Reviews of Erolfa (1992)
by Creed

A pleasant aquatic scent from Creed, which, it should be noted, is not a mainstay in their fragrance repertoire. Nonetheless, it is naturally blended, with a top note described as ozonic (I stil cannot figure this one out), a heart of tangerine and bergamot, and the traditional Millesime base of sandalwood, ambergris and musk. Creed has only produced two fragrances strictly rooted in the aquatic genre (MI and Erolfa), and I much prefer MI. That is not to say that Erolfa is bad; on the contrary, it is a wonderful evocation of sailing, as that ozonic note that is difficult to identify is reminiscent of briney seawater and the crisp air one would feel whilst sailing. Erolfa has a very natural and attractive smell, but the reason that I prefer Imperial is because MI is a more exotic marine fragrance, and also lasts somewhat longer. Indeed, that is the major drawback with Erolfa: longevity is poor. 3 or 4 sprays will only last around 4 hours, at best. Nonetheless, Erolfa is a fine offering from Creed, one of their few aquatic scents, and certainly miles ahead of the nefariously poor Acqua di Gio and other marine cop-outs produced in the past few years by designers.

This fragrance sorta caught me off guard when I first tried it. I wasn't really expecting the strong opening that Erolfa has to offer. I was expecting to smell something along the lines of Acqua Di Gio, but I was mistaken. On my skin this fragrance smells very fresh. The bergamot and sandalwood are the main notes that I can pick out for the long run when I'm wearing this one. I don't know what they mean by ozonic notes, but when I can make out in the opening is "green" and a little bit citrusy...so I guess that would be the tangerine I'm making out in the opening.
Its great on a warm day. I don't really get that whole mental picture of being at the beach when I'm wearing it, but it is definitely a comforting fragrance. It only lasts a couple hours on me, so I have to re-apply it if I want it to last all day. After the dry down mixed with a little sweat, my wife and my friends girlfriends seem to flock to me and flirt....so I guess this one is attractive to the ladies.
You can't go wrong with this one.

My bottle of Erolfa finally arrived! The first thing I noticed was the strong Coriander note. No ocean, no salty spray of surf, just currie! Fortunately that impression didn't last. I am sensitive to this note because we eat authentic curry in our house made from individual spices. I think the delightful pungent note in Erolfa is some accord involving the coriander and something else. I see the similarities to Imperial and I agree that this is the 'bad boy' of the two. It smells fresh and old, clean and dirty, all at the same time. I love the mixing of creamy 'Creed house notes' and sharper citrus, plus watery notes and spices. Definitely a thumbs up for me. No regrets for this purchase.

Another scent which evoked images in my mind. i could almost hear the waves gently waft the boat..the sweet and salty smell of sea with a strong breeze which carries smell from far.. i really cudnt shakedown that image, it was true and pure. i'm totally in awe of how they managed to pull this one of. what in it gives away that feeling of being at sea? not on the beach, but right in middle of the sea with sea weed floating by. an experience not to be missed.

Erolfa opens with loud tart tangerine note which is almost as tangy as your Altoids pellet combined with the smell of melon juice dried off in hand...the citrus elements add a nice bite to the openin with the melon sweetning things up...some might say this is synthetic, but i felt it was just being true to the smell of salt and sea breeze, which is actually sweet, also, a defnite progression to the most enjoyable phase in the scent..."middle in the sea accord"- well within an hour, this scent take a mellow approach, with definite movement and interplay between the notes, notes which fade in and out, as if it were breathing...this is what probably gives this scent the feel of waves, real waves...i really wish this phase lasts forever, but like every good thing, it does fade out respectfully to a dirty base of Sandalwood, Amber, musk and sea weed.

Erolfa lasts over5-6 hours on me with moderate sillage thereafter.

Erolfa is a summer favorite of mine. When I take the cap off the bottle, I detect a soapiness, but that never is present on my skin. It is oceanic, salty and citrusy and suggests hot summer days at the beach, saltiness in the air. The dominant citrus is tangerine and it is the best smelling tangerine in fragrance that I know of. The base is the typical Creed ambergris base. I get good longevity and to my surprise even some compliments when I wear it (no, I have not worn it around Luca Turin who gives it his lowest rating in his recently published book “Perfumes”!). I limit my use to warmer weather (it doesn’t develop as well in cooler weather) and it is great for the outdoors.

Lemon/Tangerine, salty ocean air, herbs. That is the initial blast of Erolfa, condensing itself into some woody notes along with the salt remaining later. This is my favorite daytime/summer fragrance, and lasts a good while (5-8 hours) on my skin with 2 sprays. The sillage is decent, but it is really a close-to-skin scent after the first few hours, only satisfying the wearer and whomever is lucky enough to get closer. I'm writing this review and smelling my wrist at the same time, and I still can't describe something about it. It is elusive (read Vibert) and this keeps me coming back to smell; it is truly addictive!

This scent has a clean aquatic smell to it like a seaside breeze. It's not my favorite creed scent, but certainly very nice.

I am open to the mystique and romance of the ocean! I wish I could report that I had the same marvelous seaside fragrance experiences as some of the reviewers of Erolfa. I don’t dislike it... I’m just not bowled over by it. It has a great opening: very citrusy, sharp, salty, briny, tangy. It is quite invigorating. After that, it settles into what seems to me to be a rather basic ozonic note. It is pleasant smelling in a fresh way, but its synthetic character does not appeal to me greatly. It smells like a lot of commercial and inexpensive ocean-style scents and soaps. I wonder how Creed achieves that ozonic note. I read somewhere in Basenotes that the Victorians rendered the note through a combination of geranium and mint; but I don’t get either of those here. That “fresh” scent seems quite synthetic to me, and thus out of character for the Creed emphasis on high-end natural elements. The sandalwood is quite muted as a woody note, and presents the sharp tangy quality sometimes found in extracts of that wood. The amber is dry and restrained, not powdery at all. This is not a comfort scent – it is austere and cool. I like that style (e.g., Blenheim Bouquet or Green Water) but I’m neutral on ozone. I don’t get any green or coniferous notes. This seems entirely “blue” (marine) to me. Oh well, this will be a fun fresh thing once in a while, just not a go-to scent.

Allright I recant! This really is a great frag IF (see jforturi's 2003 review) you are around the seashore. Skip the seabreeze and wear it at a board meeting? Methinks not. Might as well pour salt over your head. <br>

Very nice scent, it does make you think of being at the helm of a yacht steering through beautiful crystal waters. Kind of like a Nautica ad.

The scent is not very complex however, and I would not classify it as an every day cologne. More of a specialty summer type.

The longevity is fair and it projects well. Overall a good offering.

With that said I probably will not be buying a bottle, while nice the summer/niche category this falls under is too narrow for me to justify the investment.

The most natural aquatic that I've smelled to date. For all of you Creed fans out there, mix Erolfa and SMW or MI and take a sniff..... WOW! I seldom where this one alone. I 've found that it is best when combined with other Creed scents... I'll try Erolfa and Himalaya next. With all Creed scents apply to undergarments if there is a problem with longevity.

Nice fesh, like a brezze.
i can't detect the ozone and marine note till one hour of application, still so clean and crisp.
Pity the lasting is way short,and the price goes up than 100€.
Would suit me very well...
I rather choose Mark Birley for something fresh and genuine yet affordable

Incredibly crisp, with an amazing salty note. You can really taste the salt on first spray. Absolutely fantastic. It definitely strikes me as a scent to be worn in boat shoes without socks, khakis, an unbuttoned white shirt and aviators on a yacht... or at least it makes me want to be on one :) Works well in a cubicle, too.

It's the tits.

Erolfa is a wonderful fragrance. Of the Creed fragrances that I've journeyed through over the past 10 years, Erolfa is the only one that I am still very seduced by. It's sort of a seaside mysterious aura that is haunting, clean and refreshing. It opens with a lemony citrus scent with a little spice in the background that is nice, but not that special. This hangs around for about an hour, but then a gradual evolution of receding citrus and emerging wood notes begins to happen. A third change happens shortly after the woods emerge when the ozone note drifts over the entire scent and creates this oceanic air that is a mysterious minty drydown. Lasts for at least 4-5 hours on me before starting to fade. It is one of the few fragrances that people consistently stop me and ask "what are you wearing?" To respond to another reviewers question about strength, I do think that the recent bottle I purchased is slightly weaker than what I remember from the bottles I got back in the 1990's - but the scent is still the same. A great one.

This is my first bottle of Creed, a blind buy. I couldn't pass up a deal. And I'm now glad I didn't. While I've only had this scent for a day, my attraction to it continues to rise with every passing moment.

My first reaction to Erolfa was manipulated by a faulty spray too close to the skin. It smelt like I was wading through a fragrance store full of broken perfume bottles. However, once that mellowed out, a unique scent emerged. At moments I truly enjoyed it's coastal qualities. Other times, it reminded me of perfume I'd smelled in the past. On the face of some forgotten memory.

I live on the coast and have yet to merge the oceanic adventure in a bottle with the real thing. I have a hunch that they will reproduce the Erolfa experience that so may basnoters have elegantly explained before me.

Finally a Creed that works for a younger and easy-going, yet elegant crowd. Smells like preppy college kids on Nantucket for the summer. You do need to reapply pretty often though.

Erolfa fascinates me. For all of its ostensible simplicity, it shifts moods and intensity in unpredictable ways. Like the ocean it endeavors to conjure, it manages to be at once fresh and mysterious, successfully avoiding a certain well-fashioned blandness I have found in some other modern Creed scents. At the same time, it dodges the suntan lotion banality of so many "beach" scents.

It's not Erolfa's brine that I encounter first, but a sharp, tart citrus, one that is more lemon juice than orange rind. The salt, ozone, and iodine reveal themselves over the first fifteen to thirty minutes, while the citrus smooths out and mellows. (Though without ever becoming sweet.)

This is where the much-discussed ocean pier/seaside impression solidifies, if "solidifies" applies to a scent as elusive and evanescent as Erolfa. I sense no kelp or dune grass here. Oddly, for an "oceanic" scent, I find nothing moist at all about Erolfa. This is salt-soaked, sun-drenched dritwood blending with dry citrus and the faintest hint of the creosote used to waterproof pilings beneath a dock.

Erolfa stays quite close to my skin, drying down toward the same enjoyable, if slightly over-familiar millesime base I know from Silver Mountain Water, Millesime Imperial, and other green/aquatic modern Creeds. In this case though, the drydown is distinguished by a lasting hint of iodine and sea salt, which keeps Erolfa's late stages drier and a touch sharper than its cousins'.

The scent stays close to my skin throughout its 4-6 hour lifespan, but I don't mind the modest projection or sillage. Erolfa is angular enough in profile that it might abrade passersby if it extended too far out. Bearing the citrus and aquatic curse of short duration, Erolfa requires liberal application or frequent refreshing. I suppose that's why they sell those four ounce "tanks" of this stuff.

Erolfa is far craggier and decidedly more "masculine" than Silver Mountain Water or Millesime Imperial, and I understand why Creed's not marketing it as unisex. This is an austere, perhaps even slightly forbidding, fragrance: the ghost of some old sailor that flickers in and out of view against a background of ocean spray and gray surf.

How remarkable that over a millesime base not too far removed from the congenial Green Irish Tweed, Erolfa can make such a contrasting impression. It's taken me a long time to decide how I feel about Erolfa, and that in itself helped me decide that there really is something to it. Silver Mountain Water and Millesime Imperial are both very beautiful, but it's the far less pretty Erolfa that holds my attention.

Creed's modern products may be legitimate objects of contention, but the company does do at least some things right. I think Erolfa is one of them.

Erolfa’s pure refinement bespeaks the yuppie high life; it’s the gleaming white yacht with gold trim and mirrored glass sailing the cool glistening blue ocean, enveloped by the warm sparkling sun and the crisp fresh breeze. It is the ultimate aquatic/marine fragrance and an experience of high society.

At first I didnt like this scent, but after a few times of wearing it I fell in love. It reminded me of my child hood days of growing up on my home Island. The opening is a little strong but once it drys down you will not be able to stop smiffing yourself. I wear this to work or as an evening smell because it it some what masculine. This was a blind buy for me and I am very happy with my purchase.

First, I was reminded of scuba diving in the Caribbean. When I smelled it later, I remembered a deep-sea fishing trip on a very gray afternoon. I like this scent, but I feel like I can't pull it off without the ocean nearby. Maybe I'll get to use it this summer on vacation.

Erolfa is a wonderful stab at emulating the smell of sea air. I think it does it well, better even than Mare, which I find smells more like a greenhouse (light florals wafting on a warm breeze). The only scent I can think of that better emulates the smell of the ocean is Tonatto's Oltre, which is EXTREME. But while Oltre has an intense and sharp marine note, is very lonely smelling, and smells like a cold day at the ocean, just before a gathering storm, Erolfa I find is warmer, more inviting. It still has, as Indie_Guy points out, a solipsistic quality, which is to be expected, I think, because for me the smell of the salty ocean air is an introspective one.

I also agree with Foetidus (as usual) that, if you step inside the overall olfactory effect of Erolfa, you find that it's a nice green scent with floral and coniferous accents. Whatever it is, it smells wonderful, reminds me of sunny, warm days at the ocean, reminds me of the summer. It's casual in my mind, and lasts well for a scent of this type. It was one of the first marine fragrances I smelled, and is still one of my favorites.

I got a bottle of Erolfa last week. It's just what I hoped it would be-- a darker, moodier cousin to Millesime Imperial. It's herbal and fresh and yes, there is that prominent sea-salt accord. Erolfa while being a marine fragrance, has a kind of an "old soul"--like the patina of brass fittings on an old galleon.

While MI is sunny, bright and outgoing, Erolfa is darker, more mysterious, and introverted. The yin to MI's yang. And I almost find Erolfa to be somewhat "goth" in a way, I suppose depending upon the rest of the wearer's presentation.

Definitely a good choice for evening wear. It's kind a kind of macho roughness about it. A lot of depth as well. When I sniff it, I get all kind of daydreams about ships. pirates, maps, seas, and the like.

Definitely the best fragrance a person could wear to see a Decemberists concert!

Everything I'd hoped it would be.

I usually don't like aquatics, as I think that Miyake and Aqua di Gio have forever turned my nose against them. BUT, wasn't I surprised to smell this one. It is definitely aquatic, but instead of that citrus-y, light sweetness that one usually gets, I got salt and brine! I felt like I could be standing in the prow of a whaling boat.

Longevity was quite nice as well. In fact, of the 5 or 6 Creed's I've owned, this was the only one that stayed on me.

Definitely worth a try, especially if you can get it at discount (I don't know if I'd pay $180 for it... but it still is by far my favorite aquatic).

Many aquatic and marine fragrances differ in the type of ocean or sea water that they are trying to emulate. Erolfa emulates oceans which are briny and a bit salty. And it does it extremely well.

A blast of tangerine freshness opens Erolfa. Refreshing, like just stepping out of an SUV and into the open area by the sea. Erolfa contains an "ozonic" note which is the secret to its conjuring that alluring briny sea smell - to me, its arguably the best recreation of the sea smell around. This forms the heart of Erolfa and stays on till the end (6 hours later).

I prefer Erolfa's slighty briny interpretation of the ocean smell to various other offerings out there like Amouage Arcus or Bulgaris Aqua (whose posidonia note disturbs me). Also, Erolfa smells nothing like Millesime Imperial - the only thing they share is an ambergris base. If you are looking for a marine fragrance, Erolfa might be the one to remind you of all the happy and not-so-happy-Jaws-related memories.

Let me say that this is nothing like M.I. For one, the opening is as others have noted salty, sweaty and much more masculine as opposed to M.I.'s fruity opening. There are some similar notes but the idea that they are much alike is misguided. A fantastic aquatic scent that really does mimic the qualities of the ocean.

The brine in this one tries to hide from me—I catch it occasionally, but normally I get more green than marine out of Erolfa. It’s a healthy and lively green note sweetened by melon and sharpened by violet. I don’t get much citrus out of it either, but I do get a solid coniferous note. This is a beautifully blended and structured fragrance, which I find very similar to Millesime Imperial—the melon note makes them pretty much alike in my opinion. I like this scent very much but I probably will never buy it, because I have Millesime Imperial, and there’s no point in having two so similar fragrances. This is a excellent one, though, and it lasts fairly well on my skin.

My favorite of the newer Creed fragrances -- well, right up there with Millesime Imperial, anyway.

Very crisp, very fresh -- not overbearing or overblown in any way.

Hands down, this is my very favorite marine scent of all time.

My favorite scent...ever! Living on the Carolina coast, this fragrance is like taking the beach with me wherever I go. People are always asking what I'm wearing. It's truly original...like nothing else. Subtle and complex. I have a lady friend who also wears it, and I must say, it smells good on women, too! :)

Got myself a sample from Parfumsraffy.com and later on ordered myself a bottle. Funny thing is that the sample smelled different from the bottled version. The sample was more aquatic and salty and smelled way better overall. I wonder if someone has had the same experience.

The other day I went to sample some Creed scents before visiting my girlfriend who lives in Malibu, CA. Though I liked them all, I chose a 1 oz. bottle of Erolfa because I have an affinity for the sea. On the test card, the marine notes were apparent immediately, along with the dominant salty, citrus ones that other reviewers noted. The packaging was elegant, clean, and simple, and the bottle is nicely done too. But on the initial blast to my wrist, I began to worry, because it started out smelling like any other citrus. However, by initial blast, I mean the first minute. As I drove on the freeway, I kept going back to my wrist and the scent began to take shape nicely. Orange mixed with wood, salt mixed with marine notes, and the oily note a previous reviewer spoke of was definitely there when the scent was fresh. When I finally met up with my girlfriend, her exact words were: "You smell reallllly good!" Later at the beach she was giving me a hug and breathed deeply, sighing, and just uttered: "Wow, this is great cologne..." Creed is quality, there's no way around it. I'm willing to spend a little more for that quality, and Creed has earned the respect of another customer. Of course, as a 21 year old college student, I won't always be able to buy them, but.....haha. Give Erolfa a try and be patient with it.

Excellent scent. Very refined, very elegant. Makes me think of James Bond etc. This is a personal favourite. I pick up on the marine notes, but for anyone reading these reviews who is thinking of trying it - dont get turned off - it doesnt' actually smell like the sea, and you definatley dont have to be on the water to wear it. This ones perfect for the boardroom - makes you feel powerful.

Excellent marine scent. Breezy, salty and fresh without losing its distinct masculinity. Put on a newly ironed white shirt and 3 spritzes of Erolfa and you'll be ready for any urban challenge. Very similar in drydown to Neroli Sauvage.
Mattias / Sweden

I got a sample of this and was not impressed, but I ended up with a bottle anyway. I have been wearing it more and more. This is a really good solid fresh scent. It has grown on me well. It is now in my top three favorites.

An awesome scent, especially if you are on or around water. Salt and seaweed are prominent, and beautifully blended together. Then the scent gets even better on the dry down, the salty notes mellow out and delicious warm notes come through. I bet this smells even better on a cool, crisp day.

Surprising that this one doesn't get more attention on the forum. It is reminiscent of the saltwater seas, as advertised, but with an additional interesting "oily" note that is something akin to what the rigging on wooden sailing ships must smell like after being soaked for many years with sea salt, rain and sunshine. While the staying power could be better, this fragrance does speak loudly of "old school" notions of class and cool.

Salt, seaweed and water...but the water must be added by you. I find Erolfa a little hard to wear just out and about (especially in the heat) but when you are on or around water this becomes absolutely magical. The fresh scent of water mixes with the marine notes on your skin and enhances any waterborne experience. A great fragrance.

If marine notes are your thing you'll love this. Probably only Motu by CSP beats this one. Very open and fresh without smelling overtly citrusy.