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What Soap/AS scents do you consider to be “old man” Scents?

To me, Old Spice is "Classic", whereas anything predominantly or significantly floral smells of "old folk". Specifically any old folk I encountered as a kid. Weird, scary, smelly old folk, that for some reason I was expected to be more polite around than "normal" people.

The divide was normally accompanied by someone being called Mr or Mrs something, instead of having a forename. People with forenames never smelled of old folk, and smelly old folk never had forenames. When I started gardening, I preferred growing edibles to flowers, as flowers tend to smell of old folk.

I don't think I'll ever break that association, even if I live to 100, and if I ever get put in a home that smells that way, I'm doing a runner!
Nice plan, but I suspect if you ever get old and decrepit enough to be put into one of those homes, "running" is the last thing you'll be doing!
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Nice plan, but I suspect if you ever get old and decrepit enough to be put into one of those homes, "running" is the last thing you'll be doing!


Oh, if it smells of lavender, I'll find a way. Maybe epoxy a couple of skateboards to the bottom of my zimmer frame, or something.
 
None of them. Certain scent profiles often trend at certain periods of time, so they get associated with a particular generation. What one thinks is "old man" is to another, "classic" or "timeless," and to another what's "dad," is "great-grandpa." With respect, I think it's a silly and pointless question. The vast majority of ingredients just get reused over and over again over the centuries (lavender, citrus, rosemary, wood).... use what you like!
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
None of them. Certain scent profiles often trend at certain periods of time, so they get associated with a particular generation. What one thinks is "old man" is to another, "classic" or "timeless," and to another what's "dad," is "great-grandpa." With respect, I think it's a silly and pointless question. The vast majority of ingredients just get reused over and over again over the centuries (lavender, citrus, rosemary, wood).... use what you like!

You're right... but I don't think it's silly or pointless discussing our mental associations with scents. We all have our favourites, and our aversions, and it can be just as interesting to discuss the adverse associations we may have, as well as the positives.
 
You're right... but I don't think it's silly or pointless discussing our mental associations with scents. We all have our favourites, and our aversions, and it can be just as interesting to discuss the adverse associations we may have, as well as the positives.
I didn't say it's silly to discuss those things you mention - rather, I object to calling something "old man." To me, it's fair enough to say you don't like something or that it's reminiscent of a certain time period, but "old man scent" comes off to many people as pejorative and disrespectful.
 
None of them. Certain scent profiles often trend at certain periods of time, so they get associated with a particular generation. What one thinks is "old man" is to another, "classic" or "timeless," and to another what's "dad," is "great-grandpa." With respect, I think it's a silly and pointless question. The vast majority of ingredients just get reused over and over again over the centuries (lavender, citrus, rosemary, wood).... use what you like!
This is an interactive shaving internet forum where we discuss things like my “silly and pointless question” (that you just took the time to answer) all day long. I posted the thread to start conversation, not to insult anyone’s aftershave choices.

Most of the comments on this thread are much more interesting to me than pics of lathered soap, but to each their own.
 
Brut aftershave
Old Spice
Barrister's Reserve Classic soap

Especially Reserve Classic
 
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This is an interactive shaving internet forum where we discuss things like my “silly and pointless question” (that you just took the time to answer) all day long. I posted the thread to start conversation, not to insult anyone’s aftershave choices.

Most of the comments on this thread are much more interesting to me than pics of lathered soap, but to each their own.
Haha!! Discuss we do and discuss we shall, including sharing our opinions about what we think is silly or pointless. Yeah, there are a lot of lathered soap pics, but to each his own, indeed.
Now be fair to yourself - it wasn't your "old man" comment, it was your son's! That's how I took it, anyway. Youthful indiscretion, I suppose we can call it. In 2067 his grandson will be wearing "Old Axe-Bod Spice" and his son will make fun of it. 😅
 
I think the crux of the “old vs young” smell perception is citrus and “weight.” The lighter, citrusy scents are perceived to be younger and the heavier, muskier scents, older. Someone pointed out that Gillette Cool Wave came out in 93’ but was still viewed as a non-old man scent while others from only a few years earlier aren’t. Perhaps because light, bright scents remind people of spring and summer (youth)!while heavier, darker scents remind us of fall and winter (middle and old age.) I also think scents are like anything else. Without a range of exposure, people like what they know. Young people like whatever is being marketed in their era, older people like the familiarity of the “old” scents that were once considered young. People who enjoy colognes and aftershaves appreciate the full range and enjoy a lot of different old and young fragrances. To put it another way, put a glass of cheap scotch and expensive scotch in front of a 21 year old and chances are he’ll probably quaff them both and order mystery liquor and coke. 20 years later if he gets into scotch he’ll know the difference. If not he’ll always prefer booze and coke.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Perhaps because light, bright scents remind people of spring and summer (youth)!while heavier, darker scents remind us of fall and winter (middle and old age.) I also think scents are like anything else. Without a range of exposure, people like what they know. Young people like whatever is being marketed in their era, older people like the familiarity of the “old” scents that were once considered young.

With me, the "old man" scent, is what was burned into my memory as a small child, and has nothing to do whatsoever with older people today. I know plenty, many I have great respect for, and some I don't, pretty much like any other demographic on the planet. :biggrin1:

I have a vivid recollection of floral plus something else, a "formula" of sorts, rather than a specific scent, and thinking "why on earth do people want to smell like that". I probably asked that question out loud a few times, and got a clip round the ear for it too.

Those scents today, reawaken the confusion of that young child. The sense of those people I didn't understand, with their different names, behaviours and expectations, the additional restrictions imposed by all around me, and the change in behaviour of those who were familiar to me around that one group that weren't. And always, there seemed do be that identifying scent type which was seeming compulsory for those people, worn too strong, and clung to wherever they'd recently been.

I like to think I enjoy a variety of scents, from fruits, to spices, to woods. The bolder floral scents though, they were the ones that unsettled me in the 70s, when the old were unfathomably old, and distant in aspects far more than age alone. To me they will always be "that scent", whether or not people are comfortable with the "old man" label being used. It's less a label of them, and more a label of being so very different from them in so many ways, and that scent being a reliable marker of people and places where I would not be at ease.

There aren't actually that many scents that evoke much of a memory for me, but those do. They mean that other world, and those other people, where I cannot be me. Where I would get in trouble, for no reason I could clearly discern. Other kids my age associated the same scent the same way too. Back then, when the memory was rooted, it was the "old folk" scent. Not just older people, but that sub group of REALLY old people, in whose presence everyone changed and became less fun, and less welcoming.

To me, it's fair enough to say you don't like something or that it's reminiscent of a certain time period, but "old man scent" comes off to many people as pejorative and disrespectful.

Now be fair to yourself - it wasn't your "old man" comment, it was your son's! That's how I took it, anyway. Youthful indiscretion, I suppose we can call it.

Perjorative and disrepectful, maybe, but still the indiscretions of a young child, albeit carried through to later life. I cannot leave that behind, and that scent will always take me back, and be associated with people I don't want to be around.
 
With me, the "old man" scent, is what was burned into my memory as a small child, and has nothing to do whatsoever with older people today. I know plenty, many I have great respect for, and some I don't, pretty much like any other demographic on the planet. :biggrin1:

I have a vivid recollection of floral plus something else, a "formula" of sorts, rather than a specific scent, and thinking "why on earth do people want to smell like that". I probably asked that question out loud a few times, and got a clip round the ear for it too.

Those scents today, reawaken the confusion of that young child. The sense of those people I didn't understand, with their different names, behaviours and expectations, the additional restrictions imposed by all around me, and the change in behaviour of those who were familiar to me around that one group that weren't. And always, there seemed do be that identifying scent type which was seeming compulsory for those people, worn too strong, and clung to wherever they'd recently been.

I like to think I enjoy a variety of scents, from fruits, to spices, to woods. It's less a label of them, and more a label of being so very different from them in so many ways, and that scent being a reliable marker of people and places where I would not be at ease.

There aren't actually that many scents that evoke much of a memory for me, but those do. They mean that other world, and those other people, where I cannot be me. Where I would get in trouble, for no reason I could clearly discern. Other kids my age associated the same scent the same way too. Back then, when the memory was rooted, it was the "old folk" scent. Not just older people, but that sub group of REALLY old people, in whose presence everyone changed and became less fun, and less welcoming.





Perjorative and disrepectful, maybe, but still the indiscretions of a young child, albeit carried through to later life. I cannot leave that behind, and that scent will always take me back, and be associated with people I don't want to be around.

Nice post @AimlessWanderer. I especially like “The bolder floral scents though, they were the ones that unsettled me in the 70s, when the old were unfathomably old, and distant in aspects far more than age alone.” Scent really is a complex thing and i think that line really sums up what this thread is about.
 

thombrogan

Lounging On The Isle Of Tugsley.
We have the king whose army saved Western European civilization participating in this thread (his winged Hussars helped, but team efforts of import need leaders) and I don’t consider him old, so you’re young yet, @FarmerTan
 
Sir ThomBrogan, I am honored by your comment. For inquiring minds who wish to know, at the Battle of Vienna my Hussars and I wore a proprietary blend of Tabac, Lilac Vegetal, and naturally, Alt-Innsbruck.
 
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