After the Shave
I’m going to take some time out to blah-blah about aftershave, men’s fragrances, and toning spray.
Let’s start with a very recent aftershave commercial which starts with the words, “Shave the way you like.” It shows extreme ways one can shave: with a machete, a Samurai sword, a chainsaw. The payoff is the aftershave that protects your face, no matter how you shave.
What’s amusing about this is that aftershave came into existence thousands of years ago, before we had the luxury of safety razors. Due to the dull or rusty edges of the blades, shaves often ended up bloody messes. Nicks and cuts often resulted in infections which lead to high fevers and death. The solution was applying a soothing liquid like vinegar (ouch) or just plain alcohol (woh!) to kill off unwanted bacteria or ease any inflammation. While effective on the antiseptic front, the solutions did not leave a great after scent. This led to the eventual addition of fragrances. And so emerged the modern-day aftershave, whose purpose, as the ‘shave the way you like’ advertisement shows, has come full circle.
Most of us are familiar with how aftershave has been marketed during the 20th and 21st centuries. Several themes emerge. One is anti-infection, soothing, and exhilaration. My favorite example of this is Listerine, which evolved from being an antiseptic for cuts to an aftershave and to what it is today, a mouthwash. This antiseptic approach, while practical, was not very sexy, which brings us to the 60s, and the two prominent themes I grew up with: manly refreshing and sexy woman magnet.
‘Manly refreshing’ usually has extremely good-looking guys smiling with sparkly white teeth acting like they have been gently slapped and are awake to the possibilities. A sub-genre of this is man in nature where the natural world dominates (usually the ocean in the background) to bring in the association with fresh and vibrant smelling elements (although with the ocean motif, I’m often thinking about salt in wounds). This theme has morphed into men’s fragrance ads where the difference is men can get away with even sexier three-day beards, and gaze mysteriously out into a vacant landscape.
‘Sexy woman magnet’ is all about how women can’t resist the right aftershave. Two examples of this show how much things have changed.
There is a mid-60s ad where a guy sits calmly at an outdoor café. Off-camera, a voice wonders why so many single men use this aftershave. Then the voice asks the guy sitting for his reasons, and the guy smiles and proceeds to list a bunch of women’s names and the commercial flashes on their faces. The off-camera interviewer has to stop him since it seems that he could go on for a while longer.
Twenty years later this idea that aftershave attracts beautiful women like bees to honey was still around. In the 1980s there was a funny one of Joe Namath whose luck with the girls throughout the day is attributed to his use of the aftershave.
From aftershave to fragrance?
In researching for this article, I wanted to get specific about today’s aftershave commercials, so I typed into Google “aftershave advertisements 2020” and what came up on the first page were fragrances and perfume listings. I did some other similar searches, and it seems that aftershaves have a greater association with fragrances and colognes.
GQ (Britain edition), that arbiter of men’s tastes had this to say:
“What’s the difference between an aftershave, eau de toilette and eau de parfum for men? A lot of men unknowingly use the terms interchangeably.”
So, there we have it, man’s evolution from vinegar to perfume in only 2,000 years.
The Face Toning Spray Alternative
I’ve waited this long in the article before plugging for one of our products. But if you think about it, face toners are the way to go.
First off, they refresh the skin.
Secondly, they shrink the pores and protect after you’ve washed your face, which is what you want as you get ready to greet the day (and all of the environmental stuff that hits your face).
Thirdly, instead of washing your face in the middle of the day, when it could be dirty or oily, toners will remove impurities and you’ll feel revitalized.
Fourth, they bind moisture in the skin, acting a bit like a moisturizer.
Fifth, depending on the toners you use, they work to restore the pH balance in your skin after your wash with a bar of soap.
The thing about aftershaves is that they often include some alcohol, which while giving you that bracing feeling, also will dry out your skin. And the thing about colognes and fragrance is that they do nothing to your skin, except tack on that scent.
As a plug for Dew It! our face toning spray, we use ingredients that are designed to bring balance to your skin while also smelling good. And the thing about the scent is that after a little while it goes away, so you don’t have to live with it all day.
Right now, we don’t have any cool ads, nor do we know exactly what we want to promise you beyond skincare. I mean isn’t it enough that it’s a refreshing spray that cheers up skin that’s been there and done that. Maybe it adds to your allure as the most interesting man in the room, but we digress.