Acqua di Sale by Profumum {Perfume Review & Musings}
The main inspiration for the perfume seems to have been to combine marine notes with coniferous ones. This creates the mental backdrop for a classical Mediterranean landscape by the sea and translates into a sophisticated, very elegant, and unusual marine scent with an assertive personality. It is beautiful, if not pretty, as beauty seems to stand closer to ugliness than prettiness and as some of the nuances of the scent could feel to offer too much personality.
The perfume starts with a pale yellow alcoholic, then briny, sea-spray impressions with aromatic notes of, to my nose, vetiver, eucalyptus, juniper berries, thyme, and actually, myrtle. It is herbal at first, suggesting a Chartreuse liqueur, then segues into an intense coniferous accord with resinous, sappy, sticky nuances of pine resin. Little waves seem to come lick the foot of a pine tree or alternatively one starts visualizing pinecones floating on the foam of the sea., or yet again, one is promenading in a coniferous forest near a fishermen’s village. There are undertones of salty fish sauce or "nuoc mam" made of fermented fish and commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisine. This undertone is a bit daring, but add charm to the fragrance, making it smell more real. It feels a little bit like it is the Bandit of the marine scents, only slightly more masculine (it is a unisex fragrance in fact.)
After that, the scent softens down evoking a subtle beach-y aroma, that of human skin touched by the elements: the wind, the sand, and salt water on a sunny day. At the same time, it feels as if a person’s hands would have been playing with pine cones and been stained by pine resin. Underneath it all, there is an undercurrent of sweet herbaceous notes, maybe angelica, with nuances of citronella and bitter almonds.
The dry-down is woody, evoking wood furniture freshly polished with encaustic, maybe an old captain’s wood chest painted and engraved with maritime scenes salvaged and treasured in a neat little house by the sea or alternatively, the dark wood-panelled walls of a rich mansion.
The longer dry-down is cedar-y, a bit vanillic, and musky. I think that the musk could be more interesting, as it smells a bit too much to my nose of a fairly common type of white musk, yet I understand also that it allows to create a clean skin smell effect, as if one had freshly emerged from the sea.
The next day, the musky scent lingers on, revealing floral overtones.
Notes are: aroma of salt on the skin, myrtle, cedarwood, marine algae
Acqua di Sale is available in Profumum boutiques and in the US, at Luckyscent, $190 for 100 ml.
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