Bulgari Aqua pour Homme (2005)
by Bulgari

Some people like their aquatics clean and simple. Others look for complexity. Bulgari's Aqua belongs to the latter group and can't seem to decide if it wants to be oceanic or it wants to be exotic. Perhaps neither. I've been following Jacques Cavallier's scents for a while and I find Aqua seems to lack the smooth signature of his earlier creations such as pour Homme. Nevertheless, I do find this 'dirty marine' take on the genre rather interesting. But if I'm after 'fresh aquatic' I'd look elsewhere.

This is Polo Black with a Wood base. I really like these kind of fragrances, but landed on Polo Black as my favorite. The wood base on this sometimes overpowers the fruity notes, which then return showing more power. Its a nice and fighting kind of fragrance; I feel like the wood and citrus notes are battling to be most prominent. It is interesting and I am surprised I went so long without testing it. Aqua is a great aquatic fragrance

At first I thought I didn't like aquatics, but Bulgari Aqua taught me what a sophisticated one can do. This really is more oceany than a lot of the sweeter shower-gel-scent aquatics, with an almost salty accord that I easily detect all the way through the scent's progression. To me, it's the near-perfection of that strange herbal mixture that gave Acqua di Gio and L'eau d'Issey their intriguingly plastic, modern feel: the smell of starkly beautiful hollow space, not quite like anything common in the real world...an empty room made of glowing, malleable translucent surfaces in cool muted colors. Issey, at a higher price point, has been pared down too far, and is abstract and minimalist, like a wall of solid white plastic. Acqua di Gio has a slight added floral sweetness, giving it something that the Bulgari can't provide...blurry hints of green and pink. But considering that the Bulgari is great at a much lower price than either of these two relatives, I think I found my aquatic of choice.

The word "aquatic" is perhaps a little bit misleading. If it makes you think of open beaches in the middle of summer, fresh and refreshing sea breeze blowing your troubles away gently you may be surprised with this one. It's VERY thick and masculine. I'm not joking, it's very intense.

However, the projection on my skin is really weak. If I wore it it would be subtle to not noticeable. Unfortunate. Definitely worth a shot.

Bvlgari Aqua pour Homme

There are times that the perfume business frustrates me. One of the things the designer houses do, in particular, that frustrates me is they don't tell you who composes their scents. Most of the time I don't care who composed the latest celebuscent. Like a ghost writer who pens the latest celebrity "memoir" I'm sure the nose behind a designer scent is doing their honest day's worth of work for their honest day's worth of pay. Then there are unexpected triumphs like Bvlgari Aqua pour Homme and I want to know who it was who made one of the finest aquatics out there. Alas, all that I can tell you about this 2005 release is that whoever made it should be proud of their work because this is what a designer aquatic should aspire to be. In the overcrowded "fresh and clean" field of scents Bvlgari Aqua pour Homme stands out. The top is the typical citrus mix of many aquatic scents, here it is mandarin and petitgrain which lead the way. The uniqueness of this scent takes place in the heart with a mix of two synthetics which come off as something much more and never smell synthetic on my skin. First is santolina which is meant to evoke lavender water. This is paired with posidonia which is meant to smell like "an oxygen-exuding sea plant found in the Mediteranean depths". That description sounds like sea grass to me and anyone who has been on a beach at low tide knows that smell. Thankfully the actuality is that posidonia comes off like a fresh sea breeze full of salt and ozonic notes. This in conjunction with the lavender makes the heart of this especially nice. The base is also a surprising mix of two of my favorite notes of amber and sage. Usually sage is present higher up the pyramid but in an aquatic the weight it can add to the base is a welcome change and it's clean, herbal lines stand out here. The amber in the base is described as a mineral amber and while I'm not getting the mineral aspects I am getting the warmth that amber can bring to a scent and that is also a refeshing change to most of the aquatics out there. I really feel that Bvlgari Aqua pour Homme is the next evolution of Pierre Bourdon's ground-breaking Cool Water and takes aquatics to the next level. I just wish I knew who to thank for making this beauty.

EDIT: Thanks to fredericktoo he has pointed me to Now Smell This who credit Jacques Cavallier, who also did M7, L'Eau D'Issey, and Tom Ford Tuscan Leather; as the perfumer behind Bvlgari Aqua pour Homme. Thanks for the assist fredericktoo.

This is the aquatic that I used to regard as the best in the category. I was about to make a purchase but I decided to get a sample made just to make sure. The top and middle notes were familiar, top being clean ozone and middle as a deep sea aquatic. However, I got struck by the base notes - they smelled so raw and nauseating, very similar to Kenzo pour Homme. It also reminds me of a generic lotion smell and this puts me off. This has so much going for it, cool jeweler designer, great unique bottle (not that these really matter), gorgeous top notes, but that drydown to me is pretty bad. Its a unique scent, few aquatics smell like this, but I really urge you to test the fragrance from top to bottom before you buy. On the other hand, I'm liking Aqva Marine very much despite the heat it gets here on BN.