Aug 2021
O FORTUNA!
("You Will Become Yourself")
She's three.
A distinct reek of Old Spice!
"And who's been splashing on
my aftershave!"
I growl in my best
Daddy Bear voice.
"Me...me!"
she answers in her best George Washington.
"Mummy's perfume
smells yucky sweet!"
She a good judge of smell
this little girl.
What is...what isn't nice
sides with the Old Spice.
"So. Are we right then?"
I ask.
We go for a walk.
The cat on the leash.
Because.
We haven't got a dog.
And so we head off.
Dad, cat and little girl.
The cat none too pleased
at "What's that meow smell!"
Old Spice
not for cats.
Only for
Dads and daughters.
*
Old Spice is the smell of my Dad...it is forever him.... deeply ingrained in the olfactory memory of many generations...the essence of childhood thus becoming an archetypal perfume that stands for all things that he meant...safety, warmth, and security.
It was what I always gave him as a birthday and Christmas present....saving up all my pennies to be able to do so and foregoing chocolate and sweeties all during the year. My mum on the other hand
was always the equally iconic 4711. I still have both in my bathroom even now...how Proust like!
So it was odd to pass it on to...my daughter.
Her mum said it always reminded her of a Mexican drink called Horchata de arroz which is flavoured with the Aztec Marigold. and made her feel drunk even if she hadn't imbibed.
Darling daughter said it smelt of mummy's potpourri on the coffee table.
Oh and of... Daddy.
Old Spice was founded in New York by William Lightfoot Schultz in 1934. He was a soap and toiletries maker, and his first fragrance was, ironically, a woman’s scent: Early American Old Spice.
It is said that Shultz was inspired by his mother’s rose jar when creating this early version of Old Spice. A rose jar usually held a moist potpourri of rose petals, spices and herbs in a base of salt to preserve them. Those notes can still be detected in Old Spice’s products to this day. This perfume was released in 1938 to great acclaim, and he followed it with some men’s products in time for Christmas sales at the end of the year.
Although the original scent of classic Old Spice has most likely changed with time and reformulation (as a number of fragrances do), it still retains its primary scent profile, and it could be argued that it represents its own classification. Unlike many other men’s scents that fall easily into labels like fougère, leather or musk, Old Spice brought carnation, pimento, nutmeg and cinnamon to the forefront, omitting some of the classic men’s notes of pine, vetiver and lavender. This iconic mixture summoned up images of seafaring explorers and adventure, but the image and reality were often the same: Old Spice found its way wherever American G.I.’s were stationed during and after the war, and this helped to influence its proliferation around the globe.
As James the first of Aragon was supposed to have said in his best Valencian: "Açò és or, xata!" ("That's gold, pretty girl!")
("You Will Become Yourself")
She's three.
A distinct reek of Old Spice!
"And who's been splashing on
my aftershave!"
I growl in my best
Daddy Bear voice.
"Me...me!"
she answers in her best George Washington.
"Mummy's perfume
smells yucky sweet!"
She a good judge of smell
this little girl.
What is...what isn't nice
sides with the Old Spice.
"So. Are we right then?"
I ask.
We go for a walk.
The cat on the leash.
Because.
We haven't got a dog.
And so we head off.
Dad, cat and little girl.
The cat none too pleased
at "What's that meow smell!"
Old Spice
not for cats.
Only for
Dads and daughters.
*
Old Spice is the smell of my Dad...it is forever him.... deeply ingrained in the olfactory memory of many generations...the essence of childhood thus becoming an archetypal perfume that stands for all things that he meant...safety, warmth, and security.
It was what I always gave him as a birthday and Christmas present....saving up all my pennies to be able to do so and foregoing chocolate and sweeties all during the year. My mum on the other hand
was always the equally iconic 4711. I still have both in my bathroom even now...how Proust like!
So it was odd to pass it on to...my daughter.
Her mum said it always reminded her of a Mexican drink called Horchata de arroz which is flavoured with the Aztec Marigold. and made her feel drunk even if she hadn't imbibed.
Darling daughter said it smelt of mummy's potpourri on the coffee table.
Oh and of... Daddy.
Old Spice was founded in New York by William Lightfoot Schultz in 1934. He was a soap and toiletries maker, and his first fragrance was, ironically, a woman’s scent: Early American Old Spice.
It is said that Shultz was inspired by his mother’s rose jar when creating this early version of Old Spice. A rose jar usually held a moist potpourri of rose petals, spices and herbs in a base of salt to preserve them. Those notes can still be detected in Old Spice’s products to this day. This perfume was released in 1938 to great acclaim, and he followed it with some men’s products in time for Christmas sales at the end of the year.
Although the original scent of classic Old Spice has most likely changed with time and reformulation (as a number of fragrances do), it still retains its primary scent profile, and it could be argued that it represents its own classification. Unlike many other men’s scents that fall easily into labels like fougère, leather or musk, Old Spice brought carnation, pimento, nutmeg and cinnamon to the forefront, omitting some of the classic men’s notes of pine, vetiver and lavender. This iconic mixture summoned up images of seafaring explorers and adventure, but the image and reality were often the same: Old Spice found its way wherever American G.I.’s were stationed during and after the war, and this helped to influence its proliferation around the globe.
As James the first of Aragon was supposed to have said in his best Valencian: "Açò és or, xata!" ("That's gold, pretty girl!")
