Aqua Motu / Motu (1992)
by Comptoir Sud Pacifique

I rather pleasant fragrance with cucumbers, melon, fresh sweet seaweed & something cool in it as well. It's like sitting @ a lagoon enjoying the breeze of a warm day. It opens up lively with cucumber, melon & seaweed which last throughout the entire life of the fragrance which on me is between 4-5 hours.. That is my only complaint with this, so I am skeptical about purchasing a full bottle, however it is nice for casual summer wear but it did not win me over.... To bad it has the potential..

10th August, 2011.

Starts off with a quick burst of honeydew, quickly transforms into a prominent candy cinnamon, with the honeydew/melon pushed to the back. The cinnamon then fades into a strange chemical accord. The cinnamon is still a part of this accord, it smells a little herbal, or even like a dark coffee bean. Strange..

It ends up just smelling overly metallic to me.

A somewhat interesting start, a very quick melon like set of top notes, into a sweet/spicy cinnamon, and then it all starts to go downhill from there. You can find samples of this fairly easily. I recommend trying this one out first, before pulling the trigger.

28th April, 2011.

This was another fragrance that smelled like absolutely nothing at all the first time I tried it. This time, it's doing slightly better, with a weak plasticky opening that somehow does manage to convey a tropical scene in spite of itself. Disappointing as this stage is, I would still file it away with Bulgari Aqua for its ability to truly convey seawater, though in a much more temperate way than Bulgari's tempestuous, bracing, winter sea air. After a while, a change brings hope: a mildly spicy, tropical, sun-baked varnished wood vibe appears under the receding spray, almost like a distant waft of Tommy Bahama. I happen to like the idea of TB and some of its notes, but find it too harsh and heavy in its implementation; this vague echo of it within Aqua Motu appeals to me. It allows me to live out my tropcal Margaritaville fantasy vicariously, as if through another man's cologne. It's the one time in my life that a scent has reminded me of root beer, and I've liked it. Just don't expect an aquatic for long, and don't expect much strength.

27th April, 2011.

If you like this, I recommend Fire Island, by Bond No. 9.
Fire Island is far superior, in terms of quality of ingredients, projection, and longevity.
Both create the same vibe.

7th April, 2011.

Like many of the CSP fragrances, Aqua Motu presents me with a strange chemical background to its accords: Not that I dislike these vibrations – they just take some development of acceptance and a little unconditional love. That chemical note aside, I think Aqua Motu is one of the better aquatics because it does so well at giving that feeling of sea and salt and kelp and iodine; of course, the naturally short life of those notes makes it quite difficult for the fragrance to hold them over a long-enough period of time. I wish CSP had gone more of a wood / grass route after the opening than the lily of the valley route. The lily of the valley is not the best choice for taking over after the initial cucumber, orange, salt. The lily of the valley sometimes (but not always) dominates everything else on my skin and gives too much of a floral nature to the fragrance in the heart notes (this also happens to me with Beth Terry’s Mare, but Aqua Motu’s floral impact isn’t as potent as Mare’s). I enjoy the wood and oakmoss notes that appear here and there throughout the fragrance – I think that they balance the salty, minty, marine notes quite well. The drydown is appropriately woody but not spectacular. As with several of the CSP fragrances, longevity is almost okay… but could be better. I often have problems feeling comfortable wearing aquatics, and although Aqua Motu is not very much like Erolfa or Bulgari Aqua, I find it as easy to wear and that’s a huge plus.

28th November, 2010.

Aqua Motu starts out smelling like "just another cucumber aquatic" on my skin. Given some time it evolves into a minty-fresh wood and citrus scent, with a healthy dash of seaweed and iodine thrown in. It reminds me a little of Beth Terry's Mare, only a less lush and sweet. In fact, the two are close enough that I couldn't justify owning both.

Pleasant, but not worth the rash it gives me when I wear it.

22nd December, 2009.