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peacedeath – :
Classic aftershave scent for a gentlemen used for generations by teen boys entering manhood and want to smell like dad. I can imagine the number of teen boys back in the 70’s and 80’s counting the few hairs on their chin while splashing on British Sterling.
Ignore those claiming this classic manly juice smelling like an ‘old man’ or calling it ‘dated.’ In my opinion, it’s timeless. Love it or hate it, British Sterling is forever embedded in the memories of men and women alike remembering dad splashing on this juice after a wet shave. Indeed, that’s why these classic aftershaves still exist today despite being so-called dated. It’s all about the memories. Nothing makes a scent more enjoyable than the memories they ignite.
Every man should have in their fragrance collection British Sterling along with other legends Old Spice, Pierre Cardin, Brut, Tabac, Royal Copenhagen and Jovan Musk. These colognes have shared the lives of millions among us… and they all have a story to tell. Ahh, the memories.
XaSSeR – :
I bought this on a lark when K-Mart was closing up their local store. The bottle was literally dusty and quite a bargain. This is a fragrance whose drydown will amaze you because it is nothing like the top notes. At first, it smells green and perfumey and old school. But, the drydown is warm and cinnamony and timeless in my opinion. It is also powdery as most classic fragrances tend to be, but I like powdery. I wonder how many guys have scrubbed this off within the first ten minutes without ever smelling its full development.
sick1997 – :
I always liked British Sterling but recently bought a splash bottle ‘made in China’ and surely watered down after 1 hour it’s all gone even when I splash my face in large quantities.
serg81287 – :
I have bottles of the AS and EdT and use them both all year. I prefer the AS a little more because it is brighter and has an edge that the EdT doesn’t have, also I have noticed that the AS has just as much if not a little more longevity than the EdT. I think both smell great and are worth having in your collection.
siroegka – :
I talking about original British Sterling, I was sold on this from the original ads with the ocean and the horse. Yes, incurable romantic. I bought this for my ex-husband (when still married) but he would never even try it. I used to work for three surgeons and one of the pharmaceutical reps knew I loved it so he wore it when he called on our office. To torment me, he would rub the handset of my phone all over his face before he left. Since my ex would not even try it, I always kept a small bottle just for me. While it smelled nothing like the “Canoe” of my teen years, to me it had the same kind of nice smell on guys – just clean with an underlying note of sexy, like I always considered Canoe and Royall Lyme.
pavelpavel9691 – :
Wow!the person below me Kajira Suzanne nailed this one..
Take paco rabanne pour homme.. Add a touch of citrus ( lime?) in the top. Smooth out the soap abd add some leather.. Its a nice frag . longevity is poor but im using the dollar store version
SoftmakerX – :
I bought a mini bottle last year as part of a Dana gift set for my fiancé. I have also “borrowed” British Sterling from him on occasion.
This is indeed a “spicy, bitter citrus” type fragrance, with that “smooth” barbershop undertone that I find very appealing in men’s fragrances. There is just a hint of leather and musk towards the drydown. I would describe this scent as rather sophisticated.
British Sterling is not a powerhouse men’s cologne, hence it is suitable for work when applied lightly, but is also good for evening with a heavier application.
Longevity and sillage are on the low end of moderate.
passat – :
The original formula of British Sterling was subtle, classy, yet not overly formal, and it sill holds up today. I can’t speak for any of the reformulations, but the original had a fresh lavender/citrus opening that included some floral notes (lilac?), transitioning into a spicy middle that undoubtedly includes carnation as well as clove, nutmeg and cinnamon. It is a sweet-spicy oriental in the mode of Zizanie, Old Spice or Evyan’s The Baron (though I’ll take British Sterling over the Baron any time!)
Originally distributed by Speidel, the watchband maker, it was touted as “so fine a gift, it’s sold in jewelry stores,” and one could get a set of initials engraved onto the metal top of the bottle. It wasn’t until years later that it was downmarketed to turn up in drugstores.
Prubcobre – :
I use this aftershave all the time. It is strong enough, and smell good enough to be a going to the store, going for a walk, or around the house scent.
7/10
GambiTVIP – :
Very classy. I realized this reminds me VERY much of Dior’s Eau Sauvage parfum, the dark green liquid. Very masculine with the spicy bitter citrus.
There is a distinct cinnamon note that blends very well, in a spicy harmony.
zlatoff – :
Forget the snobbery about Britush Sterling being s Dana fragrance. This is a lovely scent. I discovered British Sterling in my youth where it stood as my more sophisticated alternative to Brut which I believed at the time to be pretty hip and sexy. In a way it was kind of what Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme is for me today. British Sterling is the noble price of the classic drug store/barbershop fragrances. While retaining that classic, old school “barbershop” aroma this fragrance goes beyond that and serves up a very nice and complex olfactory experience offering a very pleasant mix of spice, leather, woods, lavender and sandalwood, some animalic notes and has a hint of citrus and musk. While not listed I detect lavender. The silliage is better than what I see reported above and the longevity is good. I haven’t worn this in some time but it’s nice while it won’t be as much as a favorite as in the days of my youth I should be wearing it again it more regularly.
An update: Since posting my review I aquired a bottle of “vintage” Speidel British Sterling. As is most often the case with many fragrances the vintage is vastly superior. While very similar in general the vintage is smoother and has a certain creaminess and depth to it. One also detects a more vivid citrus in the vintage fragrance which is both more gentle, lacking the very barbershopy harshness of the Dana but the Speidel is also stronger and has superior sillage. Still the Dana version is nice but is a step down from the vintage Speidel British Sterling.
Canon-c9 – :
I’d say in the day when British Sterling was more popular it’s other contenders (in price range) were Aspen and Iron by Coty.For people who wanted more dimension to their scent and just couldn’t adapt to English Leather.Very woodsy in my opinion though don’t confuse that perspective with juniper used for gin or pine-sol.Seems to be a blend of leather and musk behind while the spice trails in and out.Just my opinion but I’d rather be gifted with a bottle of British Sterling than Drakkar Noir.
kasyak – :
For years in stores I would spray some on myself thinking that it was classy somehow (I was subject to the marketing from my youth: “So fine a gift it’s even sold in jewelry stores”) and my wife would report, “I like it. It’s okay.” But no Mmmmmmmmmmmm from her like I got with Antaeus, Santos, Bel Ami or Tuscan Leather.
So last year I got myself a little bottle of it at a colossal discount store in North Carolina off I-95; I may have paid $3! I’m wearing it today, as it turns out.
karlovonamesti nails it: “A cheap, hollow forgettable fougere.” Yeah, that’s my opinion, too. I don’t like it and I don’t dislike it. Just sort of “meh.” I have moved on.
I suppose I might say that it represents a sort of absolute minimum of acceptability for a men’s fragrance. Any lower than shalt I not go.
(Actually – I can’t see myself ever wearing this ever again. There are far too many better scents out there.)
tuzovigorv – :
I feel like many of my reviews start out with “So I was at Kmart, Wal-Mart, CVS and was sniffing the frags…” (Hey Big Spender!) Anyways, I was at Kmart sniffing the frags and nothing that I didn’t already have was tickling my fancy (mostly dreadful celebu-scents). I came to the British Sterling and someone opened the packaging (wasn’t me…). BS is one I’ve been wanting to check out. Sprayed some…this is the kind of scent I really like in masculine scents. It might not be a fashionable scent but there’s a group of men’s scents, usually fougeres that smell like smoothness to me (I know, it sounds weird but it’s the only way I can describe that smell) – Pinaud’s Clubman, Brut, and Habit Rouge have that smooth note (does anyone know what that is? Please let me know.) I think it’s either coumarin/tonka bean or benzoin or some combination thereof. I just love that scent and British Sterling has it too. I got a great big jug of it for like 10.00 with coupons. Longevity is very good.
The teenaged check-out clerk (a boy) said I smelled terrific and I said – “that’s the British Sterling, isn’t it delicious?” He said he’d have to go get himself a bottle too!
P.S. In case you haven’t noticed Gents, the reviews from the Ladies are very positive – take heed!
amazon67 – :
Sweet, green, spicy and aggressive, this has a lot of the old clean-cut professional-smelling aftershave air about it, which appealed to me for a while. I guess this is how straight-shooting businessmen were meant to smell around the office in simpler days gone by, and I’m sure many actually did. I could live without the anisy note in this stuff, as well as whatever is pepperminty; these together stopped me from fully liking BS in the end. The main caveat with this one is that it has a tiny nagging sour note that occasionally pokes its head out. I had a plastic bottle of BS once, and it got very sour over time from this, which probably wouldn’t have happened with the 2nd (glass) bottle, but I always felt like it was on the verge of starting up again. It really doesn’t need to be so darkly colored either, but at least it doesn’t stain like Old Spice.
hunter887 – :
I have a newer, reformulated version by Dana from the early 2000’s that takes the citrus out of the top and leaves it more reliant on the nutmeg, cinnamon and leather accords in the heart that vintage formulas transitioned into a bit later in the wear. You get an alcohol blast on the top that dissipates into a soft cedar with stronger doses of cinnamon and nutmeg with flashes of well-done leather. This stuff is warm spicy in a wintery way and a little creamy thanks to the nutmeg and amber. Projection is dramatically reduced and instead of getting a more interesting three-tiered evolution, here after a couple hours British Sterling develops into an oakmoss and ambery light musk dry-down with leftover reside of the cinnamon, nutmeg and hints of leather that hold until the end.
Newer bottles are more synthetic than the vintage formula I sniffed from my grandfather’s medicine cabinet. Something in the reformulation is missing (citrus and a deeper, more resounding leather accord) and projection here is very subdued even with two generous sprays. Karlovo is correct in his assertion the reformulation is “a cheap, hollow, forgettable fougere”. There really is nothing interesting in the reformulation that warrants a wear beyond curiosity and nostalgia. It’s nothing awful, but it’s also not very inspiring and there are simply too many more interesting aromatic fougere scents on the market that warrant more attention.
Longevity on my skin was 5-7 hours with moderate projection the first hour before dropping into a softer, skin scent. Very versatile as far as seasons and occasion, this one could easily be thrown on in fall, winter, spring and summer evenings though it isn’t intriguing enough for formal or date wear. Best left for a rotation when nostalgia for the days of Liverpool/Manchester beat rock, the blues rock of the Stones, the Who and the folk rock of the Kinks, Dylan and the Byrds floats into the subconscious.
InfernaL – :
I have recently gotten into colognes and dug up a bottle of this what I’ve had in the cabinet for probably 20+ years. Of all the nostalgia scents, this one is still fairly wearable. It starts with a light citrus, but, quickly melds into a spiced cedar and light leather and finally ends up with amber, oakmoss and spicy cinnamon.
This certainly isn’t for everyone and I understand the reformulation from Dana is quite cheap and horrible; however, the version I have is still quite decent. Yes, it is a fougere…but, that’s what you’d expect from the era this came from.
javaguar – :
Today I am wearing VINTAGE Speidel British Sterling. If you have forgotten how great this smells, let me remind you. I am old enough to remember when all the boys wore this scent and it was my introduction into men’s colognes. It was practically mandatory for guys to have a bottle and everyone wore it. Because it was sooooooo goooood! No one cared that everyone smelled the same because we loved the fragrance and it was what we wanted to smell – just like we all wanted to drive Mustangs with the top down! Recently I sampled a bottle I saw in a store, and it is so different as to not be British Sterling. Disappointed, I then bought a vintage bottle on Ebay by the company that made it originally. It turned the radio back up in the convertible!
Ploog – :
As a girl, I would wear this at home. It reminds me of Canoe which reminds me of Ambush for her. Next time I see a mini at the 99cent store I’m grabbing one. Tacky, sweet, but yummy.
Update: I found a miniature and body lotion. The lotion smells like it has anise or licorice. This is Chamade for him. The cologne is super soapy and powdery with spices. This will be good to spray on a potpourri. I so get the Van Cleef and Arpels comparison. This has the soap factor though.
anechkav81 – :
As many of you probably have done, I’ve passed this scent in supermarket deodorant aisles and never gave it a second thought. Nobody I knew wore it, and I assumed it was some simplistic and harsh citrus/woody nasal irritant. The notes (which I didn’t look up until very recently) suggest it is like Canoe, but I obtained some vintage Canoe perhaps a year ago, and while I thought it was natural smelling and of reasonable construction, it was simple and I thought I’d prefer others to it when I was in the mood for that sort of thing. Therefore, I assumed that British Sterling was worse than Canoe, not that I was going to seek out a sample of it in any case.
A couple of weeks ago, I obtained a mini bottle of British Sterling as a “throw in.” I think it’s several years old but not what one might call “true vintage” (it’s a Dana formulation). It’s reasonably natural smelling but simple, with mediocre longevity at best. I read some reviews of it, however, and kept my eyes open for a reasonable price on a vintage formulation, which wasn’t difficult to obtain at non-crazy prices (Speidel formulation). It was actually a Cologne and Aftershave set (I haven’t tried the A/S yet). This formulation is rich in spices and possesses an ambery vanilla, with musk, light woods/leather, and a hint of citrus. For whatever reason, it has enough dynamism (unlike Canoe) to keep things enjoyable for hours! Longevity is also much better (than the Dana formulation). It’s not too sweet and never goes into a “syrupy” direction, but instead it’s a bit dry, though some might call it somewhat powdery (I wouldn’t).
If you want an idea of what it’s like, I’d say Jaipur Homme is worth considering (I’ve only tried the EdP of that one). It may have been the “blueprint” for JH type scents, for all I know. For me the difference is that JH has a wood note/molecule that gets irritating after a while, whereas British Sterling has no “rough edges.” Note that I do not consider this a fougere, as a few others apparently do; if there is a fougere accord it is very mild, but I don’t think there is coumarin in here – if so it must be in tiny amounts. And if there is lavender present it is being overshadowed by the dominant notes. While I don’t think much of the “drugstore cheapos,” though some aren’t terrible, this one (in vintage form) is really something special. However, it is certainly “mature” and some might even call it “grandpa.” I’m only interested in the olfactory experience, and the combination of notes and/or construction here is great !
et272727 – :
A cheap, hollow, forgettable fougere, saved only by a relatively decent citrus/nutmeg accord that dries into a bland woody musk. You could do worse for ten dollars, but with things like Cool Water, Aspen, and Grey Flannel around, you could do a hell of a lot better also.