I'm 50 yrs old, and the first aftershave I ever used was Old Spice, when I was about 14 in 1973. My father had used it and Aqua Velva as long as I can remember, and I used it and the cologne throughout high school. I currently have a bottle of Old Spice AS; it's the plastic bottle with the red stopper. I bought it last fall at Walgreens.
When I first opened the new bottle and took a whiff, I instantly recognized the scent as Old Spice; the thought that it was somehow different or inferior never crossed my mind. My wife, who has a VERY sensitive sniffer and not knowing what it was, smelled it on me and said "you smell like my dad used to smell when he shaved". I told her it was Old Spice and she instantly exclaimed "That's it!". She and I both agreed it was a great scent.
Enter the B&B forum and the revelation that the scent was changed after P&G bought OS from Shulton. I soon discovered that Dollar General and CVS carried an OS knockoff made by "ViJon" that was supposedly much closer to the original old Shulton OS, so I finally bought some.
The verdict? To me, the CVS/ViJon version is inferior to the P&G OS. I know we each have personal preferences and we should use what we like best; but what I don't get is the relative comparison. To me the current P&G Old Spice smells a lot more like the OS I remember from my teenage years in the 70's than the knockoff.
So this brings up a couple of questions in my mind. How do we know the formula was changed?
Is it simply based on the opinions and memories of sincere B&Bers, or is there any documentation or advertisement or anything from P&G or Shulton stating that the formula was changed?
If one compares the scent from a bottle of the new P&G stuff to an old vintage bottle of Shulton, could the difference not simply be attributed to the age of the old stuff?
Furthermore, if one compares the scent of the P&G to the scent of the Shulton from India and there is indeed a difference, could it not be that P&G uses the original formula, and it's the Indian Shulton version that has been altered?
Not trying to stir anything up, just curious (honest!).
When I first opened the new bottle and took a whiff, I instantly recognized the scent as Old Spice; the thought that it was somehow different or inferior never crossed my mind. My wife, who has a VERY sensitive sniffer and not knowing what it was, smelled it on me and said "you smell like my dad used to smell when he shaved". I told her it was Old Spice and she instantly exclaimed "That's it!". She and I both agreed it was a great scent.
Enter the B&B forum and the revelation that the scent was changed after P&G bought OS from Shulton. I soon discovered that Dollar General and CVS carried an OS knockoff made by "ViJon" that was supposedly much closer to the original old Shulton OS, so I finally bought some.
The verdict? To me, the CVS/ViJon version is inferior to the P&G OS. I know we each have personal preferences and we should use what we like best; but what I don't get is the relative comparison. To me the current P&G Old Spice smells a lot more like the OS I remember from my teenage years in the 70's than the knockoff.
So this brings up a couple of questions in my mind. How do we know the formula was changed?
Is it simply based on the opinions and memories of sincere B&Bers, or is there any documentation or advertisement or anything from P&G or Shulton stating that the formula was changed?
If one compares the scent from a bottle of the new P&G stuff to an old vintage bottle of Shulton, could the difference not simply be attributed to the age of the old stuff?
Furthermore, if one compares the scent of the P&G to the scent of the Shulton from India and there is indeed a difference, could it not be that P&G uses the original formula, and it's the Indian Shulton version that has been altered?
Not trying to stir anything up, just curious (honest!).
