Polo Blue (2002)
by Ralph Lauren

I love all the crazy ... It's like a refreshing breeze ... a wonderful creator

When is an aquatic not an aquatic? When it smells like Polo Blue.
Slightly dated, oddly sombre cucumber and suede with rubbing alcohol. The mossy base is a really nice touch and quite unexpected considering the rest of the fragrance. I find this lends it a dependable and mature edge, unlike some other "fresh" frags which seem almost throwaway in nature. This is a serious scent for serious people, but because it's quite joyless, I can see why it's not especially popular anymore. I mean, it smells as if it could have come from 1976 rather than the early Noughties - why smell of maudlin leather and cucumber when you can smell of pineapple and calone? Being a young grumpy old fart, I dig that.

Longevity is very good at around 14 hours and the silage is close to the skin rather than scream in your face, which I think is nice for a frag like this. I like the bottle, and the atomiser, like all the Polo frags except Explorer, is very good.
Oddball, but ace. If it's the kind of thing that's important to you - women seem to really like this.

Now this surprisingly does not smell very aquatic, though solely looking at the list of notes could easily convince anyone otherwise. I would give it credit for not smelling like your typical calone-saturated marine scents. It is a little powdery, soapy and has an old school/dated vibe to it.

A fairly pleasant and fresh fragrance, but that cucumber really just lingers throughout. No depth whatsoever.

This is quite a sour production, not really improved by the inclusion of some rather abrasive notes in the middle phase. The opening is fresh enough, but it feels two dimensional, and lacking in balance. The top of the pyramid is probably more suited to a fruit salad than a fragrance, but it could still have been developed better than this. It has little stamina, and it projects its rather dull production in a very feeble manner. Not in the least commendable.

I loved this scent. My fav of the (4?) not including the Romance line. I used it fairly quick and had the bottle in the cabinet til a month or so back I took out the bottle which still had a tiny drop in it, ripped the cap and squirter out with a pair of pliers and put it on leaving the bottle on my desk to air out for a week so i could keep smelling it... I think they put cookies in it