Perfume Pen Pals: Beach Fragrances



Katie,

As you know, we're enduring a drought in California, which has resulted in lots of worry and excellent weather. Good people speak with furrowed brows about conservation, bad people whoop it up and go to the beach. I do both, depending on the company I keep, which means I'm complex...or a chameleon...or a sociopath.

Putting that aside, I've been wearing all my beach fragrances, sometimes to the actual beach, the perfume-nerd equivalent of wearing a Van Halen t-shirt to the Van Halen concert.

I've avoided the suntan lotion ones (Bond No. 9 Fire Island Perfume, CB I Hate Perfume At The Beach 1966) and also the salty ones that aren't quite beachy (The Different Company Sel de Vetiver, Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel) and focused only on the ones with a prominent salt-air note, of which I have many. Too many.





The seeds of my diminished enthusiasm for perfume are sown in my having too many perfumes. When it comes to trivial things, wanting is always better than having, and I'm afraid I've purchased my way into a perfume torpor. It's similar to the existential unrest surely felt every day by Justin Bieber.




In rotating seven beachy perfumes, I've come to some quick conclusions. One is that no one needs seven beachy perfumes. And no one especially needs Profumum Acqua di Sale. It's loud and crude and smells both too briny and too perfume-y, like I'm wearing some big eighties cologne and I've gone to die in a brackish swamp.

Or I'm already dead and my dead perfumed body is starting to coalesce with the dead water. Ugly but also kind of poetic. I don't like Acqua di Sale and yet I keep wearing it, perhaps out of disbelief. Bad perfumes can be so compelling.

On the other end of the spectrum is Demeter Salt Air, which is salt and ozone and nothing else, it smells good on the skin, and considering its price, it's a better buy than almost anything. Considering Acqua di Sale's price, I want to stab myself.



The most immediately pleasing is one I know you love: Céline Ellena's L'Artisan Côte D'Amour. It's the least literal of all my salt scents, more of a pretty, light floral, with a wisp of sea air, nothing like the oceans near me, more of a fancy resort ocean, the sort of place George Clooney visits when he gets bored of the house in Lake Como.

Andrée Putman Preparation Parfumée by Olivia Giocobetti has no salt note but it's beachy nonetheless. An easygoing driftwood and thunderstorm/ozone, it once earned me a backhanded compliment from my therapist.

She said she loved the smell of it before adding, "and I normally hate all fragrances." Which prompted me to think about her hating everything I'd worn for the prior two years and how that might've affected our sessions. Which prompted me to think about how little progress I'd made and how so much of my life is spent just wasting people's time. This, KP, is called "negative self-talk" and it's ruining Preparation Parfumée for me.

Speaking of wasting time, I recently read that the different colored Froot Loops are all the same flavor and thus my years of saving the "lemon" ones for last was not time well spent.




I have two salt perfumes, Profumi del Forte Tirrenico and Hilde Soliani Acquiilssssima, which are the perfume versions of Froot Loops: both have a prominent sea-salt accord and smell like understated, sane versions of Acqua di Sale. They also smell almost indistinguishable from each other. I think the Hilde Soliani is slightly more bright, enduring and complex, but I'm the person who saves lemon Froot Loops, so how can you ever trust me?

The beachy perfume that's easiest to wear to places that aren't the beach is Heeley Sel Marin. In comparison to some of the others here, perfume people might call it "a proper fragrance," in that it does more than just smell like a place.

Its notes are subtle and balanced and there's a touch of early morning citrus that seems to say, "Not only the beach but also you, you in a crisp white shirt and Italian leather sandals splashing on a nice eau de cologne while on the beach, which, yes, isn't an entirely natural act, except perhaps for, again, George Clooney, which makes Sel Marin doubly aspirational and what is life without aspirations? You depress me with all your negative self-talk." Or something like that.



You lived near the beach for a long time, KP. Did that make you more or less likely to enjoy this genre of perfume? And how do you feel about Froot Loops? Discouraged? Betrayed?

Dan





Dan,

First things first: I feel that Froot Loops have made a fool of me, like other sundry things in which I put my wholehearted belief that later turned out to be a sham.

But because innocent, trusting belief feels so floaty-good, and because I'm hardwired to look for the positive in life, I shall continue to insist that that the hearts, moon, stars, and clovers in Lucky Charms are all different flavors.



Second things second: living near the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles certainly put me in the frame of mind to enjoy beachy fumes. But the ones that really get me conjure memories of adolescent summer vacations at Virginia Beach: that smell of '70s suntan lotion mixed with skin salted by sun and surf.



For that, I turn to Bobbi Brown Beach. The jasmine and sea foam blend here is a mood-lifter that dries down to the creamy skin scent of classic Coppertone.




It's irresistible because it makes me think of carefree times and unselfconsciously running around in my neon flame-colored swimsuit, getting sand burns from body surfing in the choppy Atlantic swells.

Katie



Perfumes discussed can be found at KP Smells' trusted advertisers LuckyScent.com, FragranceX.com, Perfume.com, Sephora, and Amazon.com, among others.

32 comments:

  1. I like L'ratisan L'eau de L'Artisan for beach scents-there is a distinct seaweed note through the middle of it, which i love. it's dry seaweed on sand, slightly dried out and iodinic. I just love it.

    Another favorite: Eau de Rochas. Minerals and moss. ok maybe more of a pond scent but now I am tired.

    And I just bought Eau de Patou, which show a naked woman in the sea. 70's advertising. It was a blind buy so I don't know what to expect. I promise to only get naked in a wave when I am alone on the beach :)

    Good to see you both back-people on POL were worried

    Sincerely,

    carole

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  2. Hi Carole - sorry to cause worry - and thanks for caring! I did go AWOL for a spell. But I like the idea of a smell-based search party. To find me, you'd have to set your noses to L'Artisan's Voleur de Roses (my latest crave craze), and to sniff out Dan, anything suggesting Malibu Barbie.

    Your rec's sound good. I'm going to revisit L'Eau de L'Artisan to get down with that seaweed.

    Dan, what about your fondness for the suntan-tastic Neroli 36 by Le Labo? Does that fulfill an oceanic urge?

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    1. Katie, Neroli 36 is so easygoing and optimistic. Those two things don't sync up with my personality, which has resigned itself to long stretches of misery and self-flagellation. What works well with that?

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    2. The perfume for misery and self-flagellation: Bleu de Chanel.

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  3. Katie: another beach-y cheap thrill: JLo Miami Glow!

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    1. Is Glow still going, leonel? In retrospect, pretty cool of J-Lo to do something true to her sensual image instead of cotton candy hootchie hell.

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  4. Great hilarity reading this. I am not a fan of beach scents. Maybe I am the only person in the universe in that category, but I gotta give Heely's Sel Marin props. It is well crafted. But on my skin it is face down in the sand at low tide.

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    1. In my book, Tora, face down in the sand beats the usual mainstream flanker: face plant in a cake.

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    2. I concur. Most especially when I see the word 'caramel' in the notes I shudder. Not a flanker, but Mamluk comes to mind. I have missed you also. You were my 'first' perfume blogger. Bruno Acampora Musc at Luckyscent store literally toppled me right on over and into the rabbit hole. On my second bottle. You had me hooked on your fragrant tastes when you spoke of your wedding scent. Epic coolness.

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    3. Honored to be your smell sherpa, Tora!

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  5. Katie, I recently found you via YouTube, and really enjoy hearing you talk. I kept checking back here to see if you had any new posts, and also became worried; but perhaps you don't usually post that often. Glad to see this new one! Have a lovely day!

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    1. Thanks for your regular checking, Zari, and I'm glad I showed up before you gave up. I'm re-emerging after a sniffing slowdown. Have a lovely day yourself!

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  6. I am intrigued by Demeter Salt Air and the affordable price tag. Perhaps I will try that out first before splashing out on a bottle of Beach.

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    1. DG, most of those Demeters are delights. But be prepared to have a well-flexed trigger-finger, since to keep the delight going, they need constant reapplication. That's why they're billed as "Pick Me Up" sprays rather than actual perfumes.

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  7. I so enjoyed reading this while I was eating my morning bowl of Fruity Pebbles.
    Dan and Katie you are to me the "His Girl Friday" kind of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russel voices of perfume talk. Witty, Smart and Funny.

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  8. Wow, I feel like a perfumed genie (possibly wearing Shalimar) granted my wish! The other day I started a thread on POL, saying how much I missed you guys and then POOF! Here you are!

    Wanted to add Bronze Goddess to the mix, even though I slather so much SPF on there's no way I'll ever be bronze, and the "goddess" part, well...um, no. Is that negative self talk?

    Welcome back!

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    1. Glad to be back, Carolyn! Maybe you're the genie.

      Isn't Bronze Goddess such a happy silly surprise?

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  9. It's late for me and we're expecting another one of those dumb polar vortex things tomorrow, so I think I'm about to cross the line into "so sincere that it is dorky and at the same time, really, really uncomfortable" territory and suggest that Dan try (because of course he is GENUINELY BEGGING FOR HELP) a slightly different angle with his "beach" theme and go for a smoky perfume? Because that would suggest a night-time bonfire on the beach and that sounds really good to me right now. And maybe something boozy because then you are also drinking.

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    1. Stay tuned, Nora, because I'm currently wearing something new that's both smoky and boozy, and if I know me, I'll have something to say about it.

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  10. No one's mentioned Hermes Eau de Merveilles but that is my perfect scent for days at the beach. Saltwater taffy in a bottle.

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    1. Anon, I've never heard that saltwater taffy comparison to Eau des Merveilles! Going off on a saltwater taffy sideroad: Hilde Soliani Fraaagola Saalaaata - strawberry & salt.

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  11. This would be the orange froot loops flavor of saltwater taffy I'm speaking of. Strawberry and salt … sounds like an interesting combo.

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  12. My imagination has just as much to do with whether I like a fragrance or not as the fragrance itself. Adding the idea of "salt-water taffy" to Eau des Merveilles makes me like it more.

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  13. my most favorite of beachy scents comes in a vacuum bead- of all things! The Good Home Company has a line of domestic goods called Beach Days..They also have laundry detergent and even scented clothespins...not sure how I'd like it on my skin, but as a cover-up for doggy smell in my vacuum- it's divine! HOORAY TO HAVE YOU both back!!!!-pinkcash

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    1. Hooray to see you back too, pinkcash. Vacuum bead, huh? Whatever will they think of next? Once I tried the DIY version: shoving a paper towel doused in Encens Flamboyant on top of the vacuum filter. Effective until the perfume dissipated.

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  14. Love the salty-spicy, sometimes strange seaside smell of Epice Marine, the last one from the Hermessence Series.
    Cheers
    Safran

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    1. Good thought, Safran. I've not smelled this one yet.

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  15. Katie, don't forget Lolita Lempicka's Coral Flower, with its smoky-driftwood accord. If not for your review of it, I never would have bothered to check it out.

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    1. Ah yes...Coral Flower...a deep cut from the flanker archives.

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    2. That's me: always a spin-off of the original.

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