Marine/oceanic vs Aquatic??

For me, aquatics equal "calone overload," and I hate calone (not that it's unpleasant but rather that it's a weird distraction). Marine smells more salty, animalic, and almost resinous to me. Yesterday I wore Burberry Sport Ice for Men and was very relieved that the "water" note was of the marine kind. It "married" with wood, orange, and ginger, and was quite pleasant, though lacking depth (not that I expected it to have much if any depth).

Something can be loaded with marine notes and not have a touch of calone. There's the various "salt" aromas, seaweed, driftwood, ocean air, and of course, oakmoss. All quintessential "marine" scents without that melony aquatic aroma.

I'm not a big fan of these frags and rarely wear them, so I can only speak in general terms. Calone creates an odd kind of "vibration" for me (at least when used in certain amounts), which I find irritating. I don't feel that it adds anything positive. If you can't tell the difference, why should you care? Just wear what you enjoy and perhaps some day you will detect it.

Here's a couple I would put in each category. Yes, very different scents when you compare marine to aquatic.

Marine:
Aqua (not marine, yes ironic)
Sel Marin

Aquatic:
ADG
Chrome

I don't really understand the discussion at this point so I'm bowing out, gracefully. I'll just say that to me, detection and understanding are bound to each other in an inseparable way.

They are one and the same for me.

I think the term 'aquatics' tends to be used to describe those type of fragrances all the rage in the 90's which were chock full of calone where as 'marine' tends to be used to describe fragrances which evoke the beach, water or the sea but a bit more tastefully. If you have ever smelt a tincture of ambergris this has a strong marine element but nothing in common with the watery melon of calone.

Lastly there is nothing wrong with calone it is a very useful material but is cloying when overdosed.

I would boil it down to aquatic = fresh synthetic, while marine = salty or seaweed-y.

For me it's a matter how 'salty' the scent is.

For example, for example to me, Kenzo Homme and Nautica Voyage have a hint of salt in it and are less fruity than others (like Bvlgari, Mexx Men, ADG etc.)

Aquatics are generally seen as less interesting but fresher and cleaner.
'Marine' to me is more interesting and really gets that beach feel (salty sea).

This is it, but "Fresh" actually means (and has since the 90s) nostril-singing metallic shower attack.

LOL, precisely!

Creed MI - neither
Creed Erolfa - marine
Bvlgari Aqva - walks the line
Bvlgari Aqva Marine - also walks the line
Heeley Sel Marin - marine
Acqua di Gio - aquatic
L'eau d'Issey - more floral to me
Cool Water - aquatic
Bond Wall Street - only slightly aquatic
Polo Blue - aquatic
Kenzo PH - dunno
Nautica Voyage - aquatic



Ok, I'd like to say in order for it to be a marine/oceanic scent in my mind it has to remind me of a marine/ocean. Aquatic would just give me a watery feeling. That said, I can't think of anything that I consider just an aquatic fragrance that I enjoy, and I feel like marine/ocean might just be an offset of the aquatic category, and in my mind is much more interesting.

Creed MI - Aquatic, but also fruity
Creed Erolfa - Marine
Bvlgari Aqva - Marine
Bvlgari Aqva Marine - Terrible
Heeley Sel Marin - Marin
Acqua di Gio - Aquatic
L'eau d'Issey - Watery floral
Cool Water - Aquatic
Bond Wall Street - ?
Polo Blue - Aquatic
Kenzo PH - ?
Nautica Voyage - Aquatic

You raise an interesting question.

I've never seen any classification system differentiate between marine and aquatic scents.
Which is weird to me, as they are plainly different, and the manufacturers often distinguish between them by sticking something "Marine"-like in the name. Or in their descriptions/ads mention that some are marine scents or contain marine notes.

To my mind, aquatic/watery scents include the following scents, which don't contain any hint of the ocean or of something oceanic -
Aqua di Gio, Halston Unbound, Paris Hilton Just Me, Jill Sander Pure Man, Bvlgari Aqua, L'Eau Par Kenzo, Aqua di Roma, the various Eternity Summer editions.

The marine/oceanic scents which smell something like part of the ocean include,
Erolfa, Nautica original, Nautica Voyage, Insense UltraMarine, Del Mar, Nautilus Aqua, Agua Brava Sea Power, Bvlgari Aqua Marine, Aqua Motu and lastly Kenzo Homme (with the glorious smell of seaweed).

Then there are scents with fairly prominent marine notes, but where there is too much else going on to label them marine scents - Laguna, Escape and Michael Jordan come to mind. Technically, most of the Creed scents, with their healthy doses of ambergris (whale ejecta), could be thrown into this group too.

Finally, there is the weird one - Aramis New West, the first scent full of calone, which I really really like, but which doesn't seem much like either an aquatic or a marine scent to me.

When people attack aquatics around here, it transpires they are usually attacking what I think of as aquatics, and sometimes what I think of as marine scents, and sometimes what they think are aquatic scents but are actually fougeres - eg. Cool Water (mainly because it has "Water" in the name) and Horizon. And they are attacking them because they don't meet their high standards of artisan workmanship, or are too synthetic, or are supposed clones.

The only aquatics I'm not too fond of are Aqua di Gio and Bvlgari Aqua because they don't have much impact on my nose. But I like most of the other aqautic and marine scents. I only attack scents that don't last long enough, and hence don't do their jobs.
Cheers,
Renato

To me, one is a subset of the other:

Aquatic - reminiscent of a body of water (any kind of body of water)
Marine - reminiscent of the sea

So a Marine scent is a type of Aquatic scent.

Calone is an odd one. Its supposed to mimic a scent produced by Algae blooms on the sea, which definitely sounds Marine to me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calone

However, its also called "Watermelon ketone", and it seems which one of these 2 scents you perceive (the salty, seaweedy "Sea Breeze" smell, or the Fruity smell) depends on its concentration.

Kenzo have 2 good examples. Kenzo Homme is an Aquatic that is also a Marine, whereas L'Eau Par Kenzo PH is an Aquatic that is not a Marine. I only seem to like the latter type.

Creed MI - chypre
Creed Erolfa - chypre
Bvlgari Aqva - aquatic
Bvlgari Aqva Marine - aquatic
Heeley Sel Marin - Marine
Acqua di Gio - chemical aquatic
L'eau d'Issey - woody citrus
Cool Water - aromatic aquatic
Bond Wall Street - aquatic
Polo Blue - aquatic
Kenzo PH - woody floral
Nautica Voyage - aquatic


Marine fragrances don't need to be aquatic, a Marine fragrance can smell of things associated with the sea without being in the least bit watery or moist. Aquatic fragrances are almost by definition watery and moist. To me the best contrast is between Elixir des Merveilles which is a Marine fragrance which isn't in the least bit watery and something like L'Eau Par Kenzo which is just an aquatic through and through. In L'Eau Par Kenzo's case there's not even a hint of the sea, this is just water and some citrus and a little sweetness.

Theses might prove helpful:
http://www.basenotes.net/threads/265281-Define-Aquatics
http://www.basenotes.net/threads/174...define-Aquatic

&

This is really true for even the major categories, such as fougere and oriental. Even chypres, which presumably must have the key accord, can be "hybrids," and so the obvious question is whether a hybrid should be included, or should we call it a fougerypre, or something like that? I'm now at the point where I think of the entire construction, and so the terms are of limited value (for frags I like, at least). However, there is clearly an issue concerning how to communicate your understanding to others. On my blog I wrote a long post about the idea of a "baroque fougere," for example.

You have an interesting perspective, and raise some interesting points.

But what if one were to distinguish between a body of fresh water and a body of sea water?
Or use fresh water coming down from the sky as the reference for Aquatic?
Or should we use distilled and de-ionised water as the reference? It has no real smell I can detect.

Sea water covers two thirds of the earth's surface, and the amount of fresh water is immaterial by comparison. I really think the term oceanic has more meaning because of this.

Dumping oceanic/marine scents in with watery/ aquatic scents doesn't help discussion, it confuses it.

Some people may really dislike oceanic scents but really like watery scents, and vice versa. Then these discussions about "aquatics" get really confusing, as no one defines what they are really talking about.

Also, you have Kenzo Homme as a woody floral. I just mainly smell the pleasant seaweed note in it from start to finish - which isn't listed in the published notes. Seaweed isn't a floral. When I used to live half an hour from the beach, after a beach day, I'd spray Kenzo Homme on just to continue the beach day experience at home. That makes it a marine scent in my book - one of the best.
Cheers,
Renato

I get the distinction that some people are trying to make. But IMO there is so much overlap of notes and accords in this general category, and so much variation in individual perception, that definitive distinctions are hard or impossible to make.

However, to me personally, both "marine" and "aquatic" are red flag terms that indicate I most likely will not like a fragrance. I suppose that for fans of the genre, these fine distinctions might be more meaningful.

There's a further distinction to be made too, not just between fresh water and salt water scents, but between watery scents in general and Ozonic/Air-like/Petrichor scents. All too often I see fragrances which smell of damp air or of Ozone or of Petrichor listed as Aquatics or being referred to as Aquatic when these odours may have connections with water they are not aquatic in nature and are more Gaseous or Vaporous. I think a further distinction between perfumes which smells of fresh water (true Aquatics), smells of salt water (Oceanics to use your suggestion), smells of things associated with the sea (Marines, including things like seaweed, Ambergris, driftwood etc), and things which are Vaporous and Gaseous would be useful.

I don't really get a seaweed note in Kenzo Homme which I suppose is why I think of it as a woody floral.

I think that depends on the compositions these elements are used in. The main olfactory groups aren't really formed of things which smell akin, they're formed out of specific compositional types. So if a perfume was primarily composed in a Fougere manner and contained a strong Ozonic note (lets say) it would be a Gaseous Fougere. If an Oriental contained a strong Ambergris component it would be a Marine Oriental.

There are compositions which do attempt to be Marine, Aquatic, Oceanic, Gaseous, Vaporous etc, however they are still currently broadly grouped under the Aquatic banner primarily out of laziness. The whole Aquatic group is in my opinion a fiction. If you look at almost all so called Aquatic fragrances they can almost always be more accurately put into other groups, a significant proportion of them are either Chypres or Fougeres depending on their principle ingredients.

So what one would end up with would be with eliminating the whole "Aquatic" group and replacing it with Gaseous Aromatics, Vaporous Chypres, Marine Fougeres etc etc.

The only ozonic scent I think I have is Bazaar, though I know there are others. I agree it's not an aquatic.
Petrichor I've never heard of till this minute, and I've now learned a new word for the day.

The problem with referring everything other than ocean as "marine" is that if one thinks or discusses a marine environment, the ocean is pretty much automatically a part of it (since "marine" means related to, or produced by the sea).

Regards,
Renato

Right? And Ambergris, Seaweed, driftwood etc are things which are produced by the sea but which do not actually have any "watery" component in their odours. They are of the sea but not actually aquatic/oceanic, Marine in this instance would be used to refer to things which are associated with the sea but which don't actually smell like salt water.


Mugler Cologne is another fragrance with an Ozonic note in it there are others. Apres l'Ondee (admittedly not a perfume anyone would call aquatic) has a Petrichor note there are others which do end up being lumped under the "aquatic" banner.

whatever category bvlgari aqva falls into

For me, Carthusia Uomo exemplifies ozonic/marine/oceanic without being aquatic. It's very reminiscent of a wild shoreline, but not a beach with lots of bathers.

Aquatic, to me, usually signifies a reliance on calone, but both aquatics and ozonic/marine/oceanic scents can easily overlap with other fragrance families.

In my opinion the Aquatic category isn't represented accurately and gets a bad rap because of it. Fragrances like Sel Marin, Erolfa, Bulgari Aqua, Bulgari Aqua Marine, Hugh Parson's Traditional,and Kenzo Pour Homme are good examples. When I smell these it makes me think of the ocean or things that remind me of the ocean. Quite simply if it doesn't remind you of these things then it has nothing to do with a body of water and shouldn't be label an aquatic. Really a shame that you have to sift through a mountain of S*** to find something worthwhile.

Thanks. I've never seen Apres L'Ondee - I'll keep an eye out for it next time I go to Europe.
I haven't noticed it in Muglers Cologne, I'll have to check it again.
Regards,
Renato

- - - Updated - - -


Thanks. I'm pretty sure I tested it years ago - but I could be wrong. I'll just have to check it out on my next trip to Italy - the "home" town we stay at has a population of 32,000 people and has several stores selling niche, and one that sells just about every niche scent I ever heard of. .
Regards,
Renato

Great and apparently necessary thread! For me aquatics have always been and will always be attached to Calone or similar molecules. Just remember the 80s when all these shower gels came out with their "fresh" and "cooling" vibes (apart from volatile oils)... - that's aquatic for me!
The epitome of a marine scent for me is Bvlgari's Aqva - yes, it's not an aquatic at all, it's a marine scent smelling like sea water and algae. For me this simple distinction is very necessary - smell Calone just one time and you'll be able to differentiate for your whole life.

Nautica Voyage - Cucumber Aquatic
Aqua Marine - Fishy Aquatic
Hugh Parsons - Sharp Aquatic
Chrome - Bland Aquatic

Aqua, Cool Water & Kenzo, marine?

This.

Btw, like your sig, you smell like dinner, lol. haha.

The best exemples IMO are Kenzo PH (oceanic) and L'Eau Par Kenzo (aquatic).

I just tried Cool Water for the first time today, and I'm coming to an interesting conclusion - when a fragrance contains enough of that aquatic note (calone?), I can't smell anything else in it.

The Cool Water today smelled exactly the same as my Arko Aqua aftershave (which cost £4 for 200ml), only stronger - and it was quite unpleasant. I've sniffed a few other aquatics too, and they all smell the same to me.

I find the note pleasantly refreshing in an aftershave when it's not too strong, and I don't want it to hang around too long - but at EdT concentrations, it makes me feel quite ill.

I must find something oceanic to try.