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 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