The 3 staples of 70's schoolboy hygiene: Brut 33, Denim and Blue Stratos!!Brut was your first inroads into fragrances for men, the one you first splashed all over...literally all over! Advertised by Henry Cooper at first then, my hero, Barry Sheen (a real ladies man he was too) it was the every day choice for teenage boys in the seventies. Morning regime...alarm goes off, out of bed, into bathroom, brush teeth, spray liberally with Brut, get dressed, breakfast then school.
Denim came along a little bit later in my memory, and became the middle of the road choice, the one for family 'get togethers' where you wanted to appear grown up, but had no one to really impress...also good for after games lessons and that 5 second run through shower. This became a staple gift from aunties across the country as of Christmas '79.Then came Blue Stratos!.......Blue Stratos was the Daddy of them all:
"Blue Stratos is one of the famous masculine fragrances, a classic which features as a landmark FOUGERE fragrance in the industry 'bible' the H&R Genealogy of masculine fragrances. The Fougere fragrance concept is based upon the interplay between lavender and oak moss. Originally this perfume accord was intended to serve as a contribution to feminine fragrance creations. However, over time it came to be used more and more as an ingredient in masculine creations and is acknowledged to have underwritten many key developments within masculine fragrance, including the Blue Stratos fragrance in 1976" This was the one you kept for the REALLY SPECIAL occasions..you saved it for the school Christmas disco, or for when you had double English sat next to that girl in 4R you fancied...or most of all for that crucial first date!
I bought all of these on line last year for a few fragrance nostalgia moments, and in fact I have requested some Brut for my up and coming birthday along with a couple of Bond (Connery) DVDs. They still smell good, and fragrances like no other part of our senses are finely tuned for nostalgia.
Other contenders we all remember are Burley, Old Spice, Hi Karate and even Mandate (hehehe what a hidden meaning that one has!) but none really broke the top three hold on our teenage years. It's time for a return to old values, and its a time for a return to old smells too!
2 comments:
Ah, the great smell of Brut. I remember buying it for a boyfriend of mine to try and update him from Old Spice which was the previous fug of choice! I think the perfume I & most of my friends wore in the 70's was called Youth Dew by Estee Lauder, it had a very strong sweet smell and had a tendency to linger in your clothes through the wash cycle.
I'll be an Old Spice man until the day I die, but I keep an old bottle of Blue Stratos around for special occasions, and I'm proud to say that brut is in high rotation in my aftershave collection.
Post a Comment