I was around seventeen when I decided to give up using whatever cologne was re-gifted to me by some relative and venture to a shop to try a few and determine what I liked; apparently, what I liked turned out to be a light, relatively androgynous, cologne that’s been around since the mid 60s. It’s hard to actually put my finger on what I like about this stuff so much. I just find it really classic, and against the grain when it comes to the excess of colognes that overwhelm with pine, stale cigar smoke, drying leather boots, hickory smoked bacon, and whatever other scents the perfumer ascribe’s to a notion of ‘masculinity’.
I’ve liked this stuff so much that I have worn it almost exclusively since I discovered it at seventeen until a guest knocked it from a shelf leaving a 3/4th of a bottle permeating and overwhelming all my senses every time I walked into the bathroom. At that time I actually switched to Geo F. Trumper’s Eucris Eau de Toilette which I discovered by chance while I was reordering some of their rose aftershave. A year into wearing Eucris, I was poster shopping and came across a series of early 80s posters for Eau Sauvage designed by Rene Gruau, an incredible Italian-born illustrator and graphic artist. The 80s ad campaign seemed to win me back over, and while Geo F. Trumper’s Eucris remains to be my second favors scent, I promptly replaced my broken bottle of Eau Sauvage.