Bourjaily: Aftershave in a Shotgun Shell
Web editor Joe Cermele alertly grabbed this “Good Shot” edition of Avon’s Wild Country After Shave for me at a...

Web editor Joe Cermele alertly grabbed this “Good Shot” edition of Avon’s Wild Country After Shave for me at a flea market. It’s full, so I can tell you Wild Country smells like the talc old-school barbers slap on your neck after a haircut.
Over the years Wild Country has come in all kinds of decorative bottles including the Goodyear Blimp, a ’55 Chevy, semi-trucks, thermos bottles, a big nut and bolt, a rhinoceros and many other manly designs, including this replica of a Winchester Super X Shotshell. It holds 2 ounces of after shave and measures around an inch and a half across the bottom which, if it were a real shell, would make it a 1 ½ gauge.* The Good Shot bottles date to around 1976, making it a contemporary of Hai Karate. After shave in a shotgun shell makes no less sense than after shave that includes self-defense instructions with every bottle. So you younger readers will know what I’m talking about, click here to see a classic Hai Karate ad:
Where Dn = diameter in inches and N = gauge