Original fragrance
Schultz worked with perfumer Bert Hauck at Dodge & Olcott to create Early American Old Spice, which was marketed as a women's fragrance. They began with a scent Hauck had already developed, then refined it by adding notes until it evoked Schultz's memory of his grandmother's spice jug. The finished fragrance is categorized as a spicy amber on the modern fragrance wheel, with notes of rose petals and cloves. Shulton launched Early American Old Spice in 1937. Hauck developed Old Spice as a variation of Early American Old Spice to be marketed to men. Like Early American, it is an amber fragrance but it has citrus notes:
Top notes: Notably orange; also aldehydes, allspice, clary sage, lemon, lime, and star anise
Middle notes: Notably cinnamon and clove; also bay leaf, geranium, heliotrope, jasmine, nutmeg, pimento berry, and rose
Base notes: Notably vanilla and musk; also amber, benzoin, cedarwood, olibanum, and tonka bean
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Perfumers have noted that Old Spice shares dominant notes with Coca-Cola (citrus, cinnamon, and vanilla), as well as l'Eau de Lubin (1798) by Parfums Lubin.
In response to a customer review in 2019, Old Spice stated that the Original After Shave scent was changed in 2016 'to comply with new regulations.'
Bottle and packaging
Artist Enid Edson designed the original packaging. For Early American Old Spice, her inspiration was Zeruah H. Huernsey Caswell's hand-embroidered carpet displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For Old Spice, her inspiration was Colonial-era apothecary bottles. A.E. Hull Pottery Company developed the first aftershave and cologne bottles, which were made of white pottery with hand-painted drawings of the Grand Turk privateer used during the American Revolutionary War. In about 1948, a second ship drawing was added: the 1794 Recovery Salem. The bottles were packaged in cardboard boxes that had drawings of five different ships. In the mid-1940s, the packaging changed from pottery to glass. Wheaton Glass Company developed the glass, which had the luster of pottery.
In the 1990s, after Proctor & Gamble bought the fragrance line, they made other changes: the sailing ship was replaced by a sailboat; the glass bottles of eau de toilette and after shave had a plastic button as a cap; and its color was changed from light gray to white in 1992. In 2008, the white glass bottles gave way to plastic and the gray stoppers to red.
Old Spice's buoy-shaped bottle cologne or aftershave is available in its original scent as well as Pure Sport.
Ships
Almost all of the vessels named on Old Spice packaging correspond to real ships, most of which are drawn from Salem, Massachusetts's historic merchant fleet, with a smaller number honoring famous U.S. Navy frigates and 19th-century racing yachts; only after Procter & Gamble's 1990 acquisition of the brand did the packaging shift to an unnamed, generic sailboat/yacht logo. Paintings of many of these ships are in the Peabody Essex Museum, which holds the collection of the former Peabody Museum of Salem.
Expanded line
In the 1970s, Old Spice shifted from being a shaving brand to a fragrance brand by introducing signature scents like Old Spice Burley.
Throughout the 2000s, Procter & Gamble introduced many forms of deodorant, body washes, and body sprays in several scents under the Old Spice name. In early 2008, the original Old Spice scent was repackaged as "Classic Scent", both in the aftershave and cologne versions. Old Spice Classic shower gel was sold using the slogan "The original. If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."
In 2006, Old Spice introduced a fragrance, OS Signature.
In 2014, Old Spice expanded its product line-up to men's haircare by introducing shampoos, two-in-one shampoo and conditioners, and styling products.
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