My best mate when I was 12 was much cooler than I. He always knew what Vuarnet and Elf Quest and The Beastie Boys were before I ever did. When it came to having cool skater-boy-ish hair, he said the secret was Royal Crown – a product I’d never heard of and then spent at least two years looking for feverishly in every big-box store and drugstore my mom and I could think of.

Eventually I found a tin of the infamous goop at a trapped-in-time Five & Dime in Northern Minnesota during a weekend trip to the family cabin. No matter how much of the stuff I used, my hair was never as cool as my mate’s.

For two bucks and some change, I bought a fresh tub last Friday at my local Walgreen’s. I know now, only because of Facebook, that my childhood mate no longer has much hair to speak of. So it’s finally my turn to have the cool hair now, and to tell the many guys who (secretly) idolize me that the secret trick is a tin of Royal Crown.

The languid luxury of the Byredo line of scents has intrigued me for some time now. Earlier this winter I was eagerly awaiting the release of their Fantastic Man scent, created in collaboration with the mischievous magazine. Life got in the way, though – but I’m glad it did, because I’ve changed my mind.

The bottle of Byredo I want most now is the new Bal d’Afrique.

“A warm and romantic vetiver inspired by Paris in the late 20′s and its infatuation with African culture, art, music and dance. A mix of the Parisian avantgardism and African culture shaped a unique and vibrant expression. The intense life, the excess and euphoria is illustrated by Bal d’Afrique’s neroli, African marigold and Moroccan cedarwood.”

Top: Bergamot, Lemon, Neroli, African marigold, Bucchu
Mid: Violet, Jasmin petals, Cyclamen
Base: Black Amber, Musk, Vetiver, Moroccan cedarwood

As the days grow brighter and more blazing, the forbidden sizzle and scandal of Africa by way of Paris seems like the better tonic with which to tickle my sweating skin during the coming summer months.

My beautiful bottle will transform me into the most exotic little Caucasian on my block, I’ve promised myself.

I finally mustered up enough courage for a moustache, then stocked up on short shorts galore. I now appear, half the time, like some ordinary Dad in Detroit during Reagan’s heyday. (Finally!) To fully inhabit the role though, I’m thinking I’ll need to douse my Dad skin in a dull and un-daring drugstore scent. 

Tabac Original Cologne turns 50 this year. Right down to its dated, disco-era packaging, it’s just the fiery, faux-riche splash an ol’ Detroit Dad would’ve reached for. I gotta be reaching now too.

This is the second moustache I’ve admired now that seems to be naked in the middle dip above the lip. It adds a groovy gigolo-like gusto but I’m wondering…

Do men shave their moustaches to get that effect or are they naturally bare right there?

(Confession: I just tried carving myself out a bare bit above my lip and it did NOT go well. OM total G. )

It’s been four weeks now, and I’ve resisted shaving my first semi-successful moustache. It’s grown in enough now that I’ve had to figure out how exactly to groom and shape it. There’s so many options, I’m realizing, it might take a while to find the right role model that actually works for me and my funny face.

I’m ruling out the mannered moustache of the fellow pictured above, but I might pay homage to his tattoo, braces, and pipe at some later date.

Jake Davis just asked his readers for some of their favorite scents, in his mission to find himself a new cologne. This reminded me of an entry I’ve been meaning to post in the Treasury at some point – so I might as well set that point for right about now.

The gift shop of my hotel during a trip to New York 3 years ago offered Comme Des Garcons’s 2 cologne. It smelled golden and bold and tickled my nose. I made it mine.

The 2 cologne proves I like my scents on the coy or quirky side, so I was intrigued last fall by Monocle Magazine’s launch of their Hinoki scent collaboration with Comme Des Garcons. I felt CDG’s scents and I were a perfect, plucky match, but wasn’t sure Hinoki should definitely be my second CDG scent. Especially considering I’d never sampled it.

Luckily for me I somehow came upon Luckyscent.com where you are able to order most of their hundreds and hundreds of scents in two or three dollar trial size vials! I ordered six vials of different Comme Des Garcons fragrances and then turned my mission into a March Madness-like battle. Every morning, on each arm I’d dab a different scent, and then scribble down simple notes for each scent a half an hour later.

“Reminds me of Christmas” or “Smells like pickle juice” for instance.

Each day’s fragrance winner went head to head with the next day’s winner until, alas, the Monocle Hinoki entrant proved to be the ultimate winner, after all.

So if you’re interested in sampling scents slowly over time  in order to identify the right one for you (versus making split-second decisions in a mobbed mall), or if you’re stuck in a state void of Barneys and Bergdorfs, then Luckyscent is a sensational resource.

For the record/for Jake, here’s my eau de cologne arsenal of late:

• Tiffany for Men (elegant, sparkly, like cloves or Brandy)
• The first women’s Prada parfum (I’m man enough. Like honey on a hot August day.)
• Comme Des Garcon, 2  (flinty, fiery – drunken and unabashed)
• Santa Maria Novella, Colonia Russa (icy metallic, it tingles the skin in summer)
• Banana Republic, Black Walnut (hushed, harmless, handsome)
• Monocle x CDG, Hinoki (like a spicy dusty cedar chest caught on fire)

One of The Treasury’s newest readers, Portugal native Joao, recently left this comment on my Well Groomed post.

“How on earth did you find this toothpaste? It is a truly classic of Portuguese design at its best and quite difficult to find these days with the Colgate invasion, even here in Portugal.”

Well, my tube of Couto brand paste was picked up at the Mertz Apothecary in Chicago. The non-Mertz-ishly named Mertz website smallflower.com provides an on-line source for hundreds of handsomely packaged, hard-to-find toiletry treasures.

There’s at least three other brands of tasteful pastes off the site I’d like to try, but not until I unleash at last my inner Newland Archer and try myself some tooth powder. Tooth powder, hot damn. What a world this world once was!

The link specifically to Couto, Joao, is right here, sir. Brush in style, friend.

The moustache, the saddle shoe, the bow tie, and buffalo plaid have all escaped, in recent years, from the dressing room of your high school three-act-play into the lives and looks of today’s trendiest trendsters.

I’m wondering if/when the slick middle part, as mastered on this moony model, could ever return. I’m trying to think of someone famous and cool enough who could break the look on a grand scale. Talk amongst yourselves….

(Image from Vogue Hommes Japan.)

This is the first in a series lamenting the looks I’ve attempted to adopt, but have never been able to master.

Number 1: The Moustache.

I’ve tried fostering one twice before, but the sexy-serious machismo of a moustache has always seemed inappropriate if not obscene on my impish, apple-cheeked babyface.

Now that I’m pushing my mid-thirties and finally looking it, maybe a believable moustache is on the horizon. I’m giving it one last try this spring and I promise to keep it for longer than 4 hours (unlike last time) no matter how hilarious I might still find it.

If my third and final attempt fails, I’m throwing in the towel forever (or half a decade, at least). Instead I’ll just prick one of these witty knit pins from UO into my jacket and get on with my sad, smooth-faced life.

Twice a year I enjoy shelling out $20 for the newest issues of Purple Fashion and Fantastic Man. The fact that these publications are five times as much as an issue of GQ is much, if not all of the appeal. I rationalize that I’m being given access to ideas and inspirations five times too elite and expensive for the average trend-hound.

In the same snobby vein, I’ve promised myself already a bottle of Fantastic Man’s upcoming fragrance from Byredo, having never sampled the scent. I mean, what has its actual scent got to do with it?

Should Fantastic Man: The Cologne actually smell intriguing and edgy once I unwrap my delivery then that’ll be icing…but, in all honesty, its the secret feeling of elitism and rarity that I’ll be spending my money on. Just as when I buy the periodical that spawned it.

This is materialism at its most crass and callow, but also its most innate, no? Fortunately, I approach only the rare purchase in this reckless manner. I’ll explore the more noble and less shameful modes of materialism in future Treasury entries, but for now I’m curious:

What items/genres of material goods do readers buy recklessly – when a daring disregard for price and practicality is integral to the power of the purchase?

During a recent weekend in Chicago, the highlight of my shopping-oriented trip was the pile of loot I picked up at Mertz Apothecary. I’m always a sucker for grooming products packaged in ways the talented Mr. Ripley would’ve favored.

I completed three wide-eyed, slow-motion laps through each and every aisle in Mertz before narrowing down my final selections. I recognized I was on a dangerous high in the store and should temper my lust before things got tragically out of hand. The final damage was only $45 though. My only regret now is not having carted off with more.

These are the tools I’m currently using to brush my teeth, removed from their packaging. It amuses me how it appears almost as if I’m maintaining my oral hygiene with art supplies.

Is there some great reason Suave or Colgate couldn’t package their current products with a bit more style? I can never think of one.