Cool Water Cool Summer (2009)
by Davidoff

I quite like this version of Cool Water which works for Singapore which is summer all year round. In fact, because of Cool Summer, I began to accept the original Cool Water.

Yet another addition to the shamelessly overdone Cool Water line of flankers. This one comes across very dull, almost like an expired Cool Water...no bright freshness, just a drier, less fruity variation. And much like the other flankers, it is good for a quick spritz in the summer so you don't smell bad, but other than that, nothing spectacular and hardly worth a full size bottle. Gimmick has never been so blatant. One day I will collect them all and report.

Even among the refined noses inhabiting Basenotes, the utility of a fragrance has to count for something. And because this juice finds its way into my wardrobe and my summer rotation, albeit by default, I give it a thumbs up. Besides that, I like it. It's brisk, even bracing.

That said, I admit I had sworn off the original Cool Water after finding so many better scents. But in my recent hunt for a summer fragrance wardrobe, I found that L'Eau D'Issey, Red 360 and Unbound all turned terribly sour almost immediately upon application to my skin. Needing alternatives, I tested Cool Water Summer. The addition of the citrus notes makes a world of difference to my nose.

Despite all the trashing of Cool Water on this site, I'd recommend Cool Water Summer to others who have the problem of summer colognes turning sour on their skin. (And there ARE others, according to the board discussions.) This scent holds its own.

Let's see what they did to Cool Water. Hmmm, mint and a soapy accord (more sandalwood?). I don't think they did that before. The tops notes AKA the added accords to the original, last much longer than the other flankers. It's much more than the junk that Freeze Me was. I still prefer the Frozen and Happy Summer flankers. Still trying to figure out what a tribal tattoo graphic on the front means in relation to a cool summer.

Cool Water flanker number 18 (unless you count the flankers made by other companies, in which case its Cool Water flanker number 81,362). This one has a fruity opening and a synthetic smelling coumerin drydown, otherwise it's....you guessed it. Personally, I'm waiting for Cool Water Red Tide, Cool Water Heavy Metals, and Cool Water Angry Putin, which may be the only ways to avoid having to smell another version of Cool Water ever again.