Salty

This is such a gem!! It’s like the chypres of yore, but so different, and so good! The name is aptly chosen as it is and stays salty throughout. It opens indeed with a smell that is reminiscent of sweaty skin, but in a good way! It’s not like body odour, it’s sensual sweatiness, mixed in with salt. It’s the smell of someone who is spending a day at the beach, sweaty, salty, bronzed body. It’s so addictive that I keep sniffing and am tempted to lick my skin to taste the salt. While it’s definitely not feminine leaning, as there is absolutely no sweetness at all, I consider this squarely unisex. What makes a perfume masculine to me, is if there are certain notes that are only found in male perfumes. Those are most common in blue perfumes for men, and give that typical male cologne smell. None of that is present here, it’s just a very natural smelling chypre, without any sweetness. The opening lasts long and the salt in this stage is the most present. There’s something else too, which I’m sure is the oud, though it doesn’t really smell like oud to me in this perfume; it smells like driftwood. It’s also very mossy in this stage, which makes sense, because oakmoss in perfumes always smells a bit salty to my nose. Once the salt settles down after the very long opening (2.5 hours), the driftwood comes forward more, and so does the neroli. The neroli is present in this stage, but subdued. Rather than taking centre stage, it plays a supporting role ; adding a layer to the driftwood smell and creating the illusion of a salty gentle sea breeze, that carries just a hint of the smell of neroli with it. Slowly the rose develops too. A crisp, dry rose, but not powdery. It’s a white rose to my nose. It’s not lush, jammy or thick, but delicate and subtle. In this stage the scent becomes more elegant and refined, and very very beautiful. It dries down quite dark and musky, with the smell of almost rotting driftwood and sea water. This is not a fragrance to make you smell pretty, this is a fragrance to transport you to a place and setting and I love it! I’m definitely going to get a full bottle of this juice. It’s an amazing, interesting scent that’s well worth the price and lasts very long.

i've been daily wearing this basically all summer (southern hemisphere) and i have, oh, just a couple thoughts. 1. this is the biggest compliment getter i've ever worn. like seriously, i've gotten multiple compliments from the same person on the same DAY wearing this, that's how well-received it is, which is interesting because here it seems fairly polarizing. i will say that in my case it is noticed almost exclusively by women (the one man that I've had comment on it was a gay man, so take that how you will) and the women who seem the most drawn to it are basically always queer. as someone who appears pretty femme in my daily life, i Love that this scent mascs me up a bit, but I think i'd be happy to smell it on almost any kind of gender presentation, it's a true unisex scent. 2. pairs FANTASTICALLY with a good sunscreen scent. i wear full body sunscreen every day in summer so this discovery happened organically, but i love layering this with anything in the coconut + white florals scent family (SDJ 81, MM Beach Walk, TF Soleil Blanc etc.) and it also plays very nicely with more intense white or yellow florals (Salty + Lust is my favourite night out combo right now) 3. i keep coming back to the oud in this. it's hilarious in that oud is so divisive, and this is divisive, but oud lovers do not seem to be drawn to this. I'd argue it's closer to sandalwood, or a true "driftwood" scent if that's even possible. to get out of the oceanic metaphors (which I think are a little limiting for representing what this scent actually is) it smells like spending hours working up a sweat on a woodchip playground with some white florals planted on the outskirts. in conclusion - gorgeous scent, great performance, perfect for those of us who want a "summer scent" without having to give up on woody, heady gorgeousness.

Yeah this is really good. Fizzy sherbet-y aldehyde-citrus opening, savoury musk, spicy rose and oakmoss and a very wearable oud note (I love how oud smells but tend to have to take a very cautious approach because smelling it on myself all day can tip over into headache territory easily). Weird combination of very edible-smelling Lush-y notes and the quite oldschool aldehyde-rose-moss chypre but it definitely works. I see how this is marketed as a beachy scent but it’s way more versatile than that suggests - the cozy musk and woods means it works well in colder weather and it’s sexy and (weirdly for Lush, elegant) enough to go from day to night too. Has the classic insane lasting power of the Lush body sprays - does dry down to a skin scent after a few hours but if you get this on clothes you will be projecting it for days. Curious to try layering it with more traditional rose or chypre scents to see what happens - I feel like there’s a rosy-woody-spicy strain in common with Chanel Coco that it could play nicely with but that’s such a beast in its own right that amping it up further could just be antisocial.

★★★★ 1/2 This is a spin on one of the oldest scents of this brand called Salarium (which I have never smelled). What is really interesting, is that it was released in 1989 and judging by the way it comes off, it really is a timeless smell. To make a salty sea breeze impression, the perfumer here used vague pastel florals against a strong woody nuance (they say oud) creating a marine atmosphere without calone or any other other aroma chemicals of those times. Think the smell of you beach bag after the beach, it smells of sea water, sand, maybe a bit of sunscreen mixed with pine needles from the forest nearby. It's a long lasting interesting fragrance that feels familiar, and after a couple of wears I realised this formula has already been a hit in the 90s but under a different house and name: Kenzo Pour Homme. Now, Kenzo was created after Salarium (Salty in Edp form) which makes this body spray a lot more interesting to me! Refreshing in warm weather, but kind of too much in cold weather.

Salty? Yes! But beachy? Well... I don’t know. I want very much to say that it is, because there are facets of it (the Neroli and the sunburnt salty aspect of the oud) that definitely say ocean, but the rose and the oud together pull me back into the city. One thing I don’t see a lot of people mentioning is the old-school powderiness it evokes. It definitely feels a little refined from thay angle, with the dusty florals calling you back to an aunt who you remember for her embroidered sofa. Mixing the saltiness and the elegance together paints me a picture of a large old seaside house in an island province of the Philippines. The windows are made of capiz shells and the dark wooden walls are decaying slowly. The humidity is high and the radio is on. A lady on a woven rocking chair fans herself while staring at the coconut trees outside. The sun is setting. Wear this anywhere. It will last surprisingly long. I think this is one of my signature scents now.