Roaring 20's Toilet Goods

Selling toilet goods in the 1920's was no easy task. Women, they were mostly women, who manned the department store counters, they were mostly department stores, were the readers of the magnificent, Toilet Goods. I'm not talking the 'How To" articles but the illustrations and advertisements are other worldly. More so when you take into account this ephemera is 86 years old. Virtually zero fading with loads of rich color everywhere.

I've thrown in the rest of my UK toilet goods for this Anglo scented week. D. R. Harris (please don't call it Doctor Harris) makes, hands down, the best shampoo I've ever used. $30 will get you a fat tub of the most intense lemon scented shampoo. Pebble like and thick; it's very concentrated. A little bit goes a long way and that tub will last a couple of months. More if you alternate your shampoos which you should.

The D.R. Harris after shave is a bargain. Only $30 and this stuff is pretty heavy. By that I mean it will not wear off by lunch and it's strong contrary to the bottle's promise of subtle. If you ask me, it comes off more like a cologne than an aftershave. The lemon conditioner is no big shakes as is the lip balm but the London store is a marvel. Loads of bizarre and cheap things to buy. Perfect gifts for people at the office you don't like very much. Scented tooth picks, disposable tooth brushes, crap like that but the packaging screams England and good taste.

Curzon Imperial Leather is not what you'd call a high end fragrance. But I swear, it's in almost every London office lavatory I've been in and the smell always gives me flashbacks. That little metal tag never comes off and it works well as a sink hand soap. Like I said, the scent is more connective for me than anything else.

Truefitt and Hill Spanish Leather is one of the Golf Foxtrot's favorites. It seems almost every cologne maker in the UK offers a Spanish Leather but Truefitt is my favorite. At $75 a bottle this stuff ain't cheap but it goes on heavy. It's one of those you can spray in the air and walk into it and that'll be enough.

Their barber shop in Chicago is unbeatable. I had my hair cut there for 14 years by Tomas. Check it out if you're ever on North Michigan Avenue. It's a great experience and I think it's a damned site better than their shop in London which reminded me of getting a haircut in a Turkish sauna. I think the Brits do a lot of things right but personal services isn't one of them.

The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Smoking Jacket On

I've smoked everything. Lucky and Camel cigarettes. 1Q pipe tobacco by Lane. The Cuban Punch Punch and the 1926 Padron. No more. The consumption of tobacco came to a screeching halt when the Doc found something on the lip. All is well but for a few months there was a great deal of reflection on the leaf and nothing has ever had the effect on me like a doctor saying, "...it may be cancerous." It wasn't but it was enough to quit. All of it.

So in smoking's place -- I've consumed myself with something else to do in a smoking jacket. Shaving. So far I've tried razor blades made by Astra, Feather, Shark, 7A.M., Sharp, Merkur and Derby. They're cheap. No more than $2 for five and they come in the most amazing and colorful packaging. Just like European cigarettes.

I was happy to use my Santa Maria shaving cream in a can ($25) and even happier to buy it from Phoebe Cates at Blue Tree. Her shop's web site is here and be sure to watch the film clip on the home page. Funny stuff with Kevin Kline. I had been to the shop a couple of times without a Phoebe sighting. My luck, the one time she was there I had Kim Chi for lunch.

While Santa Maria is good stuff and lasts for donkey years...I swear I get a year out of a can...it doesn't come close to lather spread on with a badger brush. The luxury of this is hard to describe. Let me try. While I was in the Army, I spent a week in the jungles of Panama without a shower save getting rained on almost every day. I had an itching jungle 'crud' everywhere and I wanted two things. A woman with very long finger nails to scratch my feet and a hot shower. Back at Ft Sherman, I did get a hot shower and I'll never forget that feeling of being reborn as hot water washed off seven days of jungle funk. Slathering warm lather on your face with a badger brush comes very close to that -- without having to endure the jungle part.

I strongly advise against slapping cologne on after shaving. The slow and careful shave with a heavy safety razor is a radical difference from the plastic Quarto razor that vibrates and the blue - green gel that smells like a J Crew store in an outlet mall (what is that smell?). I like to use what's known as skin food. Trumper's makes a nice lime and coral skin food I've tried but I really like the glass bottle D.R. Harris comes in. It's also cheaper.

After skin food comes cologne. I want to explain how I feel about men who smell like a perfume counter on the street. It's not attractive and I associate it with men who wear lots of Gucci, a black t shirt with a closed vent sport coat and affect an Italian accent even though they're from Ft Wayne, Indiana. I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't. For me, cologne that wears off quickly is A-Okay in my book. The scent is just for me. Perhaps the last bit of pleasure I treat myself to before going out into the world of pissed off clients, homicidal bus drivers and odors wafting through the 59th Street subway station. Odors so bad --I don't even want to know where they come from.

By the way, Herzfeld cognoscenti may be smiling at the label with the old 509 Madison Avenue address. That's where the shop opened in 1949. It moved to 507 Madison in 1984 and then to 118 E 57th in 2005. Great history, a wonderful staff and a beautiful tailor's ruler they refuse to sell me.

Smell Good

The Trad Medicine Cabinet

There's a lot of men out there who think puttin' on some scent is not a manly thing. My father for one. I remember his smell like it was yesterday. The cigarette smoke hit you first followed by a ever so slight fragrance of B.O. filtered through a wash & wear khaki uniform. Shortly after 17:00 hours the juniper from the afternoon's libations mingled with the B.O. and stale smoke creating a multi-layered scent I'll never forget. "I can't seem to forget you...your Windsong stays on my mind."

In short, my Dad stunk. Plain and simple. Fortunately for me... he wasn't all that much of a hugger and fortunately for him... I didn't have the stones to complain. I only have them now because we're thousands of miles apart. I may wear tutti frutti suede shoes but I do smell nice. By the way, my father's father wore Christian Dior Eau Savage. Always. I know. I looked in his medicine cabinet all the time.

Look, I'm not saying you douse yourself in Polo like my old boss did. 200 employees in the Chicago office could smell that guy coming 10 minutes before he got to you. He reminded me of a 13 year old after gym class with a can of Right Guard.

If you're over 30 years old I'm gonna throw some advice your way. Doesn't matter if you listen or not. I used Old Spice in the Army. I'd get outta the shower, dry off, throw Old Spice talc all over me (sadly no longer made) and dab some Old Spice cologne here and there depending on if I was dating or not. Simple and cheap. I was also 20.

If you're over 30 and purchase your cologne at Walgreen's -- pay attention...dude. There's an old saying which goes like this, "Never...No, always buy the best you can afford." I know... I talk a lot about cheap stuff but cologne is something I don't wanna buy at some discount center. Who knows what that crap is. Suck it up and pay retail. And experiment. That's half the fun.

I've used, since I was 15: Canoe, Old Spice, Aramis, Devin, Royal Copenhagen, Eau Savage, Greenbriar, Eau D'Hermes, Vetivier, D.R. Harris Sandlewood, Knize 10, Trueffit & Hill Spanish Leather, Molton Brown something or other and most recently, concentrated Ylang Ylang. What I still use is in the medicine cabinet up there. There's nothing wrong with smelling good. Unless you're on patrol in which case the bad guys can smell you and will kill you. If you're not on patrol-- you may wanna give a grown up cologne some thought.

The Trad Toilet

It's too cold to go outside. I'm too shy to ask people for a picture. I'm lazy. And I've been asked to post more often. Aside from being flattered, my camera battery is dead and I can't find the charger.

So, with a cell phone camera, here's some Trad stuff from the medicine cabinet. How lazy can you get? From the left:

Taylor of Bond Street (puchased on Jermyn Street) Comb
Euthymol Tooth Paste (a kick you in the pants flavor that many detest but the tube looks cool)
Caswell Masey Greenbriar Cologne (J. Press sells it for $15 more with their logo)
D. R. Harris Hair Cream (they make my favorite lemon shampoo)
Guerlain Vetiver (behind the hair cream) Cologne. The "Gulf Foxtrot" (Girl Friend) is always stealing mine
Berocca. A pretty good hang over cure from the UK
Santa Maria Novella Shaving Foam. The best damned shaving cream in the world.

That was exhausting. Okay, see you next month.