LUCKY TIGER Cru-Butch

Between the 20’s and the 50’s a number of men’s hair styling products came to be.  As of lately I have been looking into these older brands.  In many cases, the new pomades are copies of these older recipes or at the very least find their inspiration in these earlier pomades.

The first one of these earlier pomades I came across was Murray’s Original pomade, then the Black & White Hair Dressing and recently, Brylcreem.  It was surprising and exciting to realize that a number of these original products were still commercially available. The Lucky Tiger Cru Butch is one such product that had made my list of classic product I wanted to test.

Recently I visited OBSCO looking for the Pinaud-Clubman Brillantine as I had noted they carried the full product suite of that brand.  On the day of my visit, they were out of the Brillantine, but I was pleased to see that they had a few products from Lucky Tiger.  Specifically, the Lucky Tiger Cru Butch pomade. As far, as I know they are the only shop in town who carry it.

It is a smallish looking 99 g  jar.  It looks small when compared to the lower and wider jars that are more commonly used for modern pomades.  But 100 g is more or less the standard quantity.

The labeling has a number of interesting items.  First, the brand “tiger”.  Animals representing brands is a dying breed.   There is also a very typical 40’s/50’s cartoon character.  The choices of colours are also somewhat dated and certainly fit the nostalgia bill.  Purple, beige and red are the predominate colours with black text.

When researching the brand, I came across some of their advertising slogans: Lucky Tiger got your grandfather lucky, it got your father lucky, and it will get you lucky, too.  Something you wouldn’t see in any advertising nowadays.

After the morning shower it was time to give this pomade a try.  It has a fairly firm feel on initial contacts and needs to be relaxed.  There are clear elements of fibre and petroleum jelly in the making of this product.  It is quite sticky but rather easy to work with.  I was surprised that I had to use a little bit more of this pomade to get my desired look. Maybe one or two tiny scoops more.

This is an old school pomade and it is accordingly shiny.  Not as shiny as Brylcreem, but shinier than the typical modern water based pomades.

As far as a styling fixative, it is quite decent.   In that sense it allowed for much more height than the Brylcreem. But a bit less than what you might be able to achieve with let’s say; Sauvecito for example.  That being said, you might not want the exact same look every day and Lucky Tiger is a good alternative in my mind.

To the touch, it was better than what I expected.  My assumption was that this would have a very greasy, wet feel to it.  Not at all. The product dries over time leaving a very slight film of a waxy grease.  Nothing gross or slimy.  It is perfectly adequate to the touch.  On that note, it dries, but it does not solidify like water based pomades do.  It remains in a workable state so you could easily restyle.

The jar of Lucky Tiger was about $12.

Here is the rating on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is a perfect score.

• Hold: 3.5
• Shine: 4
• Texture: 4
• Feel in hair: 3.5
• Facility to wash out: 2 (It took two good shampoos (using regular shampoo) to get this out.)

You can shop for this product via these links:

PS – When shopping at OBSCO don’t forget to mention or use the STYLE4MEN discount code at check out.