Aqua Velva
Water as soft as a baby’s bottom is the literal translation of Aqua Velva. I think of it as the oldest men’s cologne in existence. It is, indeed, quite old since it was first introduced in 1917 to the American public and is so much a part of American male grooming that during WWII, the book The Thin Red Line, about the battle for Guadalcanal tells the story about a PX set up on the Pacific island to sell grooming products. It only sold Barbisol shave cream and Aqua Velva. The Aqua Velva greatly outsold the Barbisol, but that was because the men found that the alcohol content in the stuff worked well with grapefruit juice to make a nice faux cocktail for the GIs.
Historically speaking, Aqua Velva was not the first men’s cologne. The first of that breed actually came from Cologne, Germany (hence the name Eau de Cologne) and it was introduced in the 18th Century in the form of a product called 4711 (and still sold under that brand today). The name came from a the house number given to the inventor’s home in Cologne by the Napoleonic troops that were occupying the city.
I had never heard of 4711, but I am certain that I have had a bottle of Aqua Velva in my medicine cabinet, along with several other bottles of cologne including Canoe and Brut for as long as I can remember. I have no idea when or how I acquired all of these, but I cannot remember not having them and other occasional brands of smelly water that I was given at one time or another. I recall starting to have cologne in my kit from my days in junior high school, well before I ever had a need for aftershave…or shaving at all for that matter. What I recall of being a pre-pubescent boy, there was actually a rational need for cologne given the infrequency of bathing at that age and the start of offensive body odor. I will add a note to this trip down olfactory lane that I also had a tube of Brylcream along side the cologne because you never knew when you would need a little dab to do ya.
This subject came to mind this Sunday morning because I read in the New York Times that a big trend in adolescent male life is the collection of cologne and perfume scents. Apparently these boys are spending up to $300 per bottle for the rarest of scents. They are squandering their Bar Mitzvah and allowance money on this stuff and making a big deal out of the array of scents in their collections, which is now a status symbol of sorts. They have caught the attention of cosmetic marketers since their spending in the category is up 26% in the last year, which is pretty startling. Ever since the various books about the lost boys of modern civilization started to emerge, psychologists have been noting the decline of the prospects for the male gender as evidenced by the changing adolescent patterns among transitioning boys. We all know that boys tend not to apply themselves academically the way girls tend to. It seems either to be something about their raging hormones at that age or perhaps just the very nature of the gender. For whatever reason, it seems that the rise of feminism, for all its positive aspects, has tended to coincide with the decline of youthful masculinity. This noted trend of young boys collecting fragrances may be the most distressing sign I have seen of this counter-cultural trend.
I can’t remember the last time I put on aftershave or cologne. It has long since stopped being a part of any kind of ablution process that I undertake. These days I am a subscriber to Harry’s shaving program where I get a shipment every three months of a box of replacement razor blades and two cans of shave gel. When I started the subscription they sent me a small bottle of Harry’s Aftershave and if I were to use anything with a scent, it would likely be that. As a man with a beard now for the past five years, I probably trim my beard with a clipper once a week, trim my mustache twice a week (I really don’t like hair around my mouth), and shave the areas adjacent to my beard every other day or so. The lazy man approach to that shaving is just to use a wet razor, but the far more effective way to clean up is to apply shave gel and do a proper shave on those areas. I probably do that no more than once per week, though I would do it more if not for that laziness thing going on. I do think it is impotent to stay well-shaven as you get older since it otherwise looks like you are just letting yourself go, but the simple wet shave does a good enough job to allow the laziness to prevail most days.
I think the whole Harry’s subscription service is a good thing, but I really do need to fine tune the order since I have accumulated a dozen cans of shave gel and what must be twenty little plastic boxes with four replacement blades in each. I am pretty much at the limit of what my vanity drawer can handle and I know I toss out blades more often than is needed already. I probably only need half the order that I’m getting, so I really will have to get on that. Harry’s sells a bunch of other men’s cosmetic products, but I have honestly never found a need and like the one container of aftershave I got for free a few years ago, anything I bought would probably sit unused in my vanity if I got the urge to buy it on impulse. I can’t remember ever having actually used up a bottle of aftershave or cologne versus just tossing it out when it got low, on the theory that it must have evaporated and distilled down too much to be good to use.
I am not sure why we need all these scented products anyway. I know people like to say that the French invented perfume because they notoriously failed to bathe sufficiently and that it was the only way to reduce the offensiveness of their physical presence. I also understand that young adolescent boys get it into their heads that to be attractive to the opposite sex they need to improve their olfactory status. When you think about it, cologne and perfume really only work effectively in close quarters and it is the young that find it enticing to snuggle up close to one another as much as possible. That’s not to say that older people don’t enjoy a snuggle once in a while, but I think we all learn to tolerate bodily scents as we get older and accept them as a natural part of life and less the source of embarrassment that inflicts the young.
Lately I have been amused by the ads for this Lume product, invented by a blonde gynecologist who does her own advertising. There is something refreshing about having a pretty woman talking about body odor so openly. She talks about putting her Lume product on pits, feet and private parts, including one’s butt crack (stated just so) and that it is considerably more effective than soap and water alone in controlling body odor. While she has a line of products made specifically for men (my guess is that its really only about branding and less so different formulation), but I’m thinking that the Aqua Velva Man is less enticed by this than the woman who wants to be sure that none of her hormonal odors get out in the world and give her away for what she is…a woman. To be sure, men smell less and care less about smelling bad but the sting of an alcohol-based astringent like Aqua Velva just feels right to us and will probably last on the market another hundred years just for that bracing moment of application.