The Full Twelve Rounds: Everlast Original 1910

It was briefly tempting to use a whole whack of boxing metaphors when talking about Everlast Original 1910, but I managed to resist the urge.

I can't even talk about the fragrance proper anyway, because I haven't tried it. I was ordering a bunch of things from Sephora and I decided on a whim to get the shower gel, mostly because I was captivated by the packaging; instead of a big tube or bottle, the 200 mL of shower gel is divided into 10 20-mL bottles in a clear plastic case, and the little bottles seemed like the perfect thing to toss into a gym bag. Unfortunately, the tops snap off and the bottles aren't resealable, so there goes the gym-bag idea. Still: great packaging! (As you can see from the above photo, the bottles nest together in the box; each has a deep indentation in the bottom into which the top of the bottle below it fits.) I'm a sucker for an attractive or inventive bottle.*

As we'd expect from a shower gel, what we mostly get are top notes; there's no time for subtlety, because most of it's getting washed down the drain in a matter of minutes if not seconds. The first thing that hits your skin as the product foams up--and it's very low-foam, no heaps of lather here--is an explosion (not too strong a word) of lemon and an exceedingly herbal lavender. Officially, there are other citrus notes in there (mandarin and grapefruit), but this is a very lemony scent. If you leave it on long enough, which I did just to see if it would develop, a mildly spicy note is added to the mix, which according to the official list of notes contains nutmeg and cinnamon.

As I've noted before, more expensive brands of shower gel leave more scent on your skin, and this one certainly does, enough that I don't feel the need to apply any kind of scent. Half an hour later I can smell a halo of that original herbal freshness plus a small but distinct woody patchouli note, which surprised me; it really does seem as if the entire fragrance has been duplicated, right down to the base notes. I love that, and now I'm curious about the scent itself, which I suppose I'll have to hunt down.


* The award for cleverest high-end shower-gel packaging ever, though, goes to Givenchy's Pi. II haven't seen it in a long time, but when the scent first came out, the line included a dehydrated shower gel in three foil pouches: you added warm water and sloshed it around to reactivate it. It was of a piece with the brand's original astronaut advertising and it was completely brilliant. Of course I bought it!