Colonia Classica Wally

It is often said that in the Middle Ages people didn't wash. I think, if we today would be hurled by time machine on a marketplace in Cologne in the year 1300, we would need a while until our olfactory system would have adapted so far that we would come down from continuous vomiting. And the idea that you can change underwear more often than once a week shouldn't be much older than 100 years, either.

Still, that's not entirely true about the lack of physical cleanliness. In the High Middle Ages, at any rate, people in Central European cities actually bathed a lot and liked to do so, much as in Roman antiquity, and they did so in public bathhouses. Some of them were "bathhouses", in the majority people really bathed. But even in the serious category, people also chatted, drank wine, and played dice.

The church didn't take quite so kindly to all this, but that was no hindrance. Until about the Great Plague of 1348-1350, through which the population of Europe almost halved. One did not get that at that time so in detail on the row of because of bacteria and fleas, but such a vague feeling for the fact that such a plague feels well, if the people hang around closely on each other, existed already. Today, swimming pools are only closed temporarily, back then (well: since then) bathing was generally considered harmful to health. Does one get the plague from.

But nevertheless the people stank yes not simply before itself like the polecats. They rubbed off. Themselves. Or each other. Frottage. With damp cloths, for example. And this went on for a really damn long time. In the recently published book by Edition Nez Culture about Colognes (I reviewed it on the blog a week ago), it says that as recently as the 1960s, only one in three apartments in France, whether in the city or in the country, had a bathroom. If there was running water in the home at all, it was in the kitchen. People usually bathed once a week or once a month away from home, and on the other days: cat washing between pots and pans.

Or frottage. And often with cloths moistened not with water but with eau de cologne. Asking if being rubbed down by parents with 'Bien-Etre' or with 'Mont-St-Michel' (both colognes that are still around today) was one of the childhood memories was the precursor to Coke-or-Pepsi, Nutella-or-Nudossi, and Apple-or-Windows.

Knowing this also makes it seem more understandable why in many countries Colognes are still sold in litre bottles or even five litre canisters and where the term 'Wasch-Eau-de-Cologne' comes from.

Wally Colonia Classica is a traditional Italian fragrance, about 100 years old, sold exclusively in litre bottles, and for very little money. In the series 'Colonialwaren' I have already shared with the two sister fragrances 'Pelle di Spagna' and "Colonia Fougère' to the brand all that I can report, and therefore limit myself to a few words about the fragrance itself:

Colonia Classica is an unobtrusive cologne in the very best sense, where you can literally imagine how it was applied in the way described above. It has nothing perfumy, but just smells straight fresh. Intrusive soapy or penetratingly clean it is but also not.

When I recently described Turkish Duru in this space as a plain vanilla cologne, it was a tenor plain vanilla. This one is a baritone plain vanilla cologne: straightforward, understated, but a floor below. Specifically, the scent - which is quite volatile at under an hour lasting - is averaged between lemony and orangy notes, but the darker notes from both sides and with a slight orange overhang. This is consistent with the fragrance pyramid, where bitter orange and two types of sweet orange plus mandarin are mentioned, on the other side twice lemon and bergamot.

The bergamot seems low dosed to me, neroli is missing altogether, so the scent is far from the beloved and hated 4711 sound: just a nice, clean, somewhat dark orange-lemon water.

But not too clear or brightly crystalline (that wouldn't be the Wally DNA either, so far as I understand the brand now): So that it doesn't get boring, an herbaceous and, ahem, ambery (but more in the sense of "ambery" and "shadowy" than that it really smells like amber or amber) counterpart comes in, especially in the finish, for which I'd like to blame the spice-lavender/rosemary/pomegranate vertical.

Conclusion: A wonderful simple, dark citrus and slightly herbaceous everyday cologne (even today, where the shower is invented and the Frottage has lost its innocence) and: super classica!