Pankhurst Blog

1961 Ferrari 250 GT California: Ferris Beuller’s Day Off   1963 Aston Martin DB5: Goldfinger   1967 ShelbyMustang GT 500: Gone In 60 Seconds   1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT: Bullitt   1968 Mini Cooper: The Italian Job   1970 Dodge Challenger R/T: Vanishing Point   1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels   1983 De Lorean DMC 12: Back To The Future  

The Nürburgring  is nearly 13 miles long, travels over extreme height changes and is one of the most difficult courses in the world to drive … yet anyone, whether driving a Ferrari or a saloon from the hire shop, can give it a whirl provided they pay their fee. Here’s what to keep in mind on the track: Don’t try to memorise the track – there’s too much of it. Instead, drive instinctively.   Power is key. Lightweight cars struggle with the changes in height.   Don’t get lost. Some corners resemble others meaning it’s easy to get confused – which can be fatal.   Look out for motorbikes, lorries, vans, nutters – if the track’s open to you, it’s open to anybody.   Don’t race a local. They know this place like the back of their hand.   Click here to watch an expert.

For those who have never gambled in a casino, it can be an intimidating business. So when people who know what they’re doing are out to take your money from you, it pays to have a rough idea of what’s going on. The first time you head into the place, it’s worth keeping your eyes open. Watch how things are done, then join in only when you see a table that seems to match your ability.   Look smart While casinos are no longer the bastions of elegance they once were, someone’s got to have standards and it may as well be you.   Join up Before gambling in a British casino, you’ll have to become a member first. Bring ID, but keep your phone, camera or other electrical devices away from the tables.   Know the rules On top of the knowing the game you’re playing, you should know the house rules – whether or not you can talk to the dealer, for example – and the table rules: don’t touch cards dealt face up, don’t touch anyone else’s chips and keep your own cards in view.   Be a good sport Winning a cool grand should be treated the same way as losing one: with grace and dignity. By all means throw a fist in the air (or into the wall) later, just don’t let anyone see you doing it.    

The line that you drive for show, but putt for dough is almost as old as golf itself. Still, when you’re on the first tee and the members terrace is busy behind you, it’s not your putting that you’re hoping to impress with. While not everyone can crush the ball 300 yards like Bubba Watson, there are a number of ways to improve your distance.   Go to the gym Your glute muscles are the engine for big drives – work on them to increase your distance. For right handed players, the right powers the backswing and the left drives the downswing.   Work on your wrists Swinging a weighted club at speed will help you develop more power and explosive energy. It will also strengthen your wrists, giving you more snap. Wrist strength can also be increased by swinging your club with just the right hand or the left hand.   Use your imagination As you pull back your swing, imagine you are using your big, core muscles to build up power then – as you bring the club down – imagine it is now your wrists in command. It helps maintain equilibrium in your swing.   Hit the range Before teeing off at the first, hit 20 range balls for 20 minutes to loosen up. Failing that, swing two clubs with your left hand, then two clubs with your right. It will help get your wrists working correctly.    

There are any number of extreme challenges – crossing the Poles, the Iditarod, or the Polar Challenge being perhaps the toughest cold-weather ones – but climbing Everest remains the most impressive. There are a number of professional agencies who can help make it happen – but before you approach them, here are the basics.   Get experienced Agencies won’t simply take anyone on: you must have high altitude experience before tackling Everest. You’ll need to have already successfully completed an expedition at over 8,000 metres and be able to climb AD-rated routes or higher.   Get fit Assuming a basic fitness level, you’ll need to start focussed training 12 months before. Aim to be running an average of 8mph in hilly country on a near daily basis. Build up upper body strength, and also put on weight – you can lose up to 20% of your body mass on Everest.   Get your head right Climbing Everest is as much a mental challenge as a physical one. Don’t go up there with any doubts.   Plan your route TheSouth Col route is supposedly easier than going up the North Ridge as you spend less time over 8,000 metres. However, the South Col is more expensive as permits are cheaper where it begins in Nepal and it includes the notoriously dangerous Khumbu ice fall. The North ridge will take longer, be more hazardous and bring about more extreme conditions though.   Bring a doctor Altitude sickness, throat-shredding coughs, frostbite, hypothermia, sunburn, thrombosis and trench foot are all common hazards. Oh, and death of course: one person tends to die for every 10 successful attempts.    

There are, of course, any number of things on which to spend your bonus responsibly: house improvements, a new car etc. But there are only a few ways in which to really enjoy the thing. While some of the bankers who laid out £44,000 at Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus restaurant in 2002 (including a £12,300 1947 Petrus and a £9,200 Chateau d’Yquem) were sacked for their actions, and the banker who sprayed £20,000-worth of vintage champagne around a London club 2005 was handed a £15,000 cleaning bill, there are slightly less obnoxious ways to spend your money.   Fly a MiG overMoscow For around $13,000 you can be flown in the classic Cold War era plane over the heart ofRussia.   Drive an F1 car Accelerate to from 0-60mph in under three seconds, and hit top speeds of 200mph with a Formula One track day.   Drink a 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1945 was one of the great vintages, and Mouton Rothschild is one of the great wines. A mere $23,000 will secure you a bottle.   Buy an island The Emir of Qatar recently bought six Greek islands for £7.35m. Lower your ambitions a little, and you too can own an island retreat.

There are, of course, a thousand rules on how to order wine. This goes with this, that goes with the other. This year is great, that year isn’t. It means that, when a waiter hands you a hefty list and invites you to make a choice, it can be an overwhelming business. It need not be.   If you know there’s a wine expert at the table (rather than someone who thinks they are), ask them to choose.   Ask your table what they are eating and use that to guide your choice.   Ask the sommelier. It is his or her job. Tell them what food the table is ordering, give them a price bracket, and allow the benefit of their experience to guide you. You trust the chef to cook for you – why not trust the sommelier to choose your wine?   If you find the wine’s name unpronounceable, simply order by number.   When offered a taste, you are being offered the chance to see if it is corked. Screwtop wines cannot be corked, so require no tasting.

Just as football might have its World Cup, or tennis its Wimbledon, so horse racing has the Cheltenham Festival. For four days, the world’s best jockeys and horses battle for glory in front of one of the greatest race crowds of all. Glorious, exciting and nerve-shredding, it’s the most thrilling four days of racing all year. Before it starts (tomorrow, 12 March) it’s worth brushing up on some best-betting practice tips. This is not meant as a foolproof guide to winners, more advice on the right attitude…   Keep your ears open: listen to chatter around the bookies and take your cues from them. They know. It’s why they’re still in business.   Accumulate: stacking your bets can bring massive rewards for very little outlay. But you’ve got to stay lucky.   Bet to win: each way bets can offer better value, more chance of success and a whole host of other appealing traits, but can never match the swagger of laying down your cash on the winner. And really, who wants to cheer for the nag who came in third?   Never ignore a sign: a horse shares a name with an old girlfriend, wears your favourite colours or looks like your mother-in-law? It’s always worth a punt.   Smile: nothing beats a big grin as you relieve a bookie of a stack of notes. And it makes it all the more painful for them.

“You are competing to win. And if you no longer go for a gap, you’re no longer a racing driver.” So said Ayrton Senna, perhaps racing’s most thrilling driver and a competitor of such furious intensity that the man who formed the other half of the sport’s greatest rivalry said: “Ayrton has a small problem. He thinks he can’t kill himself because he believes in God. And I think that’s very dangerous.”   Prost’s words proved sadly prophetic. In June, a documentary of Senna’s life and tragic death on the Imola track will be released. Controversial, legendary, fearless, arrogant and fascinating, the three-time Champion was always enthralling. Senna, the film, follows his battle with Prost, his domination of the sport and, of course, his exceptional ability.   Somehow, though, his death in the San Marino grand prix seemed appropriate, despite its heartbreak. For a man who lived by the sword, there seems only one fitting way to die. And while it serves as a warning of the perils of driving fast it also adds to its allure.   Driving fast, as Bentley’s manager of driver training Steve Moore, has told the Pankhurst Man blog is not easy. “Some people can drive fast on the road, and some can drive fast on the track. Crossing over is the big skill.” Here, then, is our expert guide.   1. Learn how to brake: it sounds perverse, but learning how to slow down efficiently and smoothly – and knowing when to get off your brakes and back onto your accelerator – is key.   2: Prepare: knowing what’s coming is crucial. Know your braking points, know where the apex of a bend is, know what the next three corners are doing.   3. Understand your car: heavy cars require slower entry into corners, but should have the power for faster exits. The weight of the car, then, will alter your line going into the bend. The heavier the car, the later the apex; but with a lighter car, you can corner earlier.   4. Forget your driving test: everyone has always been taught to feed the wheel from hand to hand, without crossing your arms, as you turn the wheel. When racing, though, this breaks the contact between you and the wheel – which is a problem when travelling at speed. So fix your hands to the wheel with an even spacing. It seems to have worked for Michael Schumacher who uses the technique.   5. Track v road: on the track, you can be safe in the knowledge that nothing will be coming the other way; on the road you can’t be. Also, you will have the entire width of a track at your disposal, while you’ll probably only ever have half of a road: although that does mean there is less room for a mistake.   6. Be safe: a good driver will not put himself or others at risk. Although there are no doubt a few who might question whether Senna himself ever much bothered with this advice…

We’re proud of the Pankhurst signature scent – bay rum and citrus (among other things) – but there is an art to making sure you wear the right aftershave. With a wealth of testers in each shop, it’s pointless to spray at random. Instead select just a few – base your choice on a quick sniff of the bottle cap, the appeal of the branding (it is allowed; there’s a reason perfume companies spend a fortune on it), or even the shape of the bottle. Then:   1. Squirt it onto the paper tester strip. Sniff. Those are the top notes. 2. Take it away for 20 minutes. The top notes will have evaporated, leaving heart and base notes. This is roughly how it will smell on you. 3. If it appeals, spray onto your skin. 4. If trying a range of scents, sniff the crook of your elbow (briefly, weirdo) after trying one to ‘neutral’ your nose before moving on to the next. 5. If you like, buy it. 6. If your other half doesn’t like it; bin it. Immediately.   N.B. If you wear the same scent for a while, it will seem less fragrant to you over time. It’s not wearing off, but your nose has got used to it – filing it away as a ‘safe smell’, and therefore one not to worry about. The temptation is to squirt more on each morning. Which is why people look at you funny when you get into the office. Squirt once to the chest after a shower, three to the neck after you’ve dried. Leave the house.

The Glorious Twelfth. A great day if you’re on the trigger end of a shotgun; a bad day if you’re a grouse. In fact, an awful day. As the grouse-shooting season opens on Friday, great swathes of the countryside are being combed by beaters, guns and dogs as that trickiest of birds to shoot, grouse, evade skies full of lead. Grouse may be hard to bag, but get one and you’re nearing the pinnacle of the sport. If invited on a shoot, first (after accepting) get dressed: traditionally, you need tweeds and wellingtons that will blend in with the landscape – so green and brown. Otherwise, make sure you wear breathable, waterproof and warm clothes of similar colours. Then:   1. If you’ve never shot before, take lessons at a school first. Safe gun handling is vital.   2. If you have no gun, it’s not frowned upon to ask you host to borrow one. A 12-bore is a good grouse gun, a 16-bore a decent all-rounder.   3. Find out and obey the local rules; always carry your gun broken over your arm.   4. Never shoot anything at close range or on the ground; it’s not really a sport if while you have a gun, they are not allowed a sky in which to escape.   5. Avoid birds over 100 feet in the air, it’s a tough shot likely to injure rather than kill.   6. Make sure there is sky behind your bird – don’t, for example, shoot into trees or hills.   7. Tip your beaters and gamekeepers – ask your host the appropriate amount – they’re the ones doing the hard work.   8. Always remember bum-belly-beak-bang. If you swing from the bird’s tail to its beak before you fire, there’s more chance of hitting it.

For 20 years, the walnut humidor had sat gathering dust in the corner of Merseyside pensioner Hilary Mee’s house. Lined with camphor wood and with room for 40 cigars inside, the humidor had been left to Mrs Mee by her father after being in the family for several generations. It was attractive, with a white star and the initials EJS setting off the wood. But it wasn’t something the Mees were all that fond of.   So they asked auctioneer John Crane to take a look and, when he did, he says a tingle went down his spine. The humidor belonged to Edward John Smith, an employee in the White Star Line shipping company and the man who, it just so happened, captained The Titanic on her fateful maiden voyage. When it goes up for auction today, it’s expected to fetch between £10,000 and £20,000.   Cigar smoking is an increasingly difficult business these days. Gone is the time when a man could retire to his club and spend a good hour or so with a Churchill. There are still cigar bars who have exploited a loophole in order that their clientele can still smoke inside but they are few and far between. Better, find a club or bar with an outside terrace or gazebo – never smoke a cigar in the street with the fellow cigarette smokers, you just won’t do a good cigar justice.   Havana cigars are classed as the very best in the world, though there are other producers in the Caribbean such as Nicaragua, Jamaica, the Honduras, the Dominican Republic and, in Europe, even the Canary Islands. The classic, though, is the Montecristo No2, though a tubed Romeo y Julietta Churchill is a traditional present for births.   The most sought after cigars of all are cigars made in Havana before Fidel Castro came to power – and hence before the trade embargo there. They are exceedingly rare and exceedingly expensive.   Cuban cigars were traditionally rolled by women in factories. Each factory would also employ a reader to tell stories and so keep boredom at bay. Cigars were then frequently named after the stories that were read, hence the Romeo y Julietta and Montecristo cigars.   1. If offered a cigar in a box, press down on one of the ends – don’t grapple for the middle of the cigar. You’ll look clumsy if you do, and you’ll damage the outer leaf of the cigar. Make sure you don’t press the cigar with your nail either: you’ll put a hole in the outer leaf.   2. Check your cigar by gently squeezing and pressing it; never roll it near your ear to hear it crackle – you’ll look like an amateur. If you do hear a cracking noise when pressing it, it is dry and shouldn’t be smoked. You’re also checking for the wrapper to see if it is of good quality; the darker it is, the more mature the cigar.   3. Sniff your cigar – not extravagantly, not timidly. The smell – whether chocolaty, spicy or leathery – will give you some idea of what it will be like to smoke.   4. You’re not Clint Eastwood, never bite the end off your cigar. You should use a guillotine or a piercer (which some say concentrates the flavour) depending on your preference. There is a line on fine cigars near the band which acts as a guide for where you should be cutting your tip. The end you remove should be put in the ashtray.   5. The band on a cigar was put there in order to protect your fingers when smoking – though it has become a method for branding cigars. It is entirely a matter of personal choice as to whether you keep it on or not. It can be a useful identifying marker, though, if sharing an ashtray with another smoker. If the band on your cigar doesn’t move, don’t remove it as you’ll damage the outer leaf.   6. Never use matches or petrol cigarette lighters to light your cigar. Your cigar should remain as pure as possible so a cheap, butane lighter is ideal. If you would rather not use a cheap lighter, light a strip of the cedar you’ll find in the bottom of your cigar box then use that as a taper.   7. Before lighting it, bring your cigar close to the flame, then rotate it so that the tip is thoroughly warmed. This will ensure your cigar burns evenly all the way down. After that, put the cigar in you mouth and draw in the flame, which should remain a quarter of an inch from the end of your cigar. You can blow on the end to make sure it’s even. Don’t worry if the end of your cigar briefly catches fire, it won’t do any damage at all.   8. A cigar is made purely of tobacco and you should be tasting it rather than inhaling it. Allow the smoke to roll around your mouth, savour it, then exhale.   9. Don’t keep drawing on your cigar, it will burn naturally. You should leave it in an ashtray for periods (don’t keep it in your hand) and return to it sporadically.   10. Once you have smoked it past the halfway point, it will go out of its own accord. If that happens, re-warm it, then light it again. Your cigar should have a smooth, white ash and it will fall off naturally without being tapped.   11. The flavour of a cigar will change as you smoke it and as the oils spread. Never smoke a cigar past the band, though. By the time you’re down to there, the oils will have built up to such an extent as to make your cigar unsmokeable. As a rough rule of thumb, you should leave a third to a quarter of your cigar.   12. You can hold your cigar like a pen or a cigarette, depending on your preference. There is no set method.   13. Don’t stub your cigar out, it will make a horrible mess of the ashtray. Instead leave it to burn out of its own accord.   14. Cigar smoking should be a social thing and you should always offer them around. Of course, if in the right company, those you offer them to should decline and smoke their own.   15. Smoke rings are never acceptable. Cigars aren’t a chance to show off.

A thrilling story was recently told to us in the barber’s chair from the auctioneers at Dix Noonan Webb. They are selling the war time medals of Lt Col Ronald ‘Ronnie’ Littledale, who was just one of 32 people to successfully make a World War 2 ‘home run’ – an escape all the way to England.   Littledale was a serial escapee who was first captured in Calais in May 1940 as the British forces retreated. For the next three years he would be either on the run or incarcerated in German prison camps. But his final escape – the one that brought him home – was the stuff of Boy’s Own adventures, involving the wartime ace Douglas Bader and a naked wriggle through the air vents at Colditz Castle.   After his capture in Calais, he was locked up in the Oflag VII C at Laufen where he began to dig his way out. His German captors discovered the tunnel and, in 1942, he was transferred to Stalag XXI D at Posen. He escaped with two others by hiding in a rubbish dump and made it to Warsaw where, for the next 10 months of his life, he lived as the toast of the underground. But in January 1942, when he made for Sofia, he was captured by the Bulgarian police, betrayed and sold to the Gestapo. Furious, he immediately broke free from a train and spent six months on the run.   When he was recaptured in Prague in May 1942 he was forcefully interrogated by the SS and the Gestapo before finally being locked up in Colditz, the notorious prisoner of war camp for serial escapees. He refused to be put off by the heavy security there.   He met Pat Reid – whose life was later made into the 1970’s BBC television series Colditz Story – and alongside him, Lieutenant-Commander W. L. ‘Billie’ Stephens and Lieutenant H. D. ‘Hank’ Wardle, they plotted their escape.   There were few ways out of Colditz. The castle was located on a rocky outcrop above the river Mulde, and its outer courtyard had just two exits – both of which where guarded by a German garrison. Escape could only be made by one of three methods: to go under the surrounding wall, to go over it or go through it go through it. Littledale chose to go through it.   But the route to the wall meant a suicide run across a busy, floodlit and heavily guarded garden. The others in Littledale’s crew thought it was a crazy plan but Ronnie was determined, reasoning the guards were lax. That was where Bader came in. The heroic pilot set up a prison orchestra and, while conducting with a clear view of the sentries, set up a signalling system. Each time the coast was clear, he would stop the music and so Littledale’s men could break for the kitchen.   It worked. Just. They made it to the cellar and, there, stripped off and squirmed their way through an air vent that led through to the moat outside. Free, they headed for neutral Switzerland, then Spain. But still their journey wasn’t over: in Spain they were captured and tortured, before eventually they were handed back to the British – finally making it home to England in May 1943, exactly three years since he was first taken prisoner.   Littledale was just one of 32 men who made a successful ‘home run’ out of the 316 attempted by the 10,000 captured RAF prisoners. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on his return to duty – one of the medals for sale in the auction – but was killed in September 1944 after taking a direct hit from an anti-aircraft gun. His medals are being sold by Brigadier Bill Strong and his wife, and are expected to fetch between £10,000 and £12,000 when they sell at Dix Noonan Webb in London on May 18. Each medal a reminder of some stunning war time heroism.

Off the peg shirts are fine. No, really, they’re alright. They’re tailored to fit someone with an average body shape, average size and average build. So if that’s you, Mr Average, knock yourself out.   For everyone else, why not get a shirt that fits? That really fits. And not just your body – one that suits your lifestyle, your exercise regime, how fierce the air conditioning is in your office and, most importantly, one that fits you, and you alone.   Find a tailor: The first clue to whether you’ll get on with a tailor is whether you like his look. If so, that’s a good place to start.   Think about your job: There are style concerns, obviously, about what will fit in the office. But there are practical concerns too: the more physical or active your work, the sooner a tight shirt will wear.   The temperature: Tell your tailor if you work in a warm office, or will wear the shirt abroad in hot or cold climates. It will affect the cotton they use. Similarly, if you use hotel laundries or dry cleaners a lot, they may want to use a tougher fabric.   Your fitness regime: Whether you lift weights, do yoga or are having physio, your body shape will change. Tailors can make allowances for this.   Sleeves: Tight enough to fit, loose enough to allow movement. Cuffs should end, roughly, four and a half inches from the end of the thumb. At the fitting, wear the watch you will most usually wear with the shirt – so a day watch for a day shirt, an evening watch for a formal shirt – and the same goes for cufflinks and jacket.   Collar: Narrow tie knot, generally means traditional collar. Wide tie knot generally means cut-away collar. You should be able to fit three fingers between collar and neck. Collars and cuffs tend to wear out faster – they’ll last about three years if the shirt is washed once a week – but can be replaced.   Care: Wash a bespoke shirt three times before wearing it to allow it to soften and shrink to fit. Dry-cleaning tends to wear shirts out – particularly under the arms, where deodorant will not be removed. Wash it at home at 40 degrees and then get it pressed at a dry-cleaners (or iron yourself).   Trust your tailor: They do this a lot, you know. They probably know best.

It happens to the best of us, and there’s very little you can do to stop it so, if you do find yourself losing your hair, embrace it. You haven’t got a lot of choice.   For a lot of men, going bald feels traumatic. But it need not, just so long as you deal with it. The worst thing you can do is to try to deny what’s happening – that’s what leads to comb overs. Instead, here are our tips for going bald gracefully.   1. Get a good haircut It sounds ridiculous but, the less hair you have, the more it needs looking after. Not all men have the head shape to shave off all their hair and not everyone would want to be bald all over. Instead, it’s essential to keep your remaining hair short, neat and trimmed. That way, you’ll always look sharp.   2. Stay even Keeping your hair the same, short length all over is both easy to maintain and a sleek look for those losing their hair.   3. Accept it Comb-overs, expensive hair treatments, wigs, stick on hair… all of it is nonsense. Firstly, you’ll look ridiculous, secondly everyone will know anyway and, thirdly, it will be more embarrassing when you have a mishap – as you inevitably will. Instead, simply take on the challenge of going bald with style.

Watches are hardly essential anymore. You can tell the time with your phone, your computer, iPod, iPad, the clock on the wall … a thousand different ways. So a watch is a luxury. So treat is as one. A good watch is a mechanical work of art, a masterpiece of craftsmanship as miniscule cogs interact impeccably to turn the beautiful hands on the face. To a man of a certain mind, they are the ultimate engine. With this in mind, a serious watch should not be digital or remote controlled, it should be mechanical and should require care and even winding for you to develop a relationship with it.   1. Research your watch. Find out what it stands for, what it represents – motoring, space, a certain time and place, perhaps – all things that will allow you to develop a rapport with it.   2. Have more than one. You don’t just have one suit. Different watches suit different moods and occasions.   3. Big brand names – Omega, IWC, Patek PhillipeJaeger Le Coutre Etc – tend to be a guarantee of quality. Generally, the more respected a brand, the better the watches they make.   4. It’s not about telling the time, it’s about the feel, the look and the weight of the thing. It’s about the internal nod of approval you get everytime you look at it. Keep that in mind when buying.   5. Treat it as a luxury, not a practical buy. You don’t need it, but you’d like it. Besides, it’s the only way to justify that eye-watering price tag.   6. Enjoy it.

The best shave you’ll ever get is from a barber with a cut-throat razor. Most of us, unfortunately, don’t have one stationed in our bathroom. Instead, we hack away every morning with a six-month-old, dirty razor and wonder why shaving’s no fun. The rushed, pre-work, early morning routine can leave your face tattered so follow Pankhurst London’s tips for a top daily shave.   1. Shave in the shower You need to open your pores up before a shave to help cleanse your skin. Barbers do this with a hot towel and you can do the same with a hot flannel. However when speed is of the essence, use the natural steam and heat of the shower to do the work for you. Then use a cheap mirror inside the cubicle.   2. Use shaving cream, not gel Apply the cream with a circular motion to allow your hair to stand on end and make it easier to shave. Gel just doesn’t achieve the same results. For those with sensitive skins, use an aqueous moisturising cream – it’s not quite as good as a professional shaving cream, but won’t irritate your skin.   3. Use a good razor Modern cartridge razors and safety razors provide the best results at home, as long as they’re kept clean. Don’t use disposable razors, they rarely offer good results. Check which way your beard grows (tip: it’s not all in the same direction) and shave in the direction it grows towards.   4. Close your pores Step out of the shower and splash cold water on your face to close your pores. Then moisturise, or use a post-shave cream. We recommend ours. But then we would.

Forgive us for plugging ourselves but, alongside the new store, there is also a new product range to tell you about. You can read all about them on our shop page but here, perhaps, is the right place to let you know about the Pankhurst scent behind them all.   Informing all Pankhurst products, the Pankhurst signature scent is inspired by bay rum and lime. Distilled from Caribbean rum and the leaves of West Indies bay tree, it is a warm and spicy fragrance that speaks of the sun’s rays, the sound of the sea, and sweet, woody aromas. It is said that 16th century sailors would mingle the fragrant oil of the bay tree’s leaves with rum before rubbing it onto their skin. Its popularity was such in the barbershops of America before the Second World War that its timeless masculinity can’t fail to be reminiscent of cold razor shaves and distinctive barbershop scents.