British Sterling

The more fragrances I collect, the more I confirm for myself my initial impression of British Sterling. It's fantastic! BS is the king of drugstore colognes, IMO. Every time I wear it, it's character changes. Sometimes it's a spicy amber, sometimes it's a soapy barbershop, at other times it's a mossy herbal fougere. It's cheap smelling, it's elegant, it's working class and it's smells's better than it's price. It's a friggin chameleon. There are merits to both the current formulation and the vintage. The current has been "freshened up". The "herbal stank" of the oakmoss has been cleared away, not by choice. The current one smells, well, more current. The vintage has more depth and more longevity; albeit in a more retro way. The one complaint I would have about the splash is that the aftershave and the cologne are both cologne aftershaves, basically the same longevity. However, I think they smell different. The aftershave is more herbal, the cologne is more spicy and sweet. Together, they make a complete scent. I have noticed the same quality in Brut. The aftershave has more base notes and the cologne has the heart and the top notes. ***IMPORTANT UPDATE: I don't know why fragrance houses do this, but the splash cologne and spray versions are VERY DIFFERENT. This is true with Royal Copenhagen, Stetson and British Sterling. BS cologne spray is far stronger than even the vintage Speidel formulation. It has much more depth and stronger top notes and has a helluva lot more longevity. I would advise all of you who wear Sterling to get a 2.5 oz spray from ebay. I have two bottles that lack the silver plastic shoulder piece. It's almost eau de parfum stength. GET IT!!!

Grandad!!! This was him, rest his soul. He was the king of the drug store scents, he had them all: Stetson, Brut, Canoe, Old Spice, Aspen, English Leather, Aqua Velva, Skin Bracer, hahaah...but this I remember more than any of them, and if I remember correctly, this was pretty much grandad's signature choice. I'm so glad I ran across this! Man, this one gets me so nostalgic! I took sellersburg 's advice and bought me a spray bottle of this old-school gem. It should be here in a couple of days, I can't wait to re-live the memories of being fourteen and sneaking a splash or two of this from grandad's medicine cabinet before church, or just to take it out and smell it when the urge hit me; British Sterling always had this really hip, classy, and fairly mellow feel to it; it's one of those more subtle yet highly pleasant aromatics that has 'Gentleman' written all over it. The last time I got a whiff of this magic was about 20 years ago, and I'm sure that, due to the inevitable reformulation every now and then, this juice I'm getting soon probably won't be nearly as good as I remember it, but I do have high hopes! If you're reading this, and you've never smelt British Sterling, I implore you to at least get a 2 ml spray sample from ebay and treat yourself. There are even sample decants of this from vintage bottles online for under $10 if you look for them. You may think it's dated, but it's certainly timeless. Heck, you might be the hip dude to bring it back in style, you never know!

I feel like many of my reviews start out with "So I was at Kmart, Wal-Mart, CVS and was sniffing the frags..." (Hey Big Spender!) Anyways, I was at Kmart sniffing the frags and nothing that I didn't already have was tickling my fancy (mostly dreadful celebu-scents). I came to the British Sterling and someone opened the packaging (wasn't me...). BS is one I've been wanting to check out. Sprayed some...this is the kind of scent I really like in masculine scents. It might not be a fashionable scent but there's a group of men's scents, usually fougeres that smell like smoothness to me (I know, it sounds weird but it's the only way I can describe that smell) - Pinaud's Clubman, Brut, and Habit Rouge have that smooth note (does anyone know what that is? Please let me know.) I think it's either coumarin/tonka bean or benzoin or some combination thereof. I just love that scent and British Sterling has it too. I got a great big jug of it for like 10.00 with coupons. Longevity is very good. The teenaged check-out clerk (a boy) said I smelled terrific and I said - "that's the British Sterling, isn't it delicious?" He said he'd have to go get himself a bottle too! P.S. In case you haven't noticed Gents, the reviews from the Ladies are very positive - take heed!

Epic Journey Into the Bottled Yonder, 065 ------------------------------------------------------- Purchased July 2017 Amazing stuff. Don't know how something that smells like a cross between Fragonard Zizanie, Bogart, and Quorum/Polo yet actually is a cheap scent. You gotta get this smooth, creamy, lemonade/spicy green beast. Careful with the glass, it's fragile and I only know because my first attempted shipment of this was destroyed before it reached me. The bubble wrapping was good except for the bottle and to this day I still don't know how the hell that happened, was a reputable shop too. British Sterling is very much leather and earth. Edit: After 4 or 5 sprays the mids and/or bottom becomes cloying of oakmoss. Not necessarily "cheap" but very overpowering and just too much. Like the worst of the old days. Not everything was perfect back then but I think I've recently realised oakmoss isn't such a favourite as I thought, though perhaps I'm finally learning and maturing/refining my sense of smell as I go on with this brutally expensive hobby. Takes a whole lotta cash to make steps and leaps.

Here's a chestnut for Thanksgiving: good ole British Sterling, born in England and raised in...Rhode Island? Yep, this was actually produced for much of its life in Providence, RI by Speidel, and it graced the dresser (or bureau, as we say in New England) of many a working-class man. Sensible, delightful, British Sterling is simple and effective by design, front-loaded with citrus, spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon, and anchored with a mossy, ambery base. My Dad, a guitarist who played in traditional Irish folk groups all through my childhood, would often smell like this before he'd head out for a gig (he too had it as part of his repertoire). I get flashbacks of his Peavey amp, his cable knit sweaters, and his rollicking rendition of "Whiskey in the Jar." Whack fall the daddy-o, whack fall the daddy-o! Herein lies another example of the power of scent to transport us through time and connect us with the memories and the people dear to us.

Today I am wearing VINTAGE Speidel British Sterling. If you have forgotten how great this smells, let me remind you. I am old enough to remember when all the boys wore this scent and it was my introduction into men's colognes. It was practically mandatory for guys to have a bottle and everyone wore it. Because it was sooooooo goooood! No one cared that everyone smelled the same because we loved the fragrance and it was what we wanted to smell - just like we all wanted to drive Mustangs with the top down! Recently I sampled a bottle I saw in a store, and it is so different as to not be British Sterling. Disappointed, I then bought a vintage bottle on Ebay by the company that made it originally. It turned the radio back up in the convertible!

I bought a mini bottle last year as part of a Dana gift set for my fiancé. I have also "borrowed" British Sterling from him on occasion. This is indeed a "spicy, bitter citrus" type fragrance, with that "smooth" barbershop undertone that I find very appealing in men's fragrances. There is just a hint of leather and musk towards the drydown. I would describe this scent as rather sophisticated. British Sterling is not a powerhouse men's cologne, hence it is suitable for work when applied lightly, but is also good for evening with a heavier application. Longevity and sillage are on the low end of moderate.

I bought this on a lark when K-Mart was closing up their local store. The bottle was literally dusty and quite a bargain. This is a fragrance whose drydown will amaze you because it is nothing like the top notes. At first, it smells green and perfumey and old school. But, the drydown is warm and cinnamony and timeless in my opinion. It is also powdery as most classic fragrances tend to be, but I like powdery. I wonder how many guys have scrubbed this off within the first ten minutes without ever smelling its full development.

I'd say in the day when British Sterling was more popular it's other contenders (in price range) were Aspen and Iron by Coty.For people who wanted more dimension to their scent and just couldn't adapt to English Leather.Very woodsy in my opinion though don't confuse that perspective with juniper used for gin or pine-sol.Seems to be a blend of leather and musk behind while the spice trails in and out.Just my opinion but I'd rather be gifted with a bottle of British Sterling than Drakkar Noir.

I have bottles of the AS and EdT and use them both all year. I prefer the AS a little more because it is brighter and has an edge that the EdT doesn't have, also I have noticed that the AS has just as much if not a little more longevity than the EdT. I think both smell great and are worth having in your collection.

British Sterling A fragrance for the upscale man who still hordes cases of the cheapest grocery store beer and yells at the TV after knocking back 12 cans. He's got a good wife, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to steal a kiss from the lady in his office. He's a British Sterling man.

Very classy. I realized this reminds me VERY much of Dior's Eau Sauvage parfum, the dark green liquid. Very masculine with the spicy bitter citrus. There is a distinct cinnamon note that blends very well, in a spicy harmony.

As a young girl in my debutante days, I worked on what must have been one of the first department store ‘Men’s Counters’ ever created. It was a counter on the fringe of the women’s cosmetic department, and was supposed to appeal to men. We sold leather encased manicure sets, shoe polishing kits, and half a dozen men’s colognes, along with shave cremes and other cremes guaranteed to grow, or at least thicken hair. British Sterling was one of the ones that had been elevated to the counter from the pharmacy department. The stock consisted of British Sterling, Hermes’ Equipage, Canoe, Brut, Royal Copenhagen, and the just arriving and top selling Aramis. Old Spice, Hai Karate, and English Leather were left behind in the drug department (where they deservedly remain till this day). The next big splash in men’s cologne was Polo by Ralph Lauren. Men didn’t darken the counter and we sold all of our wares to their wives, sisters, mothers or girlfriends for every special occasion under the sun. At Christmas time I sold enough Brut to fill a swimming pool! Even as men’s cologne found it’s footing, I could never have imagined more than 100 versions of cologne in the entire world. It would have boggled my mind. I took the money from that job, went to university, and found a job that would keep me in every and any type of EDT and perfume I could possibly imagine for the rest of my life.

For years in stores I would spray some on myself thinking that it was classy somehow (I was subject to the marketing from my youth: "So fine a gift it's even sold in jewelry stores") and my wife would report, "I like it. It's okay." But no Mmmmmmmmmmmm from her like I got with Antaeus, Santos, Bel Ami or Tuscan Leather. So last year I got myself a little bottle of it at a colossal discount store in North Carolina off I-95; I may have paid $3! I'm wearing it today, as it turns out. karlovonamesti nails it: "A cheap, hollow forgettable fougere." Yeah, that's my opinion, too. I don't like it and I don't dislike it. Just sort of "meh." I have moved on. I suppose I might say that it represents a sort of absolute minimum of acceptability for a men's fragrance. Any lower than shalt I not go. (Actually - I can't see myself ever wearing this ever again. There are far too many better scents out there.)

Decanted my 17 ml EDC sample from 2016 into a spray bottle. I was genuinely surprised at how smooth and pleasant this scent is. Given the price point and inevitable reformulations, I had zero expectations. Color me impressed. Longevity is only a few hours. I think that is reasonable given the cost. The quality of the scent, already well described by prior reviewers, belies its price. This is barbershop, but to my nose it's not the dry and powdery-vanilla Canoe/Brut kind. It's "dry citrus" with a hint of tobacco-ey leather and spices; at once refreshing, masculine, and an antithesis to the ambroxan bombs currently in vogue. Sillage is moderate-plus while it lasts, important to be aware of with an assertive scent such as this. British Sterling is more than worth a try, whether someone is on a budget or not. It may be from the 60s, but has a lot more than just nostalgia going for it.

Sweet, green, spicy and aggressive, this has a lot of the old clean-cut professional-smelling aftershave air about it, which appealed to me for a while. I guess this is how straight-shooting businessmen were meant to smell around the office in simpler days gone by, and I'm sure many actually did. I could live without the anisy note in this stuff, as well as whatever is pepperminty; these together stopped me from fully liking BS in the end. The main caveat with this one is that it has a tiny nagging sour note that occasionally pokes its head out. I had a plastic bottle of BS once, and it got very sour over time from this, which probably wouldn't have happened with the 2nd (glass) bottle, but I always felt like it was on the verge of starting up again. It really doesn't need to be so darkly colored either, but at least it doesn't stain like Old Spice.

The original formula of British Sterling was subtle, classy, yet not overly formal, and it sill holds up today. I can't speak for any of the reformulations, but the original had a fresh lavender/citrus opening that included some floral notes (lilac?), transitioning into a spicy middle that undoubtedly includes carnation as well as clove, nutmeg and cinnamon. It is a sweet-spicy oriental in the mode of Zizanie, Old Spice or Evyan's The Baron (though I'll take British Sterling over the Baron any time!) Originally distributed by Speidel, the watchband maker, it was touted as "so fine a gift, it's sold in jewelry stores," and one could get a set of initials engraved onto the metal top of the bottle. It wasn't until years later that it was downmarketed to turn up in drugstores.

Light, bright, spicy, but I'm not sure when I'd wear it. It's not that it's bad, it certainly isn't, and as much as Giorgio For Men resembles it (since that classic arrived over 10 years later) there's something about British Sterling which, for me, just doesn't fit. I can only guess it's all the nutmeg. Btw, it layers very interestingly with Giorgio. It makes both mutate into something completely different from either alone, boosting the citruses, ambers, and the patchouli. EDIT: the above was in reference to recent British Sterling. Just obtained a sealed bottle of Speidel's version, and it is better.

British Stirling... ...it is one of those 60s colognes like Brut that are still around today....and for a good reason. They are genuinely good. They are no frills fragrances that don't offend anyone. After applying you notice a brief black licorice accord which is very pleasant ( if you like licorice that is) and no citrus at all. The scent turns into a warm, cozy and slightly soft powdery and spicy scent. It is very pleasant. It lasts for what can be expected from a cologne. If you splash some in your hand, rub them together and glide through your hair. That way the scent lasts longer.

I have recently gotten into colognes and dug up a bottle of this what I've had in the cabinet for probably 20+ years. Of all the nostalgia scents, this one is still fairly wearable. It starts with a light citrus, but, quickly melds into a spiced cedar and light leather and finally ends up with amber, oakmoss and spicy cinnamon. This certainly isn't for everyone and I understand the reformulation from Dana is quite cheap and horrible; however, the version I have is still quite decent. Yes, it is a fougere...but, that's what you'd expect from the era this came from.