Chas at Dustbury has a funny post on Shinola shoe wax which, as it happens, was a Detroit product when it finally went toes up long, long ago. Where better for the demise of a product than bankrupt Detroit?
Only folks who still wear leather shoes that need periodic shining are likely to have ever heard of Shinola, despite the old put down phrase of my youth many probably have heard but don’t really understand.
I requested (and hope Chas’s impeccable research will out) a post on Vitalis or Brylcreem. Awful stuff. I used to slather one or the other on my hair in high school back in the 50s when motor oil [Vitalis] or bacon grease [Brycreem] was the only choice of hair products and the conformity of teenage “cool” demanded one or the other.
I still recall with a shudder the way the residue used to slide down my forehead and neck when the temperature rose above eighty degrees. Talk about poop. No one was more grateful than I when, in the 70s blow-dry became the norm. Followed, for those of us at a certain age, by hair spray.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 