Cabotine Eau Vivide

Living water is supposedly what eau vivide translates to from French. That is exactly what this perfume is to me. Salty, frothy, lucid ocean water! I have been wanting a true aquatic scent for a while. I have also been waiting to try the original Cabotine for a while but reviews have scared me off. I was afraid that it might be too intense or old-fashioned. I ended up coming across this flanker and figured what better way to dip my toes into the Gres waters than to try this literal aqua option. I didn’t have much to lose. It was under $20 for a 3.4 Oz on EBay. Ah-maz-ing! I am going to go ahead and echo what has already been said but I can’t help thinking that if this were packaged in some elaborate, oceanic mermaid bottle it would be flying off of shelves at double and triple the price. Picture it: a curved horizontal, frosted glass bottle in the shape of a mermaid tail with iridescent scales and Statue of Liberty green fins by some niche house or a house like Bvlgari. Or even a celebrity. My mind keeps retracting back to the cover of the children’s book the Rainbow Fish when I smell this. If that is how this perfume was presented, we would all be losing our minds. Youtubers waxing poetic. The coveted bottle that we would all feel pressured to have adorning our shelves here on Fragrantica. Trying to recapture our youth of Ariel crooning that she wants to be part of our world. All the while what you think that would or should smell like would be this amazing scent right here. I truly do think that companies, particularly perfume and makeup, make a huge buck off of our feminine sentimentalities. We get caught up in the aesthetics of mermaids, purses, unicorns, butterflies, fairies, crowns, moons, stars, eyes, ying yangs, etc. The totems of our youth and good old days. I am not above falling into the follies of packaging. The problem I find with most of them is the pretty bottles are failing to deliver the magic of what we really want. Usually, all of the quality is going into the gimmicky bottle and not the perfume itself. Not that the perfumers can’t make good, they usually won’t. Occasionally, there’s a really well done compromise like Cloud but that’s the exception and not the rule. Now, I do love a good bottle as much as the next one and I will admit that EV’s bottle leaves much to be desired and is extremely plain. I love the cap but the swirly, dizzying, seizure inducing design does nothing for me. Forget all that! As with most things in life, it’s what inside that matters. This is the bottled exhilaration of whimsical days spent at the beach as a kid. Ultimate🧜🏻embodiment. Yet this receives absolutely NO love whatsoever. Anna Sui wishes. I suppose there is just plainly an over-saturation of various options today so little gems like this tend to go unnoticed. Eau Vivide is the perfect balance of marine, floral, musky, fruity and woody. And she’s a salty B too. I personally really enjoy salt accords in fragrances. As is the rule with food also, too much can and will be nauseating. The salt here does a really good job of balancing out the sweetness. It’s one of those “dumb reach” perfumes for spring and summer. EV doesn’t go all sickly sweet or powdery in heat the way some fragrances can. Longevity is really good! I had to overspray but this lingered until I woke up the next morning. This isn’t really room filling but the projection is a little above average. I honestly feel a little silly for doubting Cabotine. This taught me a lesson. Cheap doesn’t necessarily equate to low quality. Cabotine has a polarized following. But now I want to try the original and all of the flankers!

The journey to this scent started with my love for Victoria Secret’s Aqua Kiss. I had to check the perfumes listed in the “reminds me of” and took note of which ones that I plan to buy. I chose this and Eternity Air and put them on my cart. But along my new fragrance world journey it took me 3 months of adding/deleting them in my cart before I finally took the plunge. I had to purchase other fragrances that piqued my interest more before I bought them. This came first in the mail today and Eternity Air might arrive next week so I excitedly opened this much awaited box. First of all this doesn’t really smell like Aqua Kiss. I get the similar aquatic vibe but they are not the same. Upon first sniff I got a blast of alcohol and after a few seconds I cannot help but smile about how right the reviews were down below. Reading the comments below I already have an idea of what this smells like and it is exactly how I imagined this to be. This smells like a when the ocean kisses the fresh breeze while sweet citrus flowers are wafting in the air. I can also smell a bit of salt, a tiny bit of musk but only for a fleeting moment and then they all blend perfectly... the total outcome is just divine! This smells so beautiful and it titillated my senses the way some fragrance I have never did. This is my first ever Cabotine and I am impressed. I totally love this and a total blind buy success! My heart is happy! The bottle looks cute in my collection. This is truly one underrated gem and I will definitely explore other Cabotine scents. I am also excited for my Eternity Air to arrive which I will review next.

After searching for nearly a year, it's finally mine! Temps were high when it arrived a couple of weeks ago and I thought this would be a perfect, light and refreshing summer fragrance but I was wrong. The scent was unremarkable and it disappeared on my skin within a short time. I put the bottle aside, more than a little disappointed; however, this morning it's rainy and cold and I've tried again, inspired by the announcement of the 2 new flankers to be released in 2014. A cool weather aquatic! Who knew such a beast existed (outside of Mugler's Eau de Star, an aquatic patch-bomb which I adore)? I'm telling you, colder temps make this one blossom. A salty, ozonic-fresh aquatic with powdery roses and resinous cedar, as if you're making an autumn visit to a beachfront home bordered by a cedar forest and a rose garden flush with the year's last blooms. I'm three hours into this wearing and the fragrance hasn't faded. As I walk through the house there's an outdoorsy fresh sillage trail that's keeping a smile on my face. Little development so I'll call this one a linear fragrance but that's a plus in this case -- no disappointing drydown -- everything you sniff first remains truly "Vivide". A stunner!

This one last and projects on me better than the original Cabotine. I didn't expect a citrusy salt breeze perfume to be able to survive a full workday. Very well done! I sometimes smell similar scents on people (hardly any fragrance is original today when every house feels obliged to release copies of each other's work), but Cabotine Eau Vivide would be worth 2-3 times its small price. The House of Gres has all my respect, I've tried three of their works so far and all are masterpieces. Their scents are surprisingly cheap and very good quality compared to their price. It opens with citruses then settles into salty marine breeze. If someone likes Womanity's salt water but cannot handle the full composition (why? It is so amazing) try this. Here the creamy fig is replaced with aromatic citrusy freshness. A wonderful and very cheap choice for summer, lasts longer than expected, even though I am full of perfumes I'm considering ordering another bottle.

Oh I love this little beauty so much! Finally a great, not too overwhelming summer scent that is not a citrus cocktail! It starts with beautiful salty accords, fresia and lemon zest,not very noticeable, just making the whole composition so fresh! It is easy to wear and to like. I adore it. Unfortunately my significant other does not like it, so we have to part our ways. If someone is interested, he is 31, blue eyes, blond hair, great sense of humour :) Just kidding. I wear it when he is not around. Longevity is quite good, last more than 4 hours on me, and for this friendly price I can spray it again and again as many times as I want. Love love love! Oh, it has nothing to do with the original Cabotine, except the similar bottle design.