Reviews of Acqua di Sale
by Profumum

This is horrible, the first scent I've had to scrub off in a very long time. All I get is one big sweet chemical that is overwhelmingly nauseating. It is slightly cucumberish/licorice as others have mentioned, but it has this sickening synthetic sweetness that almost feels like it stains my throat with its smell. As with most truly bad fragrances, the sillage and longevity is extreme.

I think this one is awful. On top, I get a metallic note, a noxema note and a sweet-nothing note. And then, just when it seems it can’t get any worse, the algae accord shows up! I don’t like this one at all! (It does feel like a more conventional (and dull) aquatic later in the drydown, but it isn't worth waiting for.)

I'm going against the grain here, as I love this. Once you get past the first somewhat antiseptic burst, it lingers on my skin and smells fresh, slightly salty and fabulous.

I promised myself before rating anything with a Thumb's Down, I'd give some solid reasons for doing so. Especially Profumum, which is a great house.

With Acqua di Sale I don't even know where to start. Something right from the start was totally repulsive, and I don't care what it was. I don't get the marine, the aquatic, anything... just a headache and a bit of nausea.

Those who enjoy it - kudos. I'm not sure what exactly there is to enjoy.

This was just awful. It has some sort of accord in it that almost triggers the gag reflex, not unlike Secretions Magnifique. I think it's an iodine note that you get hit with in the back of your throat. If this is a beach, it's definitely not one I want to be visiting.
Unfortunately, it's also quite tenacious. Just a few swipes from the sample vial and I was wafting it everywhere. I seldom encounter "scrubbers," but I did actually have to scrub this off as best I could. It's just not good.

rubber and strawberries in one fragrance(!)
i can find in this some hints of iodione but aqua di sale doesn't remind me the sea at all. it opens with rubber-latex, a carbon copy of comme des garcons garage, and evokes into stawberry cotton candy. very good longevity.

Ugh, this is awful. I expected the beach but got overpowering black licorice and the smell of those mosquito repelling candles. The salt smell is so faint and dies so quickly that it almost isnt worth mentioning. Not Il Profumo's best.

Imagine a beautiful saltwater beach, sunny and packed with people, some have lotion on, some smell like camphor-sunscreen/noxcema, and just off the beach, is a resort hotel with a chlorine pool. you are standing at the back of the beach, near the hotel pool. From here, if you turn towards the beach, you smell the saltwater and the lotion/sunscreen. what a refreshing smell. You then turn back towards the hotel pool, just in time to see someone carrying soda, nachos, and a little candy get pushed right into the pool. it causes a big splash and all the food scatters over the waters surface. 3 surprised children in the pool simultaneously sh!t their bathing suits, and the feces float amongst the soda/nachos/candy. it all floats together in the chlorine water, and a breeze blows the smell out towards you, and you are now having trouble smelling the ocean air. you move back out towards the ocean, away from the pool, but the breeze is still blowing out. hopefully they clean the feces and food out of that pool soon. meanwhile, mothers are applying purel to their hands, after frantically wiping their children with baby wipes, upon taking them out of the pool.

it smells like that.

Let me start by saying that this only smells like ocean because you expect it to. In reality, it smells more like baby wipes, something slightly fecal (a la Musc Ravageur), and a slightly salty kind of play-doe smell with overtones of Noxzema creme… Not at all what I was expecting! It smells less like the ocean, and more like human skin drying in the sun after a dip in the ocean. To me, Aqua di Sale is a definitely a skin scent – over-apply it and you’ll probably just get a bunch of play-doe and Noxzema – wear the right amount and you’ll end up smelling like as though your skin just naturally smells great. Although Aqua di sale smells more realistic than Sel de Vetiver, I personally prefer Sel de Vetiver because it smells (different and is) better overall with the same kind of effect…

nota bene: While Erolfa and Aqua Bulgari smell more like the ocean, Sel de Vetiver and Acqua di sale smell more like ocean-kissed skin. (Therefore, Acqua de Sale is one of those fragrances I can only enjoy on skin, not my clothes).

7/10

I wished some cucumber was even in my skin. 100% Licorice or, the Chinese analgesic oil, or the Chinese bug repellent. I guess I'm not as disappointed than some of you because unisex rarely work for my chemistry.

IMO, it is very linear; it does not develop over time on my skin. On me, it is very anisic, with a powerful, artificial musk base that is reminiscent of fresh laundry. Which can be nice as part of a bigger picture, but on me it stayed on those two notes (licorice musk) like a laser beam for 12 hours. In my opinion, the CDG fragrances that do the fresh laundry-ozonic thing are preferable, if they don't give you a headache. And I agree with the other reviewer who said that Sel de Vetiver is a more successful ozonic scent; it is a fully-developed, rounded-out scent with a nice evolution that includes vetiver and iris notes.

To be fair, I am not a fan of the "marine" scents. I feel they are like the "grape" flavoring in hard candy that we have all come to label as "generic grape" but bear no resemblance to any fruit found in nature. In the right hands this kind of artifice can be inspired, though. Take Jean Claude Ellena's Eau The Vert, which has come to represent the smell of green tea, but really smells nothing like it. My hope is that the technical and artistic challenge of re-creating a convincing impression of fresh ocean breezes will push perfumers to try new ideas and take chances. Hope springs eternal...

This probably has the most authentic salt water/ozone note in the history of perfumery, for better or worse. It makes me think of a dark, stormy, cold night on a harbor minus the brine smell and seagull poop.

This is not a beach fragrance, nor a vision of a Nautica ad. ADS is for the hardcore sea scent guys who care more about the authentic sea notes rather than a pretty aquatic cologne.

It's nice but not for me.

The unmentionable sickening note (translates as sort of stale/metallic/salty) in Secretions Magnifiques (and to a lesser degree in Skarb) meets the driftwood and aquatic accords of Preparation Parfumee and ends up in a candy sweet mess. It seems oceanic scents simply can't be made.

I tried this at the Scent Bar in Los Angeles today, pitting it against Il Profumo's Aria di Mare to see which was the more authentic marine fragrance. Lucky Scent describes Acqua di Sale as "the most realistic ocean scent we have ever encountered," and I am inclined to agree. There's no tanning lotion here; it just smells like you're catching an ocean breeze. Very authentic, and it lasts quite a while too. I applied it at 6pm and it is still detectable at 4am. And it hasn't morphed into some strange non-oceanic brew either; it's still just like sitting at the beach.

Having said that, it's pretty pricey, more than twice as much as the Aria di Mare for the same 100ml. And while the Aria di Mare starts out as a less authentic marine scent, it's drydown approaches a nice level of authenticity. So, if money is a concern and you can live with 95% of Acqua di Sale's authenticity, I recommend the Aria di Mare. But, if you really want total authenticity so that you can close your eyes and feel like you're really sitting right at the edge of the ocean, from application to drydown, Acqua di Sale is what you have been looking for.

I agree somewhat with Vibert on the licorice and cucumber, but I think it's the marine algae that's appealing to me. It's just OK.

I was extremely disappointed with Acqua di Sale. How hard is it to mess up a beachy fragrance? Well, here is a textbook example of one such disaster. First of all, there is waaaaay too much of that artificial cheap-smelling musk that just sticks in the back of my throat. The ozonic notes are flabby and anyways are overpowered by the musk. Also, it has some major sillage so be careful when applying it unless you are sure that this is for you. In short, Acqua di Sale is a synthetic-smelling poor quality perfume.

If you want a perfect beach scent, try CB I Hate Perfume's Mr. Hulot's Holiday which has a clean, realistic smell of beach, salt air, driftwood, etc... It blows Acqua di Sale out of the water (pun intended). Bond's Fire Island also puts Acqua di Sale to shame.

I grew up in Florida and the beach and taking day trips in the boat really hold a special place in my heart. I received my sample of Acqua di Sale there, in Florida, and I had a chance to wear it in the setting. My mom and I sampled this together, and we both really crinkled our noses. Phew! It's more than a little off putting in the OPENING, with a strong Noxema-esque quality. I sense a melange of REALLY SOUR citrus coming together with sea weed to create this pungency, like extracting the bitterest part of the opening of a lemon/lime peel (just the sensation, not the actual fragrance note). It is so bitter at points, it actually makes my mouth water. After about an hour, when a lot of that pungency dissipates, it's not completely unlike imagining sticking your head over the side of a boat on a REALLY SUNNY DAY and dunking your head under, mouth open, and getting a little up your nose too.

So, in Florida I really didn't enjoy it. But now that I've returned home, it takes me right back to riding in the boat with my dad and the dogs: The smell of drying salt water on the dogs' fur, the smell of acidic slightly poluted Gulf of Mexico water. It's the smell of untying boat line from the dock, it's the smell of this scene: huge white boats, sails reaching toward the sky, barnacles, big blue sky and pillowy white clouds, sea gulls, salt and sun soaked beach furniture, warping boards of wood, the sun directly overhead putting a smile on everyone's face. Now that I've worn it several times, away from the beach, I'm sold.. it's a fantastically evocative fragrance.

Licorice anyone? That, and a bit of cucumber are honestly all I get from Acqua di Sale. A big disappointment.

Like some other Profumum fragrances, this one starts with a heavy, blatant mess: cold, metallic, sharp and somehow perfumey. But within a few minutes the squaller calms down and unfolds a wonderful array of notes reminding of a sea breeze: salt, algaes, cedarwood, myrtle and a mellow fruity accord. Although the scent gets more subtle by and by, it has some decent longevity and sillage. An interesting olfactory interpretation of a sunny seaside scenery, avoiding tanning oil associations (CB - at the Beach, Bond No 9 - Fire Island) but more geared to the marine flora (salt, sand, seaside plants) with certain similarities to Calypso Marine. An enchanting, distinctive spring or summer fragrance.