Aquatic for the summer: 8 of the best fresh scents
Text: Ksenia Golovanova, author of the Telegram channel Nose Republic
The term "aquatic" is strongly associated with many of us. with the fashion of the 90s and unisex scents - and now she is experiencing, if not a rebirth, then an interesting development of the theme. The water in the perfume reading is varied - and it is not only the salty ocean or the wet breeze on the coast. At our request, perfume critic Ksenia Golovanova shows eight original aquatic fragrances that need attention in the run-up to summer.
Salty sea rose - a fashionable olfactory profile: such, in addition to Une Nuit Nomade, came out at the Brooklyn brand D.S. & Durga (see below), Les Parfums de Rosine and even Davidoff. For those who love Nancy Thayer's summer novels, played out on the resort island of Nantucket in Massachusetts, Rose America prepares the joy of recognition: the subtle and clean smell of sea shoals, wild rose hedges and wet lawns rolling in emerald waves on the whitewashed facades of mansions.
La Collection des Terres Précieuses, a ruler inside the Armani Privé line, is still very good: the first two fragrances devoted to Russia — the spicy lily Vert Malachite and the amber tuberose — Rouge Malachite — set the collection to an exotic tone, and the next two, already about India, were picked up by . So, Bleu Turquoise smells of ozone, frankincense and tropical vanilla in the crust of sea salt - a beach bar in an expensive hotel on the coast of Kerala, where sand is raked, and smoking rooms are hidden behind carved wooden screens.
Ella K is a new brand of Sony Konstantin, the author of many perfume hits: Narciso Rodriguez Fleur Musc for Her, Tom Ford Orchid Soleil, Dom Rosa Les Liquides Imaginaires and so on. All of the above Konstant collected as a full-time perfumer company Givaudan, but Ella K - her personal offspring and in the literal sense of the word outlet. However, for many years the drills in a large concern have not been in vain: all the flavors of the line are socks comfortable and understandably well, which is not always to be expected from niche perfumery. "Rain over Halong", for example, is made in the best traditions of the cool floral aquatic of the 1990s - the one where the lotus or cyclamen is always declared (or both), but without the characteristic soap suds on the tongue. But with fashionable rhubarb and magnolia: they will give you rain, but first - flowers, and a lot.
The Jacques Zolty line has grown in St. Barts, the overseas community of France in the Caribbean. The island, which began with the settlements of fishermen and pirates, who were engaged in plundering Spanish galleons, turned into a feeder for elite tourism and development by the XX century - boring, but what can you do, St. Barts beaches were too good. Most of the collection's fragrances are devoted to them: there is in it the oily-lily Lily Beach, the gentlest Van-Île, nothing inferior to the famous vanilla Tihota, Indult (and at the same time three times cheaper), as well as Ombrella Crash, literally - “Beach umbrella has been formed” . The main characters of the party are watermelon, ozone and sour-green rhubarb, cool and fresh, and all together - transparent pink chunks and crispy petioles in a plate with fruit salad.
27 87 is an excellent young brand from Barcelona, which gathered under its wing perfumers such as Mark Buxton, Daniel Andrie and Syamala Mesondieu (we owe the latter, in particular, Charogne, État Libre d'Orange). She also collected Wandervogel, a mineral-aquatic aroma that smells of a good city beach, such as Barceloneta - its strange concrete sun beds, mint cocktails and the pleasant salty moisture of fluffy towels. This in itself is very good and unusual, but now we will get you: from the German Wandervogel translates as "migratory bird".
Rose Atlantic American brand D.S. & Durga, it seems, was made for those people whose lives are led by the reptile brain: they confidently control the boat, feeling the wave as good as the sea snake, they never sweat and wear yacht shorts as if they were sewn according to their personal patterns. This scent is cold, clean and moist — a rose in the halo of sea spray, for a blush lightly powdered with pink pepper, but still soothing and indifferent, like a beacon light. It is useless to wait from her what is usually expected from a rose — boudoir bliss and ardor in the spirit of Shakespeare's sonnets. Rose Atlantic is not about emotions at all, but about sensations: the salty wind and the icy air in the lungs.
The name of the fragrance, "Five Fathoms", dates back to the Shakespearean play "The Tempest", where the corresponding value indicates the sea depth. Fathom V, as the name implies, is not about the upper layers of water filled with light and life, but about the abyss - dark, difficult to comprehend and unsafe. In a word, this is not the usual aquatic for the Nemo fish: the green reflections in Sazheny - figs, currants, juniper - dissolve in the impenetrable bottom darkness with hints of silt, greasy soil and decomposition. For the last answer indole flowers, literally a drop in this black sea, but very important.
We have written more than once about the "Cruise Collection" by perfumer Pierre Guillaume - a fresh reading of aquatic, thanks to which, in particular, she was finally able to leave the perfume counter. All the fervor of popular love took over the popular Paris-Seychelles, but Foudre, or "Lightning," always hits somewhere far from civilization, although the idea behind the scent is beautiful - to recreate the smell of magnolia champaka before the storm. To do this, Pierre Guillaume incites CO2-extract of champaka with vetiver and aldemon, a substance with a complex aldehyde-ozone and at the same time green smell, - it lets a current through magnolia. It turns out beautifully and a little anxiously: the air and flowers are full of moisture on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Photo: Cosmotheca, Rive Gauche, Ella K Parfums, Molecule, Freshlab, D.S. & Durga, Posh, BeauFort London