables. It wouldn't compare "performance patterns." As the B&B member quoted above aptly pointed out, time may very well explain why an illusion of higher quality persists with vintage fragrances like Old Spice. I hope that an improved understanding of this confounding factor will one day, with great irony, render condemnation of recent formulas obsolete.

* This particular basenotes member seems hell-bent on proving to the world that I'm wrong in my assertion that perfumes spoil. The thread he participates in (link here) is full of firsthand testimonies by people whose perfumes have spoiled.

Stick With Your Love Of Perfume: You'll Evolve

Scumville?

The flameouts continue. Apparently there has been a shift in public opinion, and the perfume house of Creed is now home to "scumbags" of the, ahem, highest order. (Get out your paypal accounts: Aventus! Wink, wink.)

This week I happened across this thread on basenotes. You can read all ten tedious pages of it yourself if you so please, for I shall abstain from detailing its unholy contents by its godless authors here. I'll stop at saying that it is indicative of all that remains troublesome about that forum, still a community of classless heathens with more money than brains. To sum it up in a few short words: Creed's fragrances are cheaper in France than they are in America, which makes its owners greedy scumbags who should be boycotted, 'cause that'll learn 'em real good, real fast.

Honestly, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

If you're world-weary and wise enough to avoid wading into this horrendously sludgy runoff of backwards logic from third-world brainage systems, you're sharp enough to imagine the word warriors pummeling each other senseless. You don't need me for that.

Instead, I'd like to suggest what Creed perfumes could mean to you as a budding fragrance collector, or even an established fumehead junkie with a few hundred bottles in your collection.

Creed is the twenty-first century mercury switch of your perfume maturity.

Let's look at it this way: when you first start out in this "hobby," you look for the hot shit brand that'll put you a few cuts above your friends in the wearing game. On their best nights, your pals will sport seventy or eighty dollar department store frags, but you're going to wear one better. Much better. You get what you pay for, right? Creed is popular, and it's very expensive. You have to try it. Then you have to have it. And for a while there, it's impressing you, and some of your friends, and you figure Creed is important.

Then you grow up a little. You try three or four hundred other perfumes. Most can be had for ten or fifteen dollars an ounce. Without realizing it, you lose interest in "fresh" and "modern" and "sexy," and gravitate towards things that are sophisticated. With sophistication comes pedigree: Dior's lesser known releases, defunct and endangered brands from thirty years ago like Balenciaga, Guy Laroche, and Jacques Bogart. You're following perfumers, not perfumes, and smelling good is never about money.

Eventually you reach a point where you've been through at least five hundred perfumes, and a light bulb goes on - Creed, oh yeah, Creed. What did I think of their latest perfume again? Shit, I can't even remember. It was good. I liked it. Fuck it. If I see it on Amazon for under two hundred dollars, I may grab a bottle. Maybe Fragrancenet has a good deal today - let's see what they have.

And that's how it actually goes. By this point you're far more interested in the idea of a good, honest, straight-up fougère, like Rive Gauche Pour Homme, than you are in the extravagant glitz of an over-developed hybrid like Silver Mountain Water. And if SMW really intrigues you, you want to explore the idea of SMW by smelling frags inspired by it, or otherwise related to it. But traditionalism has won the day. Things from the "old school," wafting dry florals and talcum powder, make you smell and feel good. EROLFA smells very good, but also has you wondering if you'd have been better off buying a few backup bottles of Caron's Third Man instead.

So that four-ouncer of Green Irish Tweed on Amazon (sold by Amazon) for a hundred and forty bucks makes the rotation, but it competes for its place there. You still love it, still enjoy it, but you don't have to wear it. The bottle will last you. Know what you can't keep in stock? Francesco Smalto Pour Homme. Furyo. Zino. Tsar. The last thing on your mind as you're rocking your favorite Edmond Roudnitska composition is that it's Creed's fault you can't pay full retail for their perfumes.

Kensington Garden (Royal Apothic)

Quite the ugly box.

Royal Apothic used to focus on room sprays and scented homecare products, until six years ago, when they adapted their line to include personal fragrance. Their affinity for feminine fruity-florals, leaning either citrusy or just plain green, becomes pretty obvious when you read their catalog. This company has Millennial women in their crosshairs.

I recently had an opportunity to give Sean O'Mara's Kensington Garden a good wearing, and had to keep an open mind in the process. This brand is rather pseudo-British (they boast of gaining commercial traction in the U.S.), and their website looks suspiciously similar to Creed's, but I guess their founder's "story" is honest enough. But is there any wow factor here? Why "Royal Apothic?" Am I to gather there's something "royal" about these products?

Contemporary feminines are either paradoxically daring and conservative (animalic musks and overripe woodsy florals) or ironically pretentious and cheap (haughty greens and nondescript laundry soap), and unfortunately the latter qualities very generously apply to this fragrance. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on your point of view.

On the one hand, the need for an uncomplicated and inexpensive mid-shelf "green" scent with crisp muguet and jasmine notes will be satisfied with this, at least enough to wear it to work a few times a week. It's inoffensive, competently made, and doesn't trail off as something uncouth. It'll go well with your lemon yellow pant suit and pearlescent ivory organza blouse. Just don't expect it to add anything to your sex appeal, which I'm assuming you have in spades anyway if you're wearing that outfit.

On the other, you'll literally smell like a walking Lyral bomb. Imagine the bleached florals of Tommy Girl, with the bleach effect dialed up to eleven and surrounded by foiled reflectors, and you have a good idea of Kensington Garden. It's bright, it's sweet, it's shrieking and shrill and squeaky clean/green, an indelicate interpretation of "delicate white floral." I think, in all honesty, that it's too much of a rather questionably good thing.

As for its unisex appeal, I'm afraid it's a bit too caricatured to have any. Then again, with the ridiculous flea circus beard trend going on here in the States, maybe an overdose of drugstore soap isn't a bad idea.

"I wear fragrances for ME. I really don't care what anyone else thinks."

Panties were dropped here. The nerve!

You're a professional, a young woman in her mid twenties with a good job, and you've only been employed there a week. It's Friday. Casual Friday. So that morning you decide to break out your old torn-shoulder Madonna throwback shirt and skintight ripped jeans, and you're extra careful to let your pink Victoria's Secret wire bra strap show. You douse yourself in some chinsy Body Shop body spray and head off.

By day's end, every woman in the office has given you looks so dirty, you'd swear they'd mistaken you for Melania Trump. Conversely, every married male has made it a point to stop in and hand you something pointless to "look over." But the only thing they're interested in looking over is sitting behind your desk, drinking your coffee, looking an awful lot like you.

You say to yourself as you drive home, "I wonder what it was? I mean, it's Friday. And I'm hot. I'm making as much as anyone else in that place. This shirt is my favorite. I wore it for ME. Ditto these jeans and high-heels. I really don't care what anyone else thinks."

Monday rolls around, and the first thing you see is an office letterhead on your desk, with a hand-signed message from the boss. The boss is, predictably, a cantankerous Republican bitch on her second marriage. It reads:

"It came to my attention Friday afternoon that your attire was offensive to your coworkers. Please be sure to adhere to our dress code policy and only wear attire that is professional and becoming of our company image. This is the only notification you will given on this matter. If this issue is not resolved, the board will take the appropriate measures to ensure that our office does not become a hostile environment.

You're shocked, but should you be? After all, "Casual Friday" isn't a license to dress like a Reagan-era hooker. But you were so comfortable, and you actually got work done! It feels outrageous. It feels wrong on every level. The week goes by, and Friday rolls around again. This time you stop and think before you dress. Frustrated and intimidated by your options, you decide that the spare pantsuit will have to do. It's a straight-laced, colorless thing that would make Carmella Bing look frumpy. But it's safe.

I can't tell you how many times I read internet comments about "why" people wear their fragrances that mimic the same basic message: "I wear fragrance for me, and I don't care what others think about how I smell."

This is an interesting approach to society. Wear clothing to look good for other people. Wear your hair in a way that doesn't make you look like a dirty slob or a bag lady. Wear your attitude, with or without pretense, so no one could ever accuse you of lacking personality. But your fragrance? Ah, that - that's easy: people don't exist. The only nose on the planet is yours. The olfactory world is like that lame Times Square scene in the movie Vanilla Sky. How you smell does not matter beyond your own nose. You don't care what other people think about your personal odor. It's all for you.

I'm probably guilty of this sentiment myself, and given how often the subject comes up, it's likely that I've said the same thing at least a half dozen times across as many forums.

But let's face it - is this the way to go about wearing perfume? Is it appropriate to not give a shit when you apply your signature? Is it a question of your selection, or how much you apply? Is it passive aggressive to not give two shits about either one? Or are other people too sensitive to be bothered with?

I think these are questions without clear answers. The scenario described above is fairly realistic for many workplaces (and not for many others), but it addresses personal appearance, which is often the first vantage point for being judged. Perfume raises the question of personal smell, a far more subjective topic, one that even excludes a certain percentage of the population (the anosmics among us). Do we perfume wearers have to treat it as seriously as we treat our clothing?

There is some passive aggression to the idea that we shouldn't care what others think of how we smell. It's not exactly the most considerate stance to take, particularly if you're in close quarters with others for extended periods of time. It also assumes that perfume has a very limited message to impart, one that does not reach beyond a basic olfactory summation of your style. Are you the "fresh prince" who smells like salty melons? Or are you the academic intellectual who finds solace in clove oil? Which stereotype does your scent make you?

I'm probably not going very far out on a limb in saying that it's likely you don't want your perfume to "sum you up." Gravestones sum us up, not perfumes. Isn't the marginalization of an outsider's opinion on your scent the same as saying your perfume is little more than a trite "impression" of you on that given day? Wouldn't you rather ascribe some meaning to that impression, abstract as it may be?

I'm certainly not a fashion icon by any measure. My clothing choices are so banal and forgettable that I could probably be the poster child for some futuristic anti-fashion movement. Yet I have a large rotation of fragrances, many of which are quite different from each other. Thus, my choices are reflective of my mood, and how I wish to carry the day. Perhaps there are times when it doesn't really matter "why" I chose something, and I simply threw something random on myself to smell "good." Full stop.

Then there are times when it's a more calculated choice. I'm wearing Tea Rose on the day after wearing Lapidus Pour Homme. What implications does this have for whoever smells me? If the same noses are sensing my presence on both days, they may infer from day one that I'm feeling "manly," and on day two "a bit femme." Or perhaps that my Lapidus day is me in a bad mood, while the Tea Rose day is me feeling cheerful. These could be the humorous musings they have about me, if they take all of five seconds to care. I'm sure it's happened many times.

So I can't say that how I smell doesn't convey a deeper message. With the "a bit femme" thought, there's a new line of questioning that comes up: "Is he gay? Maybe, but he smelled pretty straight and "frat-housey" yesterday. Is he bi? Perhaps. Is rose masculine these days? Or is he just a weirdo? I think he's that last one, for sure!" Judgments about my core self are being rendered, all because of what I'm sending through the airwaves.

Yet I carry on undeterred, blithely uncaring that coworkers are formulating relatively complex assessments and questions about me, little old me, the uncaring man who simply wears what he wears because he's wearing it for him, and no one else. Right? No, no, no. Wrong. I'm not an idiot. There's a message there for others to receive, and it means something, even if the message is mysterious, contradictory, or just plain unclear. My fragrances - all of them - are strung along together as one ongoing communication with the outside world, and this largely unspoken dialogue is borne out of care.

Granted, these perceptions are more likely to occur among people who don't know me, but are always around me, namely coworkers. Friends are privy to more information, but coworkers are all walking that fine line between familiarity and fired. Everyone is careful not to hit that wrong note. Let's not create a hostile work environment.

This includes me. I must try not to cause headaches, or whatever other form of fuck-all discomfort that could arise. I shouldn't advertise a symphony in D Minor and start playing punk, even though I'm dressed in a button-up shirt and blue jeans with Anaïs Anaïs in second gear.

And can I really honestly say that a comment from some equally unscrupulous asshole who is offended by my fragrance, or perhaps by its volume, isn't going to stay with me for a few years whenever I reach for that particular scent in my rotation? I'll be really as real as real can be here, and admit that the one that got an insufficiently hushed "Pee-yeew!" from the hot blonde at the front desk as I was walking away is the one I wear a bit less frequently than I used to.

I've seen the argument that if people are seriously offended by one's choices in fragrance, such people are "going out of their way to be offended." Most fragrances are designed to smell good, and most are hypo-allergenic, so what leg does anyone have to stand on by being "offended" by some perfume? They're reaching. They're looking for reasons to complain. They're Whoopi Goldberg.

I happen to agree with this, if we're talking about the random passer-by on the street. Strangers in a restaurant have no business being offended by your fragrance. For them to take offense, or to care in any negative way, is a major reach on their part, a blatant attempt to stir up trouble and waste your time. They're the ones who protested Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, back in the nineties when they were making Basic Instinct. The protest was framed to show the public that it's offensive to "misrepresent" others, namely bisexual women and male rapists, with the implications being that Douglas and Stone were inaccurately portraying these two disparate minority groups.

These arguments were a colossal waste of time. Anyone with a sense of perspective could see that Basic Instinct was being directed by the reigning prince of schlock cinema at that time, none other than Paul Verhoeven. The flick was merely a B movie featuring two A-Listers, and Stone wasn't even really A-List at the time. Were Romanians offended in 1931 when Dracula was released? Maybe some were. But they were offended by a B movie, in a time when most B movies were being made to offend someone, somewhere, somehow. Studios hope a relatively small group of people will be screaming mad, and give them free press. They bank on them, really. There's always a group of screaming mad people, waiting for the next reason to get mad and scream.

They're the same folks who made "Fragrance-Free Zones" a thing twenty-five years ago.

So yeah, random people have no business being offended. What do they care, anyway? I'd rather smell a questionable perfume than the stink of a New York subway car.

But people who are part of your life, whether it be your professional or personal life (or both), deserve a little more respect.

I'm always careful not to over-apply, and I'm embarrassed if someone can smell me from across the room, as I should be. I'm also careful about what sort of scent I wear on certain days. If there's going to be a building meeting, maybe Kouros is a bad choice, and Pour un Homme de Caron is a better one. If it's "Casual Friday," a fruity-floral like Chrome Legend is a nice, non-threatening sort of thing to enjoy at a light volume, but let's not have too much fun and apply fifty sprays. Your friend's grandmother's funeral is a Grey Flannel affair; you should shelve your bottles of Laguna and Joop! Homme.

In all actuality, saying "I wear fragrances for ME, I really don't care what anyone else thinks" is a little callous, and should only ever be half-true. Say it if it makes you feel good, but if someone challenges you on it, don't pretend it's a non-issue that shouldn't be discussed further.

There's one other element to this that bears mentioning: the "Panty Dropper" meme that keeps cropping up on forums. The idea, if you've been living under a rock for the last ten years, is that certain perfumes make sexual partners swoon, and drop their panties (or boxers). These fragrances are purportedly Love Potion No 9s with guaranteed results in the bedroom, as endorsed by countless brain-dead "bros" from here to Algiers.

And this offends some people, because it's "sexist," and it's "untrue on every level." Oddly enough, the suggestion that perfume is inherently sexy, and a tool useful for attracting sexual partners, is also considered offensive in some quarters.

Let me say this: If you're seriously offended by this term, and with the idea that some fragrances on some people could, and against all odds, elicit strong sexual responses from whomever they wind up with on Saturday night, you're an asshole. Find something worthwhile to be prissy about, like the fact that Donald Trump might actually become the leader of the free world next year. Huffing about a term like "panty dropper" is just as tacky as the term itself. Perfume goes on our bodies, our bodies have a way of going on other people's bodies, and it's no leap to associate perfume with sex. Unless you're on basenotes, where the sexiness of wearing perfume is apparently an alien concept.

For the rest of us, it's perfume. It's at least a little sexy to wear it.

To varying extents, we all care about it.

Let's find it within ourselves to lighten up and laugh about it.

Giorgio For Men (Giorgio Beverly Hills)

It feels quite fitting to follow my review of Touch for Men with one of Giorgio. Before the "hygienic" shower gel fragrances of the nineties took over everything, the mysterious world of masculine perfumery dwelled mostly on olfactory impressions from nature and natural materials, with compositions using the combined smells of woods, spices, flowers, and resins. The seventies and eighties gave us compositions devoid of "fantasy accords." Earthbound scents like Givenchy Gentleman, Z-14, Pierre Cardin Pour Monsieur, Grey Flannel, Quorum, Krizia Uomo, Derby, Caron's Third Man, Green Irish Tweed, Davidoff, Zino, Bowling Green, and Furyo were all the rage.

Giorgio for Men is of that ilk, a decadent, patchouli-centric woody chypre with strong oriental underpinnings, the kind of fragrance best used judiciously. Its premise is theoretically simple: to smell unmistakably masculine. Yet at some point it got lost in a haze of sweet gourmands and "fresh" aquatics, until EA revived it in the aughts as an eighties frag with enough swagger to make Charles Bronson seem effete. Giorgio's reputation precedes it, but to me the fragrance is unaffected by any external noise; from top to bottom, this scent smells inspired, unique, and refined.

This isn't to say that I'm not reminded of other things when I smell it. Three fragrances in particular come up - Arden's Sandalwood, Pierre Cardin Pour Monsieur, and Krizia Uomo. It shares Sandalwood's woodsy smoothness, Cardin's semi-sweet amber, and Krizia's moss/patchouli buzz, but I also get an overwhelmingly potent raw honey note in Giorgio's opening, similar to the viscous, urinous, and intense honey note that I encountered in vintage Lapidus Pour Homme (1987), and to a lesser (and more enjoyable) extent in Boss Number One. This note eventually relents, and segues into a milder blend of patchouli and coumarin. But the honey, oh the honey! Wow.

Now, this is important: if you read a review that neglects to mention honey, its author's nose and judgment can't be trusted. It should be the first thing anyone notices with this fragrance, aside from perhaps a transparent wisp of mandarin orange and aldehyde. Giorgio has the biggest, boldest honey note that I've ever smelled.

The drydown is very pleasant, its honest interplay of patchouli and soft precious wood notes given depth and duration by an herbal amber. There are even gentle touches of cinnamon, nutmeg, carnation, and jasmine in the blend. My bottle's code indicates that it was made in January of this year, yet nothing smells overtly synthetic or out of tune here. Oakmoss is even listed in the ingredients, and I can smell it quite clearly.

There's been talk on fragrance boards of a change in Giorgio's color. Apparently older bottles are a deep yellow-green, while the current stuff is much lighter. I've noticed that my relatively new bottle of EA Grey Flannel has darkened in the last few years; the perfume was transparent and colorless when I bought it. Vintage Jacqueline Cochran and French Fragrances Grey Flannel is indeed quite dark in appearance. I can't help but wonder if Giorgio's color will also darken with time and use, as air mixes with the fluid. Is this something some EA masculines do? I guess we'll see.

If you like honey and patchouli, and share my affinity for old-school woody chypres, then Giorgio for Men is something you should go for. Even sticklers for natural wood essences should be able to appreciate Giorgio's salubrious sandalwood reconstruction, abstract as it is. I only paid eight dollars for a 1.6 oz bottle, a real steal. Thanks, Mr. Hayman!

Soap Review: Rainbath (Neutrogena)

It seems that I can't read about Fred Hayman's Touch for Men without encountering comparisons to an old soap scent by Neutrogena called "Rainbath." I'm not sure when this product was introduced, but I'm guessing it's been in stores since at least the seventies, as there are scores of adult women out there who reminisce about growing up with this stuff. One gal even mentions her grandmother introducing it to her, so perhaps it has been around even longer. Judging from the fragrance, I'd say it's entirely possible.

Does it smell like Touch? Almost! It seems that between this, Touch, and Brut, I've discovered three variations of the same old-fashioned mid-century fougère theme. Brut is the traditional fougère, with mentholated lavender and musky coumarin comprising its soapy drydown. Touch spins the same basic scent profile into a warmer musk accord, with softer lavender effects, whispers of undefined fruit, and rich, vanilla-laden musks. Rainbath ups the ante on the fruit idea, with more distinct (and rather startling) cinnamon, mandarin peel, and mango notes peeking through the mist. Yet it is essentially the same sort of smell as the others, with a nearly identical musky amber "drydown," if you can call it that. Soap is usually wet, after all.

I also smell a lavender note in Rainbath that matches the one in Touch. It's intriguing to find a clear olfactory ensemble of notes and accords in a shower gel. These products typically possess flat smells with zero dynamism; they're mostly "fruity" or "aquatic" ideas that simply fade against water, but Rainbath is definitely different. It's complex, and blatantly retro. It smells Brutish, powdery, musky, and "fresh," but this last characteristic is conveyed warmly, with spiced fruit notes, which puts it in stark contrast to the Dial, Axe, and Irish Spring gels sitting beside it on store shelves. They advertise themselves as being "for men." Are they, though? Not when you consider Neutrogena's offering. Rainbath is the only one that truly smells manly.

I'm a little surprised it has such a loyal following with women, but imagine its quality accounts for that. Rainbath is the finest drugstore shower gel I've ever used. Its cleansing qualities are gentle (Sodium Laureth Sulfate), its lather is foamy, bubbly, satisfying. It rinses clean without any unpleasant menthol tingle or desiccating after effects, and its powder note lingers very lightly for an hour or so. It's not exactly like Touch, but it sure goes well with the EDT, and I've found that wearing Touch after using Rainbath enhances the experience. My only qualm is the price, for Rainbath is surprisingly expensive; I have yet to see an eight ounce bottle for under ten dollars.

Touch For Men (Fred Hayman)

My bottle of Touch. On my coffee table,Which apparently I need to dust.

I have to admit that I only have the vintage Parlux version of Touch for Men, as the reformulated version by Victory International was unavailable to me. I understand that the newer stuff has a bottle with a silver cap instead of Parlux's matte black, and the color of the fragrance is a slightly lighter amber than the original. Some voices have complained online that it smells like fruity-synthetic crap. Big surprise, right? If there's any truth to that, then it should be considered a completely different scent altogether, and not a reformulation. There's nothing "fruity" or "synthetic" about the Parlux version. And for the record, Jeffrey Dame has stated on Fragrantica that he doubts the reformulation smells bad. Given how obviously dirt cheap the original formula is, I think he's probably right, although I can't confirm it at this time.

I also can't say exactly how old my vintage is. It's impossible to track Parlux's batch code, and probably just as hard to trace anything from Victory International. I suspect it's rather recent, as the bottle markings seem fairly contemporary, and I'd guess that the changes happened sometime in the last eight years. Touch was released in 1995, and that's very surprising to me, because it's nothing like the super-sweet, aquatic, Hedione-laden powerhouses of that decade. Touch is very easy to describe: it smells almost completely like vintage Brut. A late seventies vintage of Brut, to be precise, when you could enjoy the last of its musk ambrette base. Don't expect to smell the burly brutishness of musk ambrette in Touch, but its top-to-base musk notes are still impressive. They're dense and a bit animalic, with subtle undertones of honey and vanilla. They make Touch better than Brut Classic, in my opinion.

This was one of the sleeper hits that Mr. Dame helped to develop with Parlux in the early nineties, an homage to masculine simplicity in an era when Kate Moss' androgyny and pretentious urban hip-hop styles were becoming the rage in the world of perfumery. Touch is the opposite of all that. This fragrance is as masculine and unpretentious as it gets. Hell, according to Mr. Dame, the brief for Touch was simply, "Take Brut and enrich it, make it stronger, more bold and Brutish." When I spray it on, I half expect a young Peter Fonda to walk into the room, an issue of Car and Driver tucked under his armpit, and hand me an ice-cold Rolling Rock. I can only imagine that it was brought into being with the fullest intention of changing the fashion subject to one of romantic and rather patriotic traditionalism, a bid that in retrospect clearly (and unfortunately) failed. Still, somehow this fragrance survived, a testament to its quality and appeal, particularly to the over-thirty crowd.

There's some question as to whether Touch is an oriental or a fougère, but with such a striking resemblance to one of the best-selling fougères of all time, it's hard to call it an oriental. If someone were to ask me to identify the two fragrances in a blind test, I couldn't do it. Touch is only different from Brut in that it has a noticeable coriander top note, mated very closely to its smooth lavender. It's possible the blending in Touch is a bit smoother, but depending on the bottle of Brut you get, this could be a very tough claim to verify. I've also read that this scent strongly resembles Neutrogena's laid back, seventies-styled "Rainbath" soap, but regrettably I've never tried that product.

I would only add that Touch's lavender note isn't quite as herbal and minty as Brut's. It's a bit softer and warmer. The "herbal" aspect in Faberge's cologne is primarily mint and anise, and neither note is outwardly detectable in Touch, but its coriander note seems to fill in that gap pretty neatly. I also get much better longevity out of Touch - around ten hours. Aside from that, I can't think of much else to say about this little gem. It's a straightforward traditional fougère accord of powdery lavender, ambery coumarin, vanilla, and mossy, talc-like musk. I can't recommend it enough. Any guy who shaves with a razor blade and soap will appreciate it for what it is: a precise, timeless, masculine marvel.

The "Goodness" Of Good Scents

The quote pictured above is ironic and daft to me. Rand was wrong in her assertion, or at least she was not thorough enough; she fell shy of the truth. I agree instead with a philosophical view which Elizabeth Warren recently put forth. She contended that we all step into the world as people who have benefitted from the labor of our neighbors, with their combined efforts making our forward trajectory not only possible, but also bound to the dual responsibilities of upholding their work while paving new roads for future generations. Men and women are armed with more than their own visions; they carry the advantages bestowed upon them by their communities, and are also armed with the self-aware acculturations from which their visions can be enacted.

Rand suggested that some men are genuinely "self made," and that they alone were the pavers of their own "new roads," but this is a fiction. She re-crafted a bit of a mythology, one that has always been very popular with right-wingers (and extreme right-wingers). As with all things political, such thought processes punctuate the mindsets of different people with different interests, and the fragrance world is no exception. There has recently been a bit of "Randian" thinking on basenotes.net, in which a couple of members suggested that "perception" of a scent is the only thing that matters in moving forward with personal preferences - which I find to be, like Rand's quote, an example of incomplete thinking and faulty logic.

One member posited the following sentiment, which is entirely true:

"Now some may say, 'But i have a pre-reformulation bottle, and it smells nothing like the new one.' Fair enough, but one thing that can and does happen many times is a scent will degrade over time. Slowly. Slow enough that changes may not register as they are so gradual. The bottle you buy today will not smell identical in ten years. There are so many factors at play."

I smiled while reading this. I thought: Yes! People are finally getting it! The real world context of vintage and discontinued classics is being thoroughly weighed by noses with brains - and this one is a newbie!

The quoted sentiment was received with a statement that was entirely subjective and perhaps honest, but also intellectually limited:

"It's important not to bring in another issue which serves to obfuscate the discussion in favor of the 'pro reformulation' side of things. That is, I'd be the first to mention that I used to wear vintage more often, and that some vintage I don't like as much as I used to, whereas others I like more. This, however, has nothing to do with my perception of the 'quality' of the scent. Now sometimes I don't feel the need to wear a quality scent, and I often reach for a 'super cheapo,' but if I'm in the mood for vintage Zino, for example, that's what I want. I have no interest in wearing what I believe to be reformulated Zino, ever. Others can't detect any difference, or claim it is negligible . . . so the best you can do is read the relevant information online and try to make the right decision (but it will only be the right decision for you, not necessarily for anyone else).

First, I have to say as an aside that I wonder if this basenotes member frequently uses Zino as an example in these discussions precisely because its reformulation is indiscernible from a well-preserved vintage? It’s like he’s counter-intuitively using a perfume that blatantly contradicts his argument as a distraction, with which he can claim that there’s some special “quality” in the original formulation that correlates with a “cheapness” in the new stuff - an assertion that nobody can convincingly corroborate for obvious reasons. This would then seem to fortify his position that only “perceptive” noses - an implicitly rare kind of human, according to him - can detect the discrepancy, when in fact no such discrepancy exists. Unfortunately, I can only commit to my own opinions on the general issue of reformulations, and the more specific case of Zino.

On the surface, this seems to be the whole thrust of his comment, and I take issue with it. It suggests that if someone points out the deleterious effects of time on perfume, they are "obfuscating" the issue for a "pro-reformulation side of things," which is completely absurd. It's absurd because the smells of most perfumes will absolutely change over time, beyond a doubt, with the exception of a small percentage of extremely synthetic compositions. It's also absurd because whenever anyone points this out, they're merely acknowledging the existence of time's effect on matter, which in the case of perfume is usually not very positive.* To mention this is to clarify, not obfuscate. It may be an inconvenient truth for the "pro-vintage" crowd, and they might want people to believe it is an obfuscation, but cherry-picking facts is never a good way to respond in these kinds of discussions. Here it just re-crafts another mythology.

If you're coming to this as a newbie, you might wonder why it matters. So a perfume changes, but still smells good - so what? The "what" here is how a perfume smells within the years of its peak shelf life, otherwise known as "what the perfumer intends for you to smell." Some perfumers labor for months on formulas, but all of their work is an effort to discover where designs function best, and preserve them for as long as possible, before the inexorable march of days alters their compositions into liquids that are no longer pristine specimens of talent.

Perfumers know that the creation of their perfume, after weeks and weeks of toiling in a lab, happens in but a moment, that priceless instant when they sniff the strip and realize the synchronization of their assembled parts has quite suddenly been perfected. This moment is then temporarily frozen for us to enjoy. It's what perfumers want you to experience, and therefore is, quite paradoxically, the nexus and event horizon of a perfume. No perfume lasts forever, but forever truly resides in perfume.

Now, getting back to that comment I dislike so much - I wrote, "On the surface, this seems . . . " because later in the thread, the same author wrote the following:

"Those who can't smell the difference [between vintage and new] appear to get irritated that such threads exist, which makes no sense to me."

This revealed to me, reader and reluctant non-participant, the real message: "You can't smell it, BUT I CAN! Nah, nah, nah-nah naaaah!" (Raspberry noises.) How this person could possibly know what people can smell is a mystery. It would take a certain level of paranormal ability to develop such knowledge. Mind reading, perhaps? I'll let you decide.

I also dislike that the initial response is naked speculation, cloaked in intricately-woven airs of fact, and made semi-acceptable to some functioning minds by its appealingly subjective form. The writer uses "I" and "My" throughout, which is very attractive, winning, and wise, but also dangerously misleading. The scent that he mentions is a curious one. I happen to own vintage eighties "script font" Zino, and brand-new "block font" Zino. I am also acutely aware of how exhaustively this fragrance has been discussed on basenotes and fragrantica. There are several people out there who agree with me that it's not even clear if Zino was reformulated. In fact, I have read respectable people write that they doubt there was ever a reformulation at all. If ever there is a perfume not to hold up in an honest argument for vintage, it's Zino.

I personally believe Zino was reformulated, but I strongly feel, based on all the note comparisons that I can possibly make for myself, that the reformulation is just as great as the original formula. I am speculating, and I am honest about it, but my guess is educated, based on background information I dug up on Michel Almairac's career trajectory, and how it coincided with some remarkable advances in chemistry. I learned that he went to the Roure School in the early 1970s, and that he began making a name for himself when Givaudan (which was associated with Roure) invented "Sandalore." This synthetically-made molecule was patented to cut costs on natural sandalwood oil, without sacrificing the sensations of real sandalwood's texture and richness. For cheap scents like Zino, its implementation makes as much sense then as it does now.

In making the formula comparisons, there was something I had to overcome: the degradation of the vintage. And by "degradation," I don't just mean the loss of top notes. Ninety-nine percent of my vintage experiences have revealed problems with all stages of development. The loss of top notes is the least of it. With vintage Zino, the fragrance is intact and legible, and each note is basically where it belongs. Yet it suffers from potency issues, balance issues, and the typical "fuzz-out" effect that seems to occur frequently with woody classics. In short, the potency seems attenuated, down three or four hours compared to the recent stuff; the zesty bergamot and lavender head notes smell like they've separated from each other, where once they were blended (both notes are a little too strident); the precious wood notes in the base "fuzz" into a gentle, sandalwood-like blob that fails to yield individual tones (the bergamot goes on, amazingly).

At stake here is not the perception of "quality" in the vintage fragrance. I can smell that the composition is comprised of "quality" materials. For the record, I can't recall anyone ever announcing that they couldn't smell the "goodness" of something that smelled good to them. Therefore, the suggestion that those wary of vintage can't detect their "quality" rests on the fallacious idea that the perception a wearer has of a fragrance can parallel, and even diverge from the recognition of its effect on his mood. What is more likely to occur in the minds of anyone studying fragrances in-depth is the surprising realization that the durability of a beautiful perfume is just as important as its beauty.

To make sense of this, I had to "read" my two Zinos carefully. This means that I took note of what I smelled in vintage Zino, and then had to readjust my impression afterward against what I know about degradation, and the smell of current Zino. Industry veteran Jeffrey Dame made it clear to me and my readers that the shelf-life of most fragrances, with the exception of orientals, is to be taken seriously; with Zino, I had to acknowledge that what I smelled matched his assessment of the time/quality factor, and then set the information he gave me aside to better judge whether the olfactory impressions of vintage Zino's somewhat degraded accords correlated with the current juice.

In other words, I had to ask myself, "Is what I'm smelling in the old stuff the same as what I'm smelling in the new stuff, only degraded?" There's something a bit archeological about doing this. You have to dust off what exists, and use what you know to imagine what used to exist. Except here you must use your nose, not your eyes. And the "dusting off" process is really just accepting the irreversible and quirky nature of aged perfume.

I'm telling you this because it requires a sensitive nose to figure these things out. Having a feeble nose will do you no good if you're really interested in determining whether vintages are for you. Those who survey the field of classics and make a focused effort to familiarize themselves with specific olfactory structures, such as the aromatic fern, the ambery oriental, the mossy chypre, and specific notes, such as bergamot, lavender, labdanum, vanilla, sandalwood, oakmoss, musk, are bound to develop better noses. Once developed, they can use their heightened sense to pick apart the true quality differences that abound between the worlds of "vintage" perfume and "new" perfume.

But those differences in quality will have to be weighed against degradation. In most cases, I'd say the degradation will be relatively minor. In other cases, however, it will certainly be overwhelming. Recognizing how notes and accords degrade is a skill which takes that of simple note identification quite a bit further.

I've long suspected that the person who made the Zino comment quoted above actually has tremendous difficulty with this level of recognition. I believe this to be true because this person has stated on more than one occasion that he has never encountered a vintage fragrance that smelled like it had gone bad, or gone off. I won't call this person a liar. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that this is representative of what might be a true deficit in his olfactory abilities. I suspect that instead of acknowledging and admitting this shortcoming, he and others like him pretend the exact opposite: that they possess remarkable abilities of incredible "quality" discernment.

If your nose is good, you'll have no problem admitting that many vintage perfumes don't smell quite right - in fact, most will seem a bit "off." It's important to recognize that this doesn't mean the perfumes will smell bad, or unwearable, or offensive in any way. There's often a good chance that they'll smell appealing. But the key is to determine if what you're smelling is an accurate representation of itself, as it was intended to smell. Only then can you really decide whether or not this matters to you. With some perfumes, the accuracy of what you smell might matter; with others it might not. You must ask yourself, "How has this changed?" And once that is answered, you must follow up with, "Has anyone fucked with the formula?"

These are very different questions. Don't get them confused.

* This refers to time in the long term, beyond what may be construed as in-bottle maceration, or any other maceration process that gradually allows the volatilities of naturals to synchronize.

"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 Procter & 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 Procter & 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 Procter & 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 Procter & 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 Procter & 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 Procter & 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.