Felix Steiner's aftershave

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Ian Hulley
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#16

Post by Ian Hulley » 04 Feb 2013, 19:42

PiretBCN wrote: Yes, I also think it's a valid and serious question. It got mentioned in Degrelle's book (the book was about military matters).
I think much of what is written in Degrelle's book needs perfume (or cologne) to cover the smell of B.S., from what I'm lead to believe for the most part it's neither valid or serious.

Ian

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Helmut0815
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#17

Post by Helmut0815 » 04 Feb 2013, 20:56

Frech wrote:4711 was and is used by grannys. I don´t think Steiner did ....
In WWII and before 4711 was not considered as a granny perfume. 4711 and other Eau de Cologne was widely used by Wehrmacht soldiers and officers, e.g. mentioned in this article about snipers.
Sie versuchten sich Nachts den deutschen Linien zu nähern, in der Dunkelheit waren es häufig möglich sich von dem Duft des "Eau de Cologne" leiten zu lassen, dass viele deutsche Offiziere benutzen.
However a real aftershave was TARR, invented in 1931, so Steiner may have used this.


regards


Helmut


PiretBCN
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#18

Post by PiretBCN » 05 Feb 2013, 00:02

Helmut0815 wrote:
However a real aftershave was TARR, invented in 1931, so Steiner may have used this.
Does this TARR still exist? What did it smell like?

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Helmut0815
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#19

Post by Helmut0815 » 05 Feb 2013, 00:13

Yes, it still exists but it's only available in pharmacies or in internet stores like amazon, I never seen it in supermarkets. I have no idea how it smells.

regards


Helmut

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Annelie
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#20

Post by Annelie » 05 Feb 2013, 00:21

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread ... Aftershave

This link will show what the ingredients are.

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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#21

Post by tolhurst » 05 Feb 2013, 17:54

Re: the OT idea, if I may without derailing the topic [but this also informs the topic] , tinned dog food did not exist widely as such in Britain - was Manchester's "Chappie" the only brand when bought by Mars in 1934? - until the 1950s when it was introduced on a big scale using advances in sterilisation and canning technology by Mr. Mars (as in "Bars") and marketed by Murray Walker, subsequently known as the BBC's "Voice of Motorsport". Until then, dogs had eaten scraps. Murray Walker says that people thought Mr. Mars was mad. I can't imagine it being a big thing in Germany, especially not in hard times.

On topic, it is strange how in certain areas we approach things only through the lens of modern life. My mother watched a "reality drama" about a family trying to live as though during the war in an unrenovated 1930s house and saying they were using far too much soap and shampoo - and they did, indeed, quickly run out. Similarly, we might nowadays expect men to be able to choose between a wide variety of very inexpensive aftershaves and use them in large quantities, but that was not the case in the 1930s and 1940s. I know many famous branded women's perfumes date back only to the 1920s. I can't think of another popular pre-war brand for men other than 4711 (and would welcome evidence). For example, Adolf Dassler's brand "adidas" was post-war and even then began as shoes only. Could it be that colognes were prepared in more of a "cottage industry" kind of way and sold from pharmacies and barber's shops? there is an episode of "Poirot" where that appearance-obsessed fictional 1930s Belgian detective buys a small bottle of scent from a specialist tradesman.

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Harro
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#22

Post by Harro » 05 Feb 2013, 18:44

tolhurst wrote:there is an episode of "Poirot" where that appearance-obsessed fictional 1930s Belgian detective buys a small bottle of scent from a specialist tradesman.
Yet there an episode in which he buys a suit from a specialist tradesman and one in which he buys chocolates from a specialist tradesman. I doubt this tells us anything about the availability of such products in general, more about his perculiar taste for specific, rare examples of these products. This is further proven by his preference for tisane and creme de banane, which no doubt he also bought from specialist tradesmen but which does not mean tea or liqueurs in general were difficult to obtain.

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jwsleser
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#23

Post by jwsleser » 05 Feb 2013, 19:48

This has been informative. As a reenactor, little details such as aftershave provide insight to the times. I need to do some checking.

Thanks!

Pista! Jeff
Jeff Leser

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tolhurst
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#24

Post by tolhurst » 05 Feb 2013, 20:02

Harro wrote:
tolhurst wrote:there is an episode of "Poirot" where that appearance-obsessed fictional 1930s Belgian detective buys a small bottle of scent from a specialist tradesman.
Yet there an episode in which he buys a suit from a specialist tradesman and one in which he buys chocolates from a specialist tradesman. I doubt this tells us anything about the availability of such products in general, more about his perculiar taste for specific, rare examples of these products. This is further proven by his preference for tisane and creme de banane, which no doubt he also bought from specialist tradesmen but which does not mean tea or liqueurs in general were difficult to obtain.
an excellent point - whether or not it was unusual for men to wear cologne, nothing the fictional Poirot did was a pointer to what was normal.

We know that Germans generally drank coffee before the war, which did not preclude connoisseurs buying rare mixtures in addition. I have just found that both Edu-Scho and Tschi-Bo (like adidas) are made up of two names, and that the former sold coffee only by mail order and the second is post war. So neither of those was a well-known brand in the 1930s or in the war. I see that "Melitta" was.

Thinking "what aftershave did Steiner use?" I know only of eaux de Cologne such as 4711 but of no other kind of aftershave. If I visualise a 1930s Apotheke, I see even more than now a counter with the staff behind it with the products in closed wooden drawers and cupboards, and bottles of chemicals for the apothecary to make up on the premises. I don't visualise a blaze of bright branding.

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Harro
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#25

Post by Harro » 05 Feb 2013, 21:17

I think one of the first commercially available Rassierwassers (aftershaves) on the German market was Pitralon, which goes back to the turn of the century 112 years ago.

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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#26

Post by tolhurst » 05 Feb 2013, 23:22

Harro wrote:I think one of the first commercially available Rassierwassers (aftershaves) on the German market was Pitralon, which goes back to the turn of the century 112 years ago.
I see it came in a blue bottle (like poison) and had a strong smell like camphor (mothballs) - like a medicine, not a perfume (remember aftershave contains alcohol to heal any cuts). Very interesting!

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitralon

NB THE living German comedian, Otto, is here singing a list of things they are going to drink to the tune of "We didn't start the fire". By 0:54 they are on to the Klosterfrau Melissengeist (a sort of tonic), the Kölnisch Wasser and the Pitralon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9ZR4bJu6KU

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phylo_roadking
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#27

Post by phylo_roadking » 06 Feb 2013, 01:59

(remember aftershave contains alcohol to heal any cuts)
...which is why its banned in HM Prisons in the UK ;) We occasionally got various containers containing aftershave come into the forensic lab where I used to work for analaysis of the contents...

Why the hell they tried to smuggle in aftershave instead of bloody vodka I'll never know!!! :P
Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs....
Lord, please keep Kevin Bacon alive...

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Helmut0815
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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#28

Post by Helmut0815 » 06 Feb 2013, 10:44

Harro wrote:I think one of the first commercially available Rassierwassers (aftershaves) on the German market was Pitralon, which goes back to the turn of the century 112 years ago.
Ah yes, Pitralon, I nearly forgot.
I can remember TV commercials for it, must have been in the end of the seventies before it vanished from the west german markets.
It's also still available but has nothing to do with the original Pitralon composition.

regards

Helmut

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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#29

Post by Mangrove » 06 Feb 2013, 13:14

tolhurst wrote:If I visualise a 1930s Apotheke, I see even more than now a counter with the staff behind it with the products in closed wooden drawers and cupboards, and bottles of chemicals for the apothecary to make up on the premises. I don't visualise a blaze of bright branding.
Here's a list of products that were manufactured by several Finnish factory and sold to different stores in Finland during the 1930s. I copied them from period factory catalogs available online:

- Eau de Cologne, "33", 83 %
- Eau de Cologne, "33", 60 %
- Eau de Cologne, "Helios"
- Eau de Cologne, "Kielo"
- Eau de Portugal
- Eau de Quinine
- Bay Rum

Surely a much broader spectrum of products were available in such industrialised country as Germany was during the 1930s.

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Re: Felix Steiner's aftershave

#30

Post by tolhurst » 06 Feb 2013, 18:25

I have the food bill for a WW1 PoW camp in Germany - from that, you can tell what the PoWs got (though it wasn't much due to wartime shortage).

Does anyone have the bill for a WW2 officer? That could solve the question of what it might have been...

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