1763 Aqua Value

So the other day I heard an ad for Aqua Velva. And I thought They still make Aqua Velva? How many cheap drugstore chains have closed in the time they've been carrying that stinkwater?
Excuse me, eau de cologne.
Aqua Velva is one of those names that invokes a past filled with Vic Tanny health clubs, Lucky Strike cigarettes and Trix cereal with only three flavors.
Aqua Velva was to 60s teenagers and young men what Axe is today. A super-scent for the nasally impaired. Strong enough to cut through the self-generated scents of cigarettes, stale Buckhorn beer, and copious amounts of sweat. A man's cologne for a man's man... Or what a man's man thought a man's man should be.
Aqua Velva was first. Long before Polo, Aramis, Giorgio for Men and Drakkar Noir.
Aqua Velva, where Mad Men marketers smoothly employed that pseudo-Roman cachet. "Aqua" for an Italian shade of blue and "Velva," signifying velour, velvet, Volvos… or possibly Velveeta cheese.
Aqua Velva pioneered the way to signature male scents. No more only Old Spice, Aqua Velva entered the Father's Day lists, along with ties, I.D. bracelets, meerschaum pipes, Borkum Riff tobacco, and, um, neck chains.
Men with necklaces---how daring.
It was the precursor to Brut. The cologne with a little neck chain of its own on the bottle. Brut cologne, occupying that fine cusp of the American cultural eras between disco and karaoke.
Broadway Joe Namath. Charlie's Angels. Tequila Sunrises. Harvey Wallbangers, they all merge like a splash of Brut joining the stench engendered by hours dancing in tight unbreathing doubleknit polyester.
Brut and Aqua Velva.
For the man sensitive to his inner lounge lizard.
And now, apparently, the nostalgic boomer taking his aqua Viagra.
America, ya gotta love it.