Fire Island (2006)
by Bond No. 9

I really shouldn't enjoy Fire Island as much as I do. On cold winter days or the first warm days of spring, it calls to me and I HAVE to wear it. It's like a bug summery smile in a bottle when I desperately need it (and I usually don't say things like that...)

As stated many times before, it's the smell of sunscreen on hot sweaty bodies on a beach, and is quite well done, smelling much more literally like the picture it creates than most perfumes. That being said, once the novelty wears off, I enjoy Fire Island for what it really is, a heady white floral perfume, a bit powdery, featuring a clever mix of orange blossom and neroli over big-ass tuberose, all played out over a clever musky base. There's something about the beach associations that make Fire Island more comfortable for men to wear than most big opulent florals, and I like that too.

18th January, 2012.

Bond No. 9 Fire Island - Upon application, the ozone combining with the spicy cardamon majically transports one to a beach where sweat adorns oiled bodies worshipping the sun. A nascent floral, neroli, attracts that sensory perception to the heart, where the tangy neroli joins with a creamy white mush to flavor the concoction with a somewhat spicy, buttery sourness. The exotic base beckons this middle to its sweet tuberose, which along with a hint of patchouli, and heaps of skin musk completes the sunscreen journey. This novel, beach scent is indeed well made, with good longevity and average projection, becoming a skin scent after maybe 3 hours or so. Albeit unique, the letdown is its limited versatility as a fragrance.

24th November, 2011.

I have never tried Bobbi Brown Beach (the original Coppertone smell-alike) but I love Fire Island, an not because I come from New York. This is the first Bond No. 9 I have ever bought, and generally they sort of irritate me because of the cheesy names, but I really like this ozoney orangey suntan lotioniness! Calming and sheer and just a great summer scent. Ultra wearable, especially in the heat. Maybe I'll try another frangrance from this line yet...

19th August, 2011.

It is rare to find the near unanimity seen among sniffers of Bond no 9 FIRE ISLAND. It seems that everyone who has ever been to a beach agrees: this perfume is a suntan lotion facsimile. Whether this composition mimics Coppertone or Bain de Soleil--or perhaps a combination of the two--seems to be the only real dispute, at least as far as descriptive olfactory qualities are concerned.

What reviewers disagree radically about is whether capturing the smell of suntan lotion--whether Coppertone or Bain de Soleil--is something that any perfume should really be doing. I'm inclined to answer "no" to that question, not because it is somehow wrong aesthetically, but because it seems stupid to pay big niche bucks for something one can find in a homely little blob of sun protectant. Fortunately FIRE ISLAND does not remain purely a suntan lotion facsimile throughout the duration of its life. I find that the neroli and tuberose mingling together with the musk end up producing a not unlikeable perfume in the drydown. But I must say that I'd rather skip the suntan lotion opening and, in fact, when it's hot outside, tiny wafts of those top notes continue to emanate off my skin.

In the end, FIRE ISLAND strikes me more as a novelty scent than a perfume, when all is said and sniffed, along the lines of some of the more literal vacation-ready offerings from the house of Comptoir Sud Pacifique. I would not choose to wear FIRE ISLAND as a perfume during any season but summer, though I suppose that it might offer a therapeutic escape during the depths of winter, if one were holed up all alone in the midst of a snowstorm.

2nd August, 2011.

Yes, it does smell like a beach. But not in a coconut-coppertone cheap way.
There's a subtle note of patchouli that I adore, and has made this one of the most original fragrances I've ever smelled, or at least that have developed well on my skin.
It's the smell of a lonely beach at dawn. Very sexy, very masculine and modern.
The sillage is ridiculous, you smell like it for two days at least. And it stays on clothes forever. Love it, love it. Best Bond IMO.

28th July, 2011.

While the marketing goes out of its way to connect this fragrance to the idea of sunbathing, I find that it reminds me more of just plain bathing.

When it first lands on skin, I find it to be a bit sharp and floral and decidedly feminine. While this might be reminiscent of "Bain de Soleil" suntan products, it smells more like the scent they add to the lotion than the suntan lotion itself. I know it sounds like an odd distinction, but suntan lotion carries with it, for lack of a better term, a scent "texture." You can both smell and feel the oil when you sniff a bottle of tanning oil. This carries none of that texture. It is simply the fragrance they would add to the oil.

But none of this really matters, because the ghost of "Bain de Soleil" vanishes within minutes and you are left with what I can best describe as the scent of freshly washed hair. Specifically just shampooed hair and not a whole, freshly bathed person.

I like the fragrance. It is a pleasant, generic, clean smell. I find I wear it most often to the gym or for running errands during the day when I want to smell like I am not wearing a fragrance at all, when I just want to have an aura of cleanliness. In fact, this is the fragrance the "Clean" brand should have created, instead of their many screechy, aquatic efforts.

But at the end of the day, for me at least, "Fire Island" is too pricey for its modest accomplishments.

For those of you still looking to recreate the scent iconography of sunbathing in an immediately identifiable way, the best I have found so far is "Bronze Goddess." Definitely check that one out.

28th April, 2011.