Big bottles of Aqua Velva??

GOOD THINKING

Fuzzy

 

Whew, where to begin...

Ok, the big 14.5 oz plastic bottle of Aqua Velva is Williams "barber shop" formula. It's the industrial grade which skimps out on pure menthol and substitutes Panthenol for cooling effect. This is not "genuine" AV. If you're paying anywhere near the same price for it as you would for two 7 oz bottles at Wal-Mart, you're getting ripped off.

And it was I who first posted the news over at B&B about Williams (Combe) planning on going to plastic. What happened was that a couple of other members PM'd me and told me what they were told by Combe regarding the plastic rumor. I called and their rep verified that they were indeed going to plastic, within the next 12 months. No big deal- unless you want the cheap industrial grade floating around and love flimsy plastic bottles that don't keep.

After a decent amount of phone calls and emails, Williams started telling people that they were indeed staying with the glass bottle formulation. I wrote back to Combe and here's the transcript of the correspondence:

Dear sirs or madams,

I spoke to you last week over the phone where I was informed that you were going to be switching to plastic bottles for the Classic AV. After announcing online your intentions, it has now been brought to my attention that you are sticking to glass. Please let me know what your intentions are involving the Aqua Velva line.

Mr. ,

Thank you for your interest in the Aqua Velva line of mens grooming products. We were flooded with consumer concern over the proposed switch, and as such have put all plans for re-packaging on hiatus.

Please let us know if we can be any help to you again in the future.

So no, it was not a rumor. Williams/Combe had definite plans to go plastic, probably to the same formula they use for their economy blend. (FWIW, the big plastic bottle AV is pretty much the same thing that is available in a lot of store brand Aqua Velva, which Williams supplies to chain stores in a "dumbed down" blend. If you get a generic bottle of AV at Krogers, Walgreens or CVS it's a pretty safe bet that it was manufactured by Williams, and it's not too big a stretch to suggest that this is what "new" AV would most likely emulate.)

The reason AV would have to be reformulated in plastic is because of the inherent weaknesses of plastic. When it comes to fragrance, some EOs are substituted for synthetic substitutes which don't stain the plastic and "keep" longer than their genuine counterparts would in plastic. Second, certain chemicals that "bond" or "attack" plastic are substituted such as menthol for panthenol, glycerin for propylene glycol, etc. Some alcohol types sit well in plastic, other types- not so much. The bottom line is that almost no fragrance makes the transition from glass to plastic without a tweaking of the formula. The rep at Williams told me that from what she gathered, they were having the same lab that handled Lectric Shave's transition to plastic- which most assuredly meant that the menthol would be cut by 2/3 and substituted for prop. glycol.

Now onto AV history. Don't believe the myth that what we now know as Ice Blue is some crazy thing that got introduced in the mid-50's. That's a half truth. Aqua Velva was introduced in 1928 as a mouthwash. People started using it as an Aftershave almost immediately, so the marketing department went to work "re-imagining" the brand and its uses. Aqua Velva at that time was a golden amber color, and due to the alcohol content was a favorite target of drunks and people that couldn't purchase liquor in their area.

Aqua Velva, being so popular in its moonlighting gig as a cheap whiskey, started a near epidemic of drunken servicemen during WWII. Soldiers were issued one 6 oz bottle of Aqua Velva upon deployment, and often wound up drunk once they hit the trenches. To combat the drinking problem, Uncle Sam asked Williams if they would be so kind as to reformulate the liquid so that it would be undesirable as a spirit. AV turned blue, and Benzophenone was added not as a UV protectant, but as a bittering agent to discourage consumption. Legend has it that government propaganda of the day spread the rumor that "blue" AV was poison, and that if you drank it you would die.

Stateside civilians still got plain old brown AV, until 1956. Tired of manufacturing two different blends of AV, one for government use and one for public use, Williams decided that the "blue" AV would become the standard. So instead of just throwing out the blue onto unsuspecting consumers, Williams marketed it as a "new" product, with a brand new ad campaign, a bottle re-design, and a new "Ice Blue" moniker. It was the exact same product as the brown AV, but the new color helped boost sales and push AV past its chief competitor, Skin Bracer.

(Foreign markets sold both "brown" and "blue" side by side until the 70's. The original name for Aqua Velva was Viva Tonal, which Williams couldn't use in the US because Columbia records held the trademark to that name. It was sold elsewhere as Viva Tonal, so when Williams introduced the "Blue" to the US, the foreign subsidiaries started importing it from the US to sell right along with Viva Tonal.)

I can say unequivocally that the blue and the brown are exactly the same scent because I own some pre-WWII brown and post WWII blue, and the essence is exactly the same. I haven't tried a test taste yet, but I'm positive the brown would go down much smoother.

 

Excellently informative post!! Thank you for the info!!

 

Thanks for spearheading the effort to save AV. I think I'll celebrate by buying a bottle!

 

Not a problem! Hey, I've got to put my analytical nerdiness to good use every once in awhile...

 

Here, here. I second the motion. I have only 1.75oz left. Off to the drug store I go!!

Tim

 

Nice work ClubmanRob. If I'm not careful you'll take over my gig here in the AS forum!

I find it curious that the large bottle of AV is a different formula than the smaller bottle. I saw the larger bottles recently on a store shelf. I'm going to check the ingredients list next time I hit the store.

Thanks again. Good job. :happy088

 

I'm still confused. Why would anybody want to use AV? Why is it still produced? Why does it smell like radiator urine?

 

Shep, I believe the dude is talking about the jugs you can get online. The glass bottles they sell at most places come in two sizes, one of which is 7 ounces. That is pretty big by some standards.............

 

There's the door to this thread, pal. Go start a thread about whatever other A/S you enjoy and keep the peanut gallery comments out of this one.

 

Sorry that you have no taste..

Fuzzy