One of the stock answers I provide to someone who doesn’t live near a place to buy fragrance is to go to their drugstore. When people think of the points of sale for fragrance, they often forget the local drugstore. These are very commercial economic choices. That does not mean poor. There are lots of the perfumes on those shelves that have made this column over the years. I’m going to add Aspen for Men to the roster.
Aspen for Men came out in 1989. It was part of the turning of the men’s fragrance tide towards fresh. All the companies were vying for their place within the category. As we know eventually the aquatic based ones would win the day. Back then that was still undecided. If there was a style that was giving those aquatics a run for supremacy it was the fresh woody. In most of those cases the fresh wood of choice was fir or pine. The terpenes which define the scent profile are refreshing which made it easy for perfumers to build around them. Harry Fremont was the man behind Aspen for Men. Just as it was with the competition the idea was to capture the sensation of mountain hillside under the sunshine.
Harry Fremont
Lemon with some mint form the high-altitude sunlight accord. This is typical of these open-air top notes. The fir trees come forth wreathed in the green of galbanum. This is like being surrounded by evergreens. Combined with the top notes it is a very pleasant experience. It finishes with oakmoss, amber, and musk to add in just a hint of that lumberjack aesthetic.
Aspen for Men has 6-8 hour longevity and average sillage.
You can find a bottle of this for less than $10.00 right on the corner where you pick up your prescriptions. As I revisited this I wondered if I would have liked it as much on re-examination if it had won the fresh war of the 90’s. It didn’t. Thirty years later it is still fresh as fir.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
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