Vintage Pinaud Clubman Lilac Vegetal. Questions, help!

[BlenheimBadger94]

I just became acquainted with pinaud recently. I enjoy the original clubman. I love the history of the company and when reading about the formula changes when switching into the plastic bottle I became interested in glass! Now the only scent locally available is the original clubman. I have smelled the reserve and bay rum as well. I have almost all the rest soon to be ordered!

Anyway Getting to my point lol. I enjoy Ebarbershop's lilac very much, so naturally I was curious about the Vegetal. I have yet to actually try it! I have some current on the way. But there was this beautiful almost full glass bottle for sale online today and a fair price, so I grabbed it up while I could.

So I have a few questions about it. I am wondering if you can give me an idea of when this bottle is from? I don't know the age.

Also, how does the older Vegetal differ from the current? I know when using glass they used pure ingredients instead of synthetic. How does the scent differ?

And how does it age.. given it's at a minimum 23 plus years old it couldn't smell exactly as it did then, could it? Do you have any experience using vintage vegetal? I can't wait to hear your fount of knowledge!

I truly appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Silas

 

[August West]

Neat find. I find the Professional Use Only disclaimer interesting. I have never used this product; vintage nor modern.

 

[BlenheimBadger94]

I thought that too. The man got it from an old barbershop going out of business. The larger 12 oz bottle, intended for barber use I guess.

 

[mblakele]

That label appears to have the "SDA NY 2983" code, which we have talked about before: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...shaves-Post-your-photos?p=2156587#post2156587 and http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/334002-The-Veg?p=4913493#post4913493. But what does it mean? In 1952 Pinaud was listed at "902 Bway NY 10 Sp 7-8200" according to http://books.google.com/books?id=WfQiAQAAMAAJ so it probably is not a pre-zip postal code. One difference is that label had "Paris – New York – London" while yours has "Paris – New York – Toronto". Based on the style and the price, I suspect the London label is the earlier one.

Without knowing for certain, my guess is that you have a fairly late bottle, maybe as early as the 1960s but more likely 1970s or even 1980s. Of course I am guessing, based mostly on the price and the label. With a barber bottle we cannot expect normal consumer labeling, so the lack of a bar code does not matter. Not too long after the 1970s I would not expect a price on the label at all, and the $1.75 price sounds about right for the early 1970s. In 1952 the retail bottle was advertised as "reg. $1.00", for a bottle that might have been a little smaller. By 1975 drugstore catalogs priced 12-oz or 12.5-oz bottles at $2: http://books.google.com/books?ei=RxMtUsHEJYHqiwKxjIDoAg&id=sf0rAQAAMAAJ and http://books.google.com/books?ei=RxMtUsHEJYHqiwKxjIDoAg&id=MUIeAQAAMAAJ for example. But the barber price might have been lower, and that gets into the question of what was meant by "Fair Trade - Retail Price".

Does anyone know exactly when Pinaud switched Lilac Vegetal from glass to plastic?

 

[BlenheimBadger94]

Thank you so much for that response! It was extremely helpful and informative. The Pinaud shavewiki (http://wiki.badgerandblade.com/Category:Pinaud) states:

"By the 1990s, the decision was made to go to all plastic bottles for the entire Pinaud line; a decision that left a lot of Pinaud fans upset. The essences were all reformulated to compensate for the absorbency of plastic, which in most cases meant substituting real citrus and floral extracts for synthetic knock-offs. Regular Clubman weathered the change fairly intact, while the most noticeable differences being Lilac Vegetol, Lime Sec, Citrus Musk, and Vanilla Musk. These fragrances were built upon their genuine respective ingredients, and the newer formulations tend to smell like cheap, synthetic knock offs."

 

[David in Boston]

First of all, that's a great find. I found a similar glass bottle 2/3 full a few years ago. Mine had a smaller cream colored top compared to your green. From you pic it looks like your VEG is yellowish in color. Mine was also, still it smelled great and I didn't notice a difference in quality compared to my plastic bottle VEG.

Enjoy!

 

[BlenheimBadger94]

Thank you very much for the response! I am hoping mine will smell just as good as the day it was opened. Has anyone noticed the vintages having a more pure less synthetic scent? It's my understanding they were made without the synthetics like today when bottled in glass. Hopefully an old barber on here will run across this and remember the year these were 1.76 for them!

 

[Myanmar Shave]

Definitely enjoy that vintage Lilac Vegetal--it's becoming more rare as time passes. You should also pick up a bottle of the current production LV and you can compare them. There is nothing like the initial "blast" of vintage LV--its hard to describe but is completely different from the newer stuff. I find that the drydown of the lilac scent is much cleaner and floral than the current offering.

I understand the polarization that the new LV causes--I like it, but can certainly see why many don't. But we have to remember that the vintage LV was in almost every barber shop back in the day and it was well regarded. Ask men 60-70 years old about LV and you'll probably get a positive response. It was that or Clubman back then.


Marty E.

 

[rotto66]

Very nice find. I was at an antique store earlier this week and spotted a vintage glass bottle of Lilac Vegetal in a show case behind a bunch of stuff. I asked the lady working to open the case so I could check it out and when she did I was disappointed to find the bottle was empty and I was shocked that they wanted $39 for the empty bottle.