Old Stock Harris Arlington Milk?

[asadasam]

This may have been covered but I haven't been able to find a conclusive answer - came across a few bottles of Harris AS Milk (regular and Arlington) on a trip recently and noticed that there were some packaging differences - without opening and using the stuff, is there a way to tell the difference between the two formulations? If there's no lanolin on the ingredients list, do I have the old stuff? Thanks,

Adam

 

[copperhead]

If i remember correctly the old version should have the following in the ingredients list - Aqua, adeps lotus*, sodium tallowate, sodium borate, cucumis sativus, parfum, cetrimonium bromide

 

[HoratioCaine]

Copperhead gave you the lowdown, but to back it up, here are the two formulae:

Old formula:

Aqua, adeps lotus, sodium tallowate, sodium borate, cucumis sativus, parfum, cetrimonium bromide

New formula:

Aqua, Paraffinum liquidum, Cetearyl alcohol, Isopropyl myristate, Cetyl alcohol, Lanolin, Imidazolidinyl urea, Methylparaben, Parfum, Sodium lauryl sulphate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Propylparaben, Citronellol, Geraniol, Benzyl benzoate, Linalool

 

[asadasam]

Thanks!

 

[Tone deaf]

Seems like they should have just stuck to the tallowed formula but forgive my ignorance tallow in a AS milk, how come?

 

[mparker762]

The old stuff will also have the royal warrant of the queen mother. She died a few months before they switched formulations, and the new warrantless packages and new formulation seem to have arrived at the same time.

 

[HoratioCaine]

Seems like they should have just stuck to the tallowed formula but forgive my ignorance tallow in a AS milk, how come?

I wondered the same thing. One point to note: sodium tallowate is not tallow - it is saponified tallow, or soap. Which raises a double question mark for me. Soap is known for its alkaline pH, which is the opposite of what you want in an aftershave. Ideally, aftershaves help restore the skin's acidity following use of an alkaline shaving cream or soap. In theory, using a soap-based preparation as an aftershave isn't such a good idea. But that's the problem with theories - they're just theories. The old Harris Milk was good stuff, despite containing soap; why they had to fiddle with it, I have no clue. I haven't tried the new stuff, but given its kitchen-sink list of ingredients, plus reports that it is considerably heavier in consistency than the old stuff, has caused me to doubt I would like it. One of these days I might just try it, but I'm much more likely to spring for The Shave Den millk before I try Harris.

 

[HoratioCaine]

The old stuff will also have the royal warrant of the queen mother. She died a few months before they switched formulations, and the new warrantless packages and new formulation seem to have arrived at the same time.

Also, if you ever run across a bottle of Green Pond aftershave balm (highly unlikely), that's re-branded old-style Harris Milk. Green Pond contracted to have a bespoke unscented version of Harris Milk made for them*. Once Harris changed its formula, Green Pond stopped putting it out, so all Green Pond balms are the old stuff.

*Off topic, but still interesting: Green Pond still sells re-branded Harris shaving cream in a bespoke Sandalwood scent - to my knowledge, the only Harris sandalwood cream you'll find.

 

[asadasam]

The old stuff will also have the royal warrant of the queen mother. She died a few months before they switched formulations, and the new warrantless packages and new formulation seem to have arrived at the same time.

They switched formulations that far back? She died in 2002 - I thought the switch was more recent?

 

[mparker762]

They may have switched again recently along with all their other reformulations, but AFAIK the old (ca1998-ca2003) formulation went out about the same time as the queen mother warrant was lost. I've also got a bottle of the old old stuff with only the Queen Mother warrant and not the Prince Charles warrant and it is actually quite heavy - I have to cut it with water to use it, though it's pretty good when cut by about 1/2. That along with the huge size of the refill bottle are the reasons my bottle has lasted so long. So the heavier new formulation isn't terribly unprecedented, it's really the old lighter formulation that is the oddball formulation, and I hope they went back to the older heavy formulation because their customers weren't happy with the change. This would at least this give us some faint hope for their other reformulated products.

 

[HoratioCaine]

They may have switched again recently along with all their other reformulations, but AFAIK the old (ca1998-ca2003) formulation went out about the same time as the queen mother warrant was lost.

I didn't start hearing the first grumblings of Harris Milk reformulation by its users until early 2006, which, by unhappy coincidence, is when I really started liking it. If they reformulated it in 2003, they must have had a lot of old stock lying around. Then again, the lavender cream is still readily available in the tubs featuring the Queen Mother warrant, whereas newer, warrant-less tubs of all the other creams started showing up nearly two years ago, indicating quite a stockpile of the older lavender tubs in the Harris warehouse.

 

[mparker762]

I didn't start hearing the first grumblings of Harris Milk reformulation by its users until early 2006, which, by unhappy coincidence, is when I really started liking it. If they reformulated it in 2003, they must have had a lot of old stock lying around. Then again, the lavender cream is still readily available in the tubs featuring the Queen Mother warrant, whereas newer, warrant-less tubs of all the other creams started showing up nearly two years ago, indicating quite a stockpile of the older lavender tubs in the Harris warehouse.

That doesn't surprise me. I bought my refill bottle of old old stock milk (lanolin based, with only the queen mother's warrant) in late 2005 or early 2006 I believe, at which point it would have been out of production for at least seven years. Harris is clearly not a believer in newfangled concepts like just-in-time manufacturing.

My old old milk is the rose version btw. I got a smaller bottle of the Arlington milk a few months earlier and it was the old (thinner) formulation with only the Prince Charles warrant. It's possible the Arlington milk is a much faster mover.

 

[HoratioCaine]

Oops...my mistake. The newer tubs aren't warrant-less. They just don't have both the Prince of Wales and the Queen Mother's warrant.

Off topic a little, has anybody had a run-in with a newer-packaged lavender cream? Harris's own website has shown a newer lavender tub containing a white cream for a long time, but I've not heard of anybody actually having seen one in person.