HERRERA AQUA by Carolina Herrera: A fragrance called Aqua implicitly connotes waterbut then, when was the last time that you drank a glass of blue water? Perhaps then, in coloring the juice a pale blue, Ms. Herreras parfumeurs were thinking of the oceanbut its the suns reflection that causes the ocean to appear blue. Even a pools water isnt blue (and who wants to smell like a pool?). Unless a fragrance smells of hyacinth or hydrangea, why should it be tinted blue? The truth about Aqua is that if you never saw the blue packaging, and if you closed your eyes when you spritzed, you wouldnt think blue waterinstead, you might think of an herb garden after a spring rainor a picnic in Grasse alongside a field of French lavender, early June flowers mixing with the sweetness of Indian spices from the food on your blanket (just this morning retrieved from a cedar chest)while at fields edge, a brook flows swiftly, the moss and ferns fragrant after the mornings rain. For me, Herrera Aqua is less the ocean than it is Seurats Sunday afternoon on la Grand Jatteand far more interesting for it being so.
