Christmas Kitbag – The Stench of Bond; Floris No.89

Well, the Spectre hype is everywhere at the mo isn’t it, and we love it! I think it’s fair to assume that the typical MotorPunk loves a bit of Bond, especially the ladies, and it has recently been pointed out to us that there are quite a few gals reading MotorPunk online; an audience that perhaps we’ve been a little guilty of not including in some of our Kitbag features as well as we could. So here’s my concerted effort to make amends with our first Christmas Kitbag recommendation for a gentleman’s aftershave, which the current Mrs. Octane tells me is great stuff for masking the smell of Swarfega and Castrol GTX after a busy day tinkering in the garage.

Anyhow, Floris No.89 hasn’t been plugged in 007’s big screen outings by clumsy product placement (à la BMW, Ford and even Casio watches in the lull of Bond’s outings of the 1980s!). Instead this is the fragrance only fleetingly mentioned as Bond’s scent of choice by Fleming in a couple of his novels ( in Moonraker: “Floris provides the soaps and lotions in the lavatories and bedrooms”, Diamonds Are Forever: “He would have to send a cable to May to get things fixed. Let’s see – flowers, bath essence from Floris, air the sheets…“ and Dr. No: “There was everything in the bathroom – Floris Lime bath essence for men and Guerlain bathcubes for women.”). Fleming himself was a regular at the flagship store in Jermyn Street, in the elegant quarter of London’s St. James’s; well worth a potter about if you’ve got ten minutes to kill in The Big Smoke.

Floris was founded in 1730 by Juan Famenias Floris, who arrived in England from his native island of Menorca to seek his fortune. Shortly after his arrival, in 1730, he secured premises and initially set up business as a barber and comb-maker, however, he soon missed the aromas of his Mediterranean youth which he lovingly recreated in No.89, named in honour the first store’s address. For about £50.00 you can have your own special bit of Bondmobilia, a classy pong to help with the conjugals and a bit of a story to tell the chaps down the pub when they eventually notice that you no longer smell like a burnt head gasket. Get your Floris London No.89 Aftershave here.