Mare Goticum

"Niche fragrance" is an apt description for Mare Goticum given that the 2025 edition is a mere 100 bottles (two of which are with me) and it is more "evocative" than crowd pleasing. It makes me feel like I just washed up on the shore of the Gdańsk shipyards, and I am there for it! There is a major problem with the listed notes on the English site: motor oil (engine lubricant) is fundamentally incorrect. The store in Poland where I purchased it accurately listed mazut (low-quality Russian marine fuel oil) as one of the heart notes, which is... dirtier... than even used motor oil could ever achieve. (More info at the end of this review.) This and the pine are all I get for the first several hours, and it is intense . Throat-closing, headache-inducing intense unless very carefully applied. Once it settles down, it transitions into a vegetal phase showcasing the seaweed and violet leaf anchored by a saline amber. I was initially concerned the "diving suit" note was a mistranslation of "wetsuit", which... ick . But it isn't! It is honest-to-goodness antique diving suit: the scent of admiralty brass helmet joined to rubberized canvas and sea-stained leather. Amazing! It closes with hours and hours of beautiful driftwood. On clothes, it lasts for days. This is definitely a fragrance for cold, overcast days when one is not going to be packed into confined spaces with people unaccustomed to scents that challenge. =========== Background: My work in oil refining has given me experience with many refined fuels (and their odors). Marine fuel oil is a heavy product closer to tar than diesel, used by large ships. It isn't worth very much since it is a residual byproduct of refining much more valuable transportation fuels: gasoline/petrol, jet fuel, and diesel. It is the garbage from the bottom of distillation columns thinned out with just enough diesel to keep it from solidifying in the ship's fuel lines. In the sixties, the United States developed fluidized catalytic cracking technology. It allows a refinery to convert residual fuel oils into much more valuable finished fuels. However, the process is both resource intensive and technologically demanding. Without significant catalytic cracking capacity, the increased demand for "clean" fuels like jet and diesel meant the Soviet bloc was awash in low-quality fuel oil known as "mazut". This fuel was a cheap, dirty, foul-smelling source of energy used in power plants, industrial facilities, and marine engines. The Soviet ships constructed in the shipyards of Gdańsk would certainly have run on mazut. The mazut accord in this fragrance is both accurate and eminently fitting.

Wow Amazing. When I got a sample I new I want it. Story locked in a bottle. Very nishe but in a pleasant way. Stormy Baltic Sea. I think most amazing marine scentl I expierienced. Very long lasting.

The mazut and pine are quite strong in the beginning. The sulfur content of mazut mixed with the pine gives a kind of barn animal quality. As it wears down the violet and marine smells start to come to the top. As someone said below, mazut is different than just plain old motor oil. Mazut is low-grade stinky dirty fuel for factories and ships. I imagine this leaking from a ship onto a diver in the depths of an ocean. As if someone stumbled upon a sunken tanker on the ocean floor. The marine notes are beautiful and calming. Mixing with the more animal smell I mentioned earlier, it is more reminiscent of leather towards the dry-down. The leather and rubber of the diving suit, and the way that water creates a chemical reaction with metal... almost like a tarnish odor. The seaweed isn't fishy but slightly sweet, plays off of the violet and pine really nicely. I'm very touched by this fragrance. It gives me so much visually and I'm glad I was able to find a sample to experience it. Bizarre and stunning.

i don’t think i’ve ever added a sample to my cart so quickly as when i stumbled on this fragrance and saw “diving suit” as a note. i get the woody notes, i definitely get the motor oil, but above all else this really does smell like a rubbery suit dredged up from the bottom of the sea. the word “unique” is thrown around here a lot but i’ve truly never smelled another perfume like this and don’t believe i ever will. if you want to smell like you’re aboard the HMS Terror (before it got stuck in the ice and the crew cannibalized each other) this one’s for you.

How in the world does one acquire a sample or bottle? EDIT: Contacted Alan Balewski on the website and he says that all Bale perfumes are sold out at the moment.(4/25/25) Chronicles is apparently year-round. You can sign up for a waiting list for Bale perfumes.

Guys is this an ultra niche fragrance ? just curious like, Motor Oil ?? oh no, i need this