Like a diligent n00b here, I read through the Uncle Albert's list. Completely. I laughed out loud at parts and filed a bunch away as useful tidbits. One gem struck me over and over: From: Uncle Albert's Amazing Super Colossal Compendium of Shaving Advice - Some good shaving advice mixed in with a touch of humor. 9. You’ll never know until you try it. Lilac Vegetal is a special aftershave splash. Many don’t like it. Some love it. Few are indifferent. You really owe it to yourself to try Lilac Vegetal at least once. It looks like antifreeze and it smells like skunk in the bottle. Don’t go by what you smell fresh from the bottle, however, it changes on the skin. If you are one of the fortunate few whose body chemistry works well with the green nectar, you will likely love the stuff. If, however, it doesn’t work for you, then you will smell like some sort of heinous chemical cocktail for the rest of the day. If you don’t try it out for yourself, though, you’ll never know and you’ll always wonder. A polarizing aftershave. Controversy. Drama. I had to know. I began the search for it and went to my old stand-by Amazon (translate: TSD did not have a listing). Cheap. Innocuous. Surely this was not the right stuff. I plunked down my bucks and set up camp by the mail box. It came Friday. My background is in nursing.... Critical care nurse for 8 years and now an APRN-C (nurse practitioner). I have seen and smelled horrifying things. Many times. Uncle A tried to warn me, bless his heart, he tried. I listened. I really did. But I was not prepared. Not even close. I opened the box and found a large, transparent bottle with a lovely green cap and white seal containing a green liquid, presumably the Lilac Vegetal in question. Safe guess based on the "Lilac Vegetal" label. I made my first mistake then. I tried to break the seal. I tried. It mocked me. I heard it laughing at my futility. I managed to loosen the cap. The horror began. I looked at the dogs, two large and one small, trying to identify the culprit assaulting my nose. They looked concerned and began to back away from me, noses in the air. The puppy whined a little. I felt moisture on my hands. I sniffed. I knew. I do not have the vocabulary required to describe the odor, but suffice it to say I did not enjoy the aroma. I was horrified. I was certain that someone played a cruel joke on me. I am not a huge fan of lilacs, but I do not mind them. If this smell represented lilacs, the species would have been killed off eons ago. I had other people in the house smell it. They found reasons to run and hide as the odor wafted toward them. I tried to wash it off. It clung like the smell of old, rotted stinkbait, only worse. Even the dogs avoided me. Like any self respecting male exposed to a bad smell, I double checked the source by sniffing the open neck of the bottle. Yep. Eau de Dead Skunk and Rotten Bait. Bad. The liquid is green for a reason... Apparently it became ill as well. Now I have been accused of being cheap. I prefer frugal, perhaps overly (or obssessively) so. I would not dare just throw something away for which I had paid my hard earned money. I also could not loose this monstrosity on the unsuspecting public. I would bite the bullet. Take one for the team. Insert clever euphemism here. I would use it. The next day, I did. The next morning, prior to my 12 hour clinic shift, I steeled myself to my accepted fate: I would smell worse than butt all day. My hope was that my patients might smell worse. I prepped with a hot towel and Shave Secret. I heated my makeshift scuttle and loaded up with warm Musgo Real and lathered away. I took a WHG pass and XHG pass after reloading on lather. Second shave with the '56 Fat Boy, not bad at all. Shocked with a cold towel. Invigorating. The Vegetal bottle glowered and taunted with its innocent label. I sighed and went for it. The smell had not improved. With the cap off, the opening in the top stared malevolently into me, defiant. I poured a modest amount into my hand and moistened the second one. I patted the poison onto my face. My skin devoured it. I allowed the 30 seconds for my nose to accomodate to the smell. I allowed a second 30 seconds out of necessity. I did not vomit. I left for work and something amazing happened. That foul ichor mutated. It grew subtle, complex. I started to like it. A lot. So did my co-workers and patients. I received compliments. It was astounding. I could not believe it. I put it on again this morning. Same reaction. I'm not certain how Pernod does it, but I am now a believer. As an added bonus, I now have a new training aid for the hounds.
Good description. Str8 from the bottle it is cat piss, but let it dry and it is a very nice thing indeed. And don't be confused with Master's vs. Clubman either. Master's is a completely different animal and smells ok both in and out of the bottle. Clubman is special in the way it has that feral animal urine in the bottle and early on but drying down to a nice mellow flowery scent. It is magic in a few ways I guess.
Mama Bears, Masters, Boosters in that order, Clubman isn't bad I used to use it but nothing really compares to Mama Bears Lilac.
Why is it now that the first thing I think when someone mentions cats is "The Veg?" More than two years ago, I would never have made the connection!
Truth can be learned from your own experiences. Wisdom can be learned for the experiences of others. From what others have said, I'll pass on The Veg.
I applaud your description, story, rant, etc. Very entertaining and a fantastic account of ones first experience with the sometimes praised and sometimes damnation of anything that one should willingly apply to ones body, much less, their face. As I read, it took me aback a few months to the very first time that I used this mysterious elixir. Since the first questionable decision to try this "old Timey" aftershave, I am too, a fan of the Vegetal. I admit, that I have on several occasions mixed a small dose of Master Lilac Vegetal along with the Clubman version. It helps that first 15 minutes of questioning yourself, "why? Why do I keep doing this to myself and my loved ones?", only to have them walk past you 30 minutes later and have them say,"MMMM, what is that? It smells great!" And, WELCOME to The Shave Den!
Ahh The Veg,the first time I tried it the local villagers were carrying torches and they chased me to a windmill.They threatened to burn me and what they called my monsterous creation if I wore it again.I hid my bottle of The Veg and vowed to try it again.Last Tuesday I wore The Veg and something happened,I shook the bottle up and the Panther urine smell was gone,I put it on.It smelled great.SWMBO complimented my choice of aftershave,the local villagers cheered all was well in the world.Maybe it was the 444 I mixed with it but I now wear The Veg proudly.
I'm not a Vegetal fan myself. If it's a nice floral lilac scent you're looking for try Stephans Lilac or Humphreys Lilac Witch Hazel. Of course the odor in the witch hazel won't last long and Stephans isn't a true aftershave so using them together kind of gets the job done. Best of all...no cat urine reminders.
444 is a mentholated aftershave balm that you mix with your favorite splash,witch hazel,or even water.It has little or no scent of it's own,and a small dot is all you need.
