Original Timber Line AS - History and Availability?

[polaar]

When I was young I gave my Dad a bottle of Timber Line for Father's Day and it became one of his favorite aftershaves for the rest of his life. Today to get a whiff of the one old bottle I have (pictured) brings back a flood of memories. Sometime in the late 70s or the 80s he bought a bottle and complained that it was completely different. The packaging and possibly the company had changed. He bought a couple of old bottles he found on a dusty drugstore shelf and that was that. As I've tried to research Timber Line I reach a dead end. It was apparently made by English Leather originally. But now there seems to be a version made by Mem and one by Dana. Some places sell a version made by "Classic Edition Fragrances" in Calumet City IL, about which I can find nothing informative on the internet. That edition's bottle and label resemble the original one but it for some reason is sold without a box. Does anyone know anything of the history of this fragrance, why it changed, and if any of the current versions smell like the one that I remember from long ago?

 

[mblakele]

I was curious, so I dug up http://www.basenotes.net/company/100235 and http://www.basenotes.net/ID26121586.html - some history and comments that might be useful.

 

[masonjarjar]

I got a little plastic bottle of it in my christmas stocking when I was a youngish lad, sometime in the early 80's. Well, actually, I think my brother got Timberline and I got English Leather, but I remember using both. I must have liked English Leather more because I got a large bottle of it at some point. I'll have to track down a bottle of Timberline for a trip down memory lane.. it's been a LONG time. It's a shame when they change formulations.

 

[DonOhio]

I have a quantity of the "true" original MEM Timberline, which is very good and unmistakably woodsy. I also have the small bottle, pictured in the 2nd link above with the abstract bird on it. It smells NOTHING WHATSOEVER like the original; not that it's bad, but it reminds me more of Canoe or something similar. It is NOT at all woodsy, or anything close to it, so it's disappointing.

Here's where I'm confused: I put "true" in quotes above because the new small bottle has a clear plastic MEM label on the bottom. Not Dana, MEM.

Is this little bottle a ripoff since (I thought) MEM no longer exists? Because if it was meant to resemble the original, it does not.

 

[Eighties]

Okay, 14 year old thread but what the heck. I recently got a bottle of the original M.E.M. Timberline in an old English Leather Gift set which I bought exclusively for the Wind Drift. I rather like the Timberline as well and was curious about the newer version so I found a bottle on fleabay and decided to do a side by side. I agree with DonOhio above, it isn't that it is particularly bad but it definitely doesn't smell anything like the original. I can certainly understand why someone would be angry expecting one scent and getting the other. That said I prefer the original much more over the revamp. Why woudl they change it? Who knows, why did Coca-cola change their flavor in the 80s?