Fresco Artisan Shaving Soap & Aftershave Bundle Deal | Ultra Premium CK-6 Formula
Top Notes: Herbaceous, Eucalyptus, Citrus, Fresh
Middle Notes: Cardamom, Spicy, Green, Balsam
Bottom Notes: Woody, Patchouli, Mossy & Masculine!
Finally, The Day Has Come! Thank you all for your saint-like patience! I promise you we have made it worth your while! This is a very Special Release...Get excited, Get VERY Excited and hunker down by the fire as I tell you a tale... [if unable to find a fire or borrow one, simply imagine one in your mind.]
Find the Entire FRESCO Collection Here!
"Phoenix Shaving wrote the book on resurrecting old aftershaves. Like he really wrote a literal book." ~ Dave Johnson, Fragrance Bros.
Like many, I enjoy a good Fougère, but if you follow what we do, you know my favorite subcategory of the Fougère family is of the Aromatic variety, simply called the Aromatic Fougère. If Fougère was a plain bagel with olive cream cheese, an Aromatic Fougere would be an Everything bagel with a smear of herb infused cream cheese and a dash of pepper that fell from Mt. Olympus. Better yet, how about a real definition?
Aromatic Fougère: a derivative of this class (Fougère), that contains additional notes of herbs, spice and/or wood.
Fresco is a fine example of just this, an Aromatic Fougère containing Top Notes of Orange, Galbanum, Bergamot, Lime, Lemon, Lavender and Black Currant; Middle Notes of Rose, Cardamom and Lily-of-the-Valley; Base Notes of Patchouli, Opoponax, Cedar, Oakmoss and Ambergris. Herbaceous, Citrusy and Fresh; Spicy, Green, Mossy, Balsamic and Woody! Truly a beautiful accord to experience/live. As one reviewer said to me in private, 'Wearing Fresco is akin to wearing a classic 80's adventure flick.' -- And I have to agree!
"Fresco's scent touches all the bases! Knocks it out of the park!"~ Mark Szorady
Fresco really IS the scent of Epic Adventure; Vivid, Lively, Pulse-Pounding, and Explosive! Much like my hormones were at the time I discovered it, but more on that later. It's these very desirable attributes that make it so hard for many to believe that it is actually a forgotten, discontinued classic! No really, I have now been wearing this scent for months to the gym, especially the deodorant, and have had at least 4 different conversations about it by inquiring gym rats. (That's kinda like science.) -- My point is, Fresco, or it's namesake Fresh really resonates with more than a few, young and old...and for a good reason. Fresco Rocks!
Fresh Scent?
Fresco is our latest homage to a long lost Super Scent, 'Fresh Scent' by Old Spice. Do not confuse this for the stuff they currently sell under the same name or that other one, White Water (Sold in the UK). Fresh Scent, like the Original Old Spice, is another Shulton's Formulation that often flew under the radar it would seem...but not mine! Fresh Scent was not new to me. What I mean by that is, often, as a vintage aftershave collector, I will experience an old fragrance for the first time. That was not the case with Fresh Scent, Fresh and I go waaaaay back.
“It has that old school spicy vibe with a little more smoothness to it. Damnit I like it!”~ David Gonzalez, So Sharp David & Real Talk
The year was 1991 and I was a skinny, little freshman in high school. I was also an under-tipped, overworked paperboy, and though the late 80's and early 90's offered many "bold" and timely scents, I just couldn't afford them. Honestly, at 14 or 15 I'm not sure I was even really looking for a fragrance when I discovered Fresh Scent, just innocently Christmas shopping. As soon as I walked into CVS my eyes landed on that iconic red, maritime themed, Old Spice Aftershave Gift Set on the shelf. Like individual bottled messages from the Gods of Frag, there were 3 decanters tucked inside this cardboard chest; The Original Shulton's Old Spice in its traditional cream colored, porcelain bottle and smart grey plug positioned prominently dead center, but to each side of it like bookends, were two rather curious wonders! These bottles catching my fancy were similar in shape to the classic design, but instead of opaque earthenware, these vessels were clear and shimmery, like light dancing on the scales of an ancient sea creature! Needless to say the color of the liquid inside really popped, especially in the bright and festive holiday lights of the store. One contained an amber juice simply titled Musk, and the other offered a more mystifying blue fluid fittingly labeled, as I would find out later, Fresh Scent. The idea of 3 scents to choose from for under $10 was very appealing to my meager newsie budget. So scents unsmelled but visually intrigued, I grabbed the box off the shelf and continued with my shopping. I can't recall what else I purchased that day but looking back now, this was really a pivotal moment for me in terms of life choices. #TrueStory
Fresco Rouses The Senses
I gotta say I was not immediately a fan of the Original Old Spice at first, nor the musk, but boy oh boy, when I pulled the plug out of the top of that glowing blue bottle of Fresh Scent something changed inside me, it was love at first sniff. Up until that point I was only really familiar with Drakkar, Polo, Guess, and Jimmy'z from the locker rooms. My best friend was really a huge fan of Drakkar, it was his signature scent and he was prone to overuse it. I loved the guy but personally didn't care too much for the scent. Plus, it was like $35! But now with this sudden discovery of Fresh Scent everything changed! I sincerely believed it was a top contender in that adolescent world of head turning frags. It wasn't your daddy's aftershave splash, but mine. (Note: I was wrong about that daddy part it turns out...but you get the point.) -- With Christmas tips in hand, I promptly returned to the store the very next day and stocked up on Fresh Scent in cologne and aftershave form.
Like the all too basic name suggested, it certainly was Fresh...but oh so much more. In my mind, Old Spice Fresh Scent opened a portal into something possibly Lovecraftian, possessing a primal yet, dare I say cultured energy that I had not really experienced before in a product. The way it wore during the day was simply spellbinding. It playfully begged you to follow it throughout a fleeting, blue velvet labyrinth as it danced out of reach like an unspoken teenage crush! I say fleeting, because that was its achille's heel. The one thing the pricey perfume house colognes had on Fresh Scent was staying power. Even the green colored Fresh Scent cologne sold in other kits wasn't very long lasting. What a shame it was...but that didn't stop me. Like most young dudes, I kept it in my backpack and covertly reapplied the stuff throughout the day. Possibly over doing it myself. But again, this was mine, my own unique scent. At least in the age group I was in. Much to my embarrassment, there were more than a couple times a female classmate would turn around and accuse me of smelling like their dad. This often took the form of a cute girl that I may or may not have had a thing for, giving me a knowing look and mouthing the words "Old Spice". In shock that the opposite sex actually initiated contact with me, I would quietly mouth the word "Fresh Scent" and most certainly, awkwardly, nod while adrenaline flooded my system.
Now in my 40s, I thought the time had come to revisit Fresh Scent. It has been almost 30 years and I needed to know if it still stood up. Having had a short life span of about 6 years (88-94ish), its absence left a hole in my life. All that was left were the memories of the fragrance and how it made me feel like a Greek God at the time. [Is that too dramatic, I ask thee?] Did I dare revisit it, especially now that scents were my bread and butter? This is a lot like really enjoying a movie as a kid, so much so you continue recommending it for years to come even though you were 8 or 9 when you originally watched it. This is often a life lesson we all learn the hard way.
The movie Saturday The 14th is a fine example of this. At 8 I was convinced this was the height of cinematic excellence and I often spoke of it in conversation with fondness, sometimes even when it wasn't appropriate. THAT is how great of a film it was! Or at least that is how I remembered it. It would take years for me to sit down and watch it again and man, was it bad! REAL BAD. Seriously, promise me you won't ever watch that movie...but I digress.
I have to admit, at the age of 8 I had zero taste in flicks. Fast forward to 2019, I had been looking at a bottle of Fresh Scent on ebay for a couple days. A full, vintage NOS (new old stock) bottle...and all I could think of was Saturday The 14th. Was I gonna go down that same painful road again? But luckily for all of you, I had to know. Also luckily for you, these days my nose is a far better judge than my tastes in crappy b movies was way back then.
As soon as it arrived in the mail and I popped the top it was December 1991 all over again and I was standing in the small downstairs bathroom of the house I grew up in. The very same little bathroom my pops taught me how to shave in! But aside from that instant "Time Hop" of nostalgia that we can experience with classic frags there was still that lasting enchantment and intrigue. It was even more pronounced and shapely than I remembered. Granted my palette for scent has evolved slightly, Fresh Scent is still something special and worth saving! So, with an even greater appreciation for this short lived, overlooked drugstore aftershave splash, I could now safely say that Old Spice really just got their timing wrong by more than 35 years! Fresh Scent needed to be resurrected and once again I was on a mission to reboot an ancient god of schnoz! Seriously, I believe this Extremely Fresh, Herbaceous, Woody, Masculine, Aromatic Fougère is even more relevant now than ever before, and current modern classics owe oh so much to Fresh Scent! Fragrance, after all, is only an extension of style. If fashions come back, so should accords!
Fresh Scent = Fresco
Though perfect at any time of the year, Fresco will outshine them all this summer! Oh, and remember that Staying Power issue that the original had? Fixed it! And that my friends is, I believe, the role I was destined to play in the history of this particular iconic & EPIC lost olfactory darling of yore. You're welcome.
All that said, I would love to hear what you think about this gem of a scent that was almost lost to the unforgiving winds of time! Fresco is truly a head turning, swashbuckling lost treasure! (Or this is all the fevered expression of a man having a midlife crisis, but I think otherwise, at least one hopes.)
Aftershave Ingredients: Denatured Alcohol, Lavender Hydrosol, Essential/Fragrance Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Aloe Vera, Seaweed & Bayberry Extract, Fresh Galbanum Resin
100 ml (3.4 fl oz)
Soap Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Glycerin, Potassium Cocoate, Aqua, Potassium Kokumate, Sodium Lactate, Potassium Shea Butterate, Potassium Castorate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Cocoa Butterate, Potassium Avocadoate, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Theobroma Grandiflorum (Capuacu) Butter, Astrocaryum (Murumuru) Seed Butter, Platonia Insignis (Bacuri) Seed Butter, Parfum [Fragrance]
Soap Net Wt 4 oz (113 g)
External Use Only, Discontinue Use if Irritation Occurs
Handmade In Arizona, USA