Sydney Rock Pool (2018)
by Arquiste

Sydney Rock Pool answers the question, "What if Tom Ford Oud Minerale was actually good?"

The seaweed-mineral heart of both fragrances are practically identical, but Rock Pool's floral-coconut-skin-driftwood accents offer a much more nuanced, delicate frame for it than Oud Minerale's uninteresting and linear smoky-woody backdrop. Accordingly, Rock Pool offers more fascination as it develops on the skin.

When it’s empty, the half moon of Bondi Beach resembles a sea shell or a coconut sliver, with its white strip of sand bending crescent around a blue water. But it’s never empty. Bondi’s always awash with people, it’s always covered in tropical lotions, cheap and cheerful. If you can smell the sandalwood, it’s because the furniture is sweating like the rest of us. If the salt glitters in the breeze above the beach, blame the harsh light, blame the hole in ozone, blame the sun for burning all the air out of the sky. If you can smell the kelp it’s on the tide from the harbor. If you can smell the Jasmine, it’s on the breeze from the botanical gardens.

Take a break, get a drink at Icebergs. Think about jumping in the pool. The ocean’s right over there! But everyone knows the pool looks better from the ocean and the ocean looks better from the pool.

This takes me back.
Notes: Ocean air, surf and seaweed, good foreign suntan lotion and light florals over tropical fruits.
Sillage: solid.
Projection: good on warm skin.
Longevity: 6 hours