If you read many reviews, eventually you come across guys who insist some bottles will need "aired" before the juice inside smells like it's supposed to. That can mean leaving the cap off for awhile, or giving a new sprayer a dozen pumps and letting it rest before using it (I think we all know to air out decants from plastic to glass but that's a little different). The only time I had to do this with an new glass bottle was Agua Brava. At first all I got was that bomb of kitchen spices and pine. Pino Silvestre and Ragu. It was awful. I've never pitched a new bottle of anything before but I came really close. But after giving it a dozen pumps and leaving it alone for a over a week....it's still not going to be a favorite but NOW it matches the basenotes pyramid and is weekend wearable. How often, if ever, have you found airing improved the first whiff?
my new bottle 0f 1995 vintage aqua velva iced sport may benefit,smells like neat alcohol with a bit of fragrance in the background..the aftershave is worse.dumped it already and reused the bottle for current av sport..
Aftershaves are so relatively weak to begin with, a 30 year old bottle could well have faded a lot, especially if it was ever stored hot. Avons, though, seem indestructible.
I don't like to say it, because I like the product so well overall, but pretty much every Stirling shave soap I've had, whether trial size or full size, benefitted a great deal from 'airing out' a while. The scents change from the initial opening of a 'sealed' container, and mellow out quite a lot. Airing out changed Duke, for example, from so abhorrent I truly don't know why I didn't just toss it the moment I got it (it was a trial size) to being rather nice after just sitting under the sink for a couple weeks without the plastic being broken. Others have taken only a few days or a week, but the principle is operative.
With Aqua Velva, as great and classic as it is, it takes the length of the entire shave just to get a decent amount of the aftershave into your hand. (Mine, anyway).
Course if you have to worry about the "downwind" persuasion, it might blow right back in your face(which wouldn't be such a bad thing