Bois 1920 Oltremare ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 6 June 2012 16 Comments

Bois 1920 Oltremare

Italian niche perfumery Bois 1920 makes several perfumes I enjoy (Vetiver Ambrato, Sandalo e Thé, Sutra Ylang), but the company isn’t known for outré or highly original fragrances. Bois 1920 makes well-formulated, high-quality, good-smelling scents. Recently, Bois 1920 launched a limited edition marine fragrance for men: Oltremare (so limited they didn’t even bother to update their website with any info on the fragrance); Oltremare was made to conjure “the sea breeze,” “the smell of waves” and “the winter sea.”

Usually I don’t pay much attention to aquatic-fragrance launches, but curiosity (how will Bois 1920 tackle an aquatic cologne?) and the recommendations of people I trust made me want to try it. A Now Smell This reader kindly sent me a sample of Oltremare from Santa Barbara, California…an appropriately oceanic locale…

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Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 30 January 2012 110 Comments

Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia

When looking for a perfume, many people say they want something “sexy” or something “fresh.” Perfume houses are hip to that, and tend to market their wares with smoldering starlets or oceans and dew-tipped garden flowers. (That is, unless they can play both sides and put the starlet on the beach.)

The popular sexy fragrance is easy to define. Start with a friendly fruit note, add amber, vanilla, and maybe patchouli, toss in a shot of jasmine and the obligatory rare jungle orchid, and presto: sexy perfume. A clean fragrance can take a few different approaches. It can be citrusy (many colognes), ocean-like (Issey Miyake Eau d’Issey), fizzing with steamy aldehydes (Narciso Rodriguez Essence), or soapy (take your pick of the Clean line). It can finish with cool wood or vetiver, or — more likely these days, it seems — a wave of laundry musk.

Giorgio Armani has raked in good money selling fresh fragrances. Acqua di Giò, both the feminine and masculine versions, have been best sellers since the mid-1990s. Acqua di Gioia is the brand’s latest try for the “fresh” vote, and it plays up both the ocean and laundry musk angles of clean…

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Bath & Body Works Deep Aqua ~ scented body products

Posted by Jessica on 16 May 2010 33 Comments

Underwater flowers

Deep Aqua is Bath & Body Works‘ latest addition to its Signature Collection. It’s an aquatic floral scent, described as “the pure and refreshing fragrance of ocean drenched flowers inspired by a beautiful world underwater.” Its composition includes top notes of crisp melon, daffodil, violet leaves, and water blossoms; mid notes of spring daisy, cyclamen, dewy gardenia, and white hydrangeas; and base notes of musk captives and white woods.

Looking at that list of floral notes, you may not imagine anything oceanic at all, and you may wonder which seashore we’re talking about. Violets at the beach? That being said, the fragrance itself is appropriately watery and breezy, with light hints of white flower petals. It also seems to “bloom” differently in each of the products I’ve sampled. The Skin Smoothing Shower Gelée, a limited-edition formula for summer, is a gently exfoliating, sudsy gel. (And doesn’t the word “gelée” deserve to be brought back into wider circulation?). It smells as fresh and blue as it looks, but it also releases a more complex, musky note or two when it foams and mixes with the water and steam of a warm shower.

The Body Lotion was my least favorite of the three variations I tried…

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Tous H20 ~ new fragrance

Posted by Robin on 17 April 2009 44 Comments

Tous H20 perfume

Tous will launch H₂0, a new “ecochic” perfume for women inspired by the brand’s H₂0 jewelry collection and “born from the desire and conviction that a more just world is possible, and that the union between beauty and sustainability is yet one more step towards a more beautiful universe”. The glass bottle is 25% recycled glass, the fragrance’s packaging and handling is carried out by the Special Employment Center of the Arco Iris Foundation using materials certified by the Forest Stewardship Council…

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Nautica Oceans ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 9 April 2009 43 Comments

Nautica Oceans fragrance bottle

It’s apt that a company named Nautica (a Coty brand) is releasing a water-based, “aquatic” perfume called Oceans; however, the big story is not the smell of Nautica Oceans, but the way the fragrance is made. Nautica Oceans uses a patent-pending micro-emulsion technology developed by perfumer Michel Mane (Mane USA) that “allows for a concentrated oil load of up to 20 percent to be built into water-based fragrances” (water-based scents usually only have 2-3 percent oil in the formulation).¹ Nautica Oceans uses a 10 percent oil load and Nautica has exclusive use of the Mane technology for two years.

Nautica Oceans has impeccable green credentials: its ingredients and packaging are biodegradable (the fully recyclable outer carton is made from 30 percent post consumer recycled fibers and is produced with wind energy in a carbon neutral facility) and Nautica supports Oceana.² (The only non-green aspect to Nautica Oceans is its two-year exclusive rights agreement with Mane — why not let as many perfumers and fragrance companies as possible use this “cleaner” perfume technology?)³

Nautica Oceans contains ocean air, lemon tonic, sea salt rose, lavender reef, geranium, amber crystals, teak and Regatta Accord. What does Nautica Oceans smell like? I could respond in two ways…

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