Some Facts About Old Spice

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  • Old Spice is named for the reassuring, nostalgic fragrance of this invigorating perfume made with spices.
  • Old Spice, the world’s best selling men’s fragrance, was originally a perfume for women. In 1934, William Lightfoot Shultz founded the Shulton Company and, in 1937, he created Early American Old Spice based on his memory of his mother’s rose jar, which held a combination of roses, cloves, herbs, and other spices.
  • In 1938, Shultz introduced Old Spice for Men, featuring the famous colonial clipper ship on the bottle. In keeping with the aftershave’s nautical theme, the Old Spice bottle, originally made from pottery, was designed to look like a buoy out at sea.
  • During World War II, American soldiers, needing to protect their skin from infection after shaving on the battlefield, were issued Old Spice Aftershave. When they returned home, many former G.I.s continued using Old Spice—pleased by the crisp, clean, masculine scent and invigorating tingle.
  • The iconic porcelain Old Spice bottle was produced in Belgium and colored with Egyptian sand.
  • The original ships featured on Old Spice bottles were the Grand Turk and the Friendship. Other ships used on Old Spice packaging include the Wesley, Salem, Birmingham and Hamilton.
  • In 1992, Procter & Gamble replaced the clipper ship on the Old Spice bottle with a Sailboat/Yacht logo.
  • Actor John Bennett Perry, father of Friends star Matthew Perry, starred as the sailor in Old Spice commercials in the 1970s.
  • On The Tonight Show in 2007, Jay Leno joked, “Old Spice? Isn’t that who David Beckham is married to?”
  • In 2008, Procter & Gamble switched from the classic Old Spice bottle to three sizes of shatter-resistant polyethylene terephthalate bottles, with the same porcelain-like appearance of the iconic Old Spice bottle. The bottle retains its original shape, as a beacon of consistency in an ever-changing world.
  • In 2008, comedian Will Ferrell starred in commercials for Old Spice, playing his character Jackie Moon from the comedy movie Semi-Pro. In the commercials, Ferrell calls Old Spice “the finest street-legal antiperspirant you can get outside of Mexico that’s not poisonous.”

RIP Brian Mulroney

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Brian Mulroney, the prime minister whose trade talks with the United States and introduction of a new sales tax forever reshaped the Canadian economy, has died. The former lawyer, businessman & politician was 84. Mulroney became prime minister in 1984 when his Progressive Conservatives won 211 seats in the House of Commons — the largest margin of victory for a political party in Canadian history and a feat that has never been repeated. Mulrooney serve as the 18th prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993.

Born in the eastern Quebec city of Baie-Comeau, Mulroney studied political science and law. He then moved to Montreal and gained prominence as a labour lawyer. After placing third in the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership election, he was appointed president of the Iron Ore Company of Canada in 1977. He held that post until 1983, when he successfully became leader of the Progressive Conservatives. A self-professed “failed crooner” who made $50 a pop for singing ballads at his hometown’s paper mill, Mulroney’s unrelenting ambition won him friends among some of the most powerful leaders of his generation, but also made enemies of countless Canadians who scorned what they saw as his obsession with his own image and that of his legacy.

After law school, Mulroney found work as a labour lawyer in Montreal and there, at age 33, he met then-18-year old Mila Pivnicki, spying her at the Mount Royal Tennis Club one weekday afternoon. They would marry two years later and go on to have four children — Caroline, Ben, Mark and Nicolas — and 15 grandchildren. Caroline Mulroney is now a minister in Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government.