Old Spice Cologne & Men's Fragrance

Old Spice is an American company formed in 1934. They exclusively deal with grooming products for men and tend to focus on aftershaves and deodorants. Nowadays the brand is quite well-known for it's silly and surrealistic ads starring Terry Crews among others but Old Spice has a history that stretches back. Interestingly enough the very first fragrance to be produced was one for women, sold in by founder and soap-maker William Lightfoot Schultz in 1937. The following year he hit gold when he released a version of the scent for men, simply calling it “Old Spice”. The spicy fragrance with the iconic ship on the bottle became the blueprint for many classic aftershaves in the years to come.

Shultz's fragrance became extremely popular with soldiers during World War II, perhaps as a result of Schultz temporarily turning to military production to help with the war effort. As the war went on American soldiers brought the scent of Old Spice with them as they travelled all over the globe and by the time peace had been restored the brand was known worldwide.

In the 70's the brand was sold to a chemical manufacturer. With founder Lightfoot Schultz having passed away decades earlier and the new generation loosing interest in Old Spice things looked grim but in the 90's new owner Procter & Gamble were able to turn the ship around and introduce a whole new generation of men to Old Spice. They opted to move away from the classic aftershaves and instead focused on body washes and body sprays, embracing the grandfather-smell heritage of the brand with campaigns centred around how using Old Spice would make you “smell like a man, man”. Today the brand is bigger than ever and funny adverts aside produce a vast array of different scents and washes, each with it's own take on the original Old Spice formula. Whitewater (1997) combined fresh aquatic notes with the typical spicy warmness of the original aftershave while newer addition to the line Bearglove brings masculine muskiness worthy of a grizzly to the classic scent.