White Whale

A different take on an oceanic aquatic fragrance. I agree with those below that mention a melon like note front and centre to start, combined with salty facets and a clean, sharp almost chlorine like accord. As the fragrance settles, the melon note slowly dies back and it becomes drier and more woody. There are slight hints of florals in the background but these are subtle. I don’t see this as a particularly floral fragrance, even though the floral accords are rated quite highly above. My best description would be fresh, salty, woody and fruity. I like this. It’s different. Very unisex imho. Performance is okay. It goes on strong but I do find that it dies back quite quickly and stays close to the skin. Stunning presentation though, the bottle is a work of art. This and the new Sleight of Fern are two great fragrances that are very wearable but still have a unique quality that elevates them, I just wish performance was a little bit better but then I say that about most of my fragrances nowadays!

White Whale smells like coastal Northern California, just like the cool ocean breeze and the fragrant plants that grow along the rocky cliffs. I grew up right on the beach in San Francisco, and this fragrance makes me very nostalgic. I can also picture sunny days spent at Bodega Bay looking out over the sparkling ocean, hoping to catch a glimpse of a whale. Also reminds me of wet, gray days on the Golden Gate Bridge, when the fog is so intense you need a waterproof parka. It also smells intriguingly smoky in a way that I can’t pinpoint, it’s so vague, and it also smells like ocean water and driftwood. It makes me imagine discovering a shipwreck. In the drydown I detect frankincense and ambergris. This fragrance works great in the heat. It projects well, and it lasts all day. Personally I feel this is the very best from this house and also a masterpiece aquatic fragrance.

Exceptionally beautiful and wearable fragrance, with moist and salty facets and a central fruity-leathery osmanthus accord in the heart. The ambregris accord is mainly ambroxan, but is brought closer to the more complex aroma of natural ambergris with some additions. The story to the fragrance is nicely intended, but the fragrance doesn't really convey anything about the epic battle of the one-legged captain against the "beast". Instead, everything is very harmonious and neatly coordinated, no dirt or animalic exhalations far and wide, and all drenched in the long-lasting aroma of apricot-like osmanthus blossom. You have to like this aroma and get along well with ambroxan, then you'll be fine with "White Whale".

This smells like the pajama pants girl in high school. Specifically, the “emancipated” pj girl of the late 90’s/00’s. She has her own apartment she shares with her 23 year old boyfriend Dustin, and 2 other people. Permed, crunchy, over-gelled hair, she just washed with herbal essence or salon selectives. Doused in some fruity drugstore stinker knock off spray (Victoria’s secret Love Spell, if Dustin received his tax check). All of this muted by the intense stale scent of Marlboro Reds. She drives a red ford escort. Tribal butterfly steering wheel cover. Glade gel vent air fresheners. Of course she gets a discount on all this at her part time job at AutoZone. It’s so beautiful.

I find this incredibly complex, deep, multi-faceted and unique. It doesn't feel marine or aquatic to me. The pepper at the first spray is an attention getter with something slightly indolic lurking behind it, which may be the olibanum and osmanthus rising from the depths. It slowly evolves into a beautiful combination of ambergris (green with violets) and labdanum - smooth as a becalmed vessel in the immensity of the ocean. I love it, there is nothing close to it and for me it is imminently wearable year round. The ambergris stays on my skin for 24 hours, although after about 10 hours it has become a skin scent. Beautiful, evocative and rare. Yes, I had to buy a full bottle!

An oceanic floral leather. The ocean part is airy, slightly fruity and somewhat melon-like, but no obvious calone note (I really dislike calone). The floral notes are soft, with violet or violet leaf. From start there is a velvety leather/suede running along. It does smell oceany and this is what I hoped Zoologist Seahorse to be but that one turned out too ambery and warm to me. On the feminine side because of the soft florals, but the choice of violets I think makes this possible for men to wear as well.

This is the only marine fragrance I like. At the opening, you can clearly smell the osmanthus, with its almost apricot-like fruity note. Gradually, the fragrance starts to resemble the scent in the air when it begins to rain after a hot sunny day. It evokes a sensation almost like petrichor or geosmin. I love it because it instantly takes me back in my mind to the harbor of Húsavík in Iceland, where I went on a whale-watching tour. Beautiful beyond any technical description.

I sense the whale moving in the ocean. The sea, the ship, flowers on an island or landmass that passes early on in the voyage. One hunts in the darkness of the deeps of the sea, the other in the light of day in the air. The white whale is a white spot in the dark sea, Capt. Ahab the dark spot in the daylight, a perfect set of yin and yang hunters hunting each other round and round.

Salty, sweet, floral, musky, fresh, airy honeydew melons? Violet, olibanum, patchouli, and osmanthus is prominent. Quite feminine. Smells like a rainforest and also a beach. Beautifully blended. Good sillage and performance. I do not like marine fragrances and I find this very approachable. I like this a lot.

I keep White Whale on a heavy rotation. Usually, I notice people hovering around me whenever I wear her. She's vintage, mysterious, salt-drenched, and unique.

Nightmares are NOTHING in the face of White Whale... Briney violets conjuring a gray sea, salty sea wind stings your face with undeniable life.

smoking menthols at a gas station

Masque close their Opera collection with a tribute to Moby Dick, somewhat surprising but probably my favourite from the line. Summery, marine cool and woody-mineral. Aromatic, almost calone-like with a green-tinged freshness to it and a hint of fruit. Salt, cedar and the other woods lead, all very well blended (despite the blurb saying roughness was the intention). Pepper, wormwood and osmanthus are the accents, softened with a little iris and oakmoss. The ambergris is an accord, more of a modern interpretation than an imitation, using ambroxan and labdanum. The violet note comes through more clearly on skin along with smoke from the incense. Ultimately the osmanthus hovering lightly behind it all makes it a fraction too fruity for me to wear as a summertime aromatic. Interesting though. I'd like to smell it again sometime.

Dear reader: Immediately scroll all the way down to AllyBenedyk's review and read that. That's exactly what this smells like and all you need to know about White Whale. I literally keep forgetting that this was supposed to be a marine Moby Dick reference because her concept is so much better and more accurate. Best review on this website. I actually can't figure out if I like this, but I bought a 10ml decant to try and figure it out. It's like how I feel about olives - when I start eating them, I'm like ew, David, what is this. But then I need to eat more to figure out what my taste buds are really feeling. Other people getting a whiff of my scent bubble probably think I've been vaping or something. White Whale

White Whale by Masque Milano is a marine fragrance crafted with excellent materials and a thoughtful composition. Its marine quality feels authentic, built on the sensation of seawater, ambergris, and salt, rather than relying on calone or ambroxan. The fragrance achieves depth through rich woods, a cold sharpness with violet and vetiver, and a powdery softness from violet and orris. The saltiness is pronounced, evoking the intensity of a strong ocean wind. It smells romantic, like standing before the vast ocean—its immensity dwarfing human scale and evoking a profound sense of awe and emotional intensity.

Very interesting, and melancholic. The flowers and woods are muted and staying in the background of slightly calone-like sea smell and salty ambergris. The opening is quite sharp with the ozonic notes, but that is probably necessary to get them last until the stunning later phases where the oceanic, floral and woody notes live in perfect harmony. I like to wear this in warm weather, and it might sometimes feel a little thin in colder weather. The sillage is actually strong, but you go nose blind with this fast. The bottle and atomizer quality is one of the best I've seen.

This is the summer scent I've been waiting to find! I fell in love with this immediately, but I can't exactly pinpoint why. I think it's the petrichor accord combined with the osmanthus, it truly strikes something within me.The ambergris is why I wanted to try this (since it is one of my absolute fav notes), and I am so glad I did. To me, it's a beautiful and addicting unisex scent with summer brightness, but it also has some darkness to it. You cannot appreciate light without the shadows.

I've sought an ideal petrichor scent high and low, and this is my front-runner. Abergris and honeydew forward. That "rope" note. Ocean air- salty, but not seaweedy. Clean, but not soapy. MM has impressed me with the sweet-powdery tension found in Lost Alice, and they do an excellent job here balancing the notes in this unisex Atlantic ocean fragrance. I would wear this on New England holiday, wearing a cotton shirt, walking along a boardwalk.

White Whale starts off with a big blast of tart melon, transforms into salty florals in the mid, and only becomes aquatic woody in the deep drydown. This is more floral-fruity than aquatic. It's bright, fresh, optimism in a bottle. It is very youthful, honestly I think teenage girls will enjoy this scent. I like it, but as a 30+ man, it doesn't really match the vibe.

An oceanic, aldehydic floral (mostly violet) that suffers from a lack of basenotes and/or woods. Possibly resin. I mean, I can smell traces of frankincense in there, ever so faint, but this is all top, and to my mind at least, it feels incomplete. It works well as a minor accord in a scent, but it just feels a little lacking for mine...

I usually hate marine scents. That’s because when I envision ”aquatic,” I conjure memories of Light Blue or Cool Water. (Yuck.) But this scent is so beautiful. Not a cliche to be found and rife with intriguing contradictions. Fresh but a little funky. Classic but a little odd. I’m so happy I sprang for a bottle.

This smells like a lovely baby who just got out of a fruity bubble bath, with baby powder over the body. A soft, airy, sweet, powdery scent. It is more sweat-like at first and becomes more salty and oceanic as it develops on my skin. Pepper and woods are quite muted. Unisex, wearable, inoffensive.

Starts out smelling like a honeydew melon at the beach, dries down into woody soap at the beach, and then develops undertones of old paperback novel at the beach. Lasts a very long time. I like it but would not buy more than a sample probably.

A very succesful blind buy this has been. Lovely ambergris smell, which lingers on for the whole day. It really opens up during the hot weather. This will become my summer scent for this year.

Petrichor indeed! Salty and soapy, rather intimate, elegant. I am so glad I got a 10 ml sampler, when it's over I'll certainly purchase a full bottle.

Smells very seductive on my wife. Off skin it gives off an elegant, mysterious vibe. On paper it reminds me of the smell of a room at Motel 6 :)

Perfect summer fragrance with a musk dry down.... Is works

Elegant for summer. Not unique at all.

This is the problem with geosmin. I am fascinated with the the way it smells, but so seldom does a perfumer use it in such a way that it doesn't overpower a formula. In White Whale, perfumer Christian Alori comes close, so very close, to making it work that it hurts. It hurts me so much that I just can't get past it here. It still ends up being entirely a geosmin affair with all else in the periphery. Some sensation of saltiness and ambergris is suggested, but GEOSMIN. The feeble murmurs of osmanthus whispering through the GEOSMIN. Ionones are present, yet they end up further elevating the GEOSMIN. I just can't get past it. It takes a good hour or so for this surplusage of petrichor and ozone to ease up and allow olibanum and orris to push through the surface, then something enjoyable really takes place. All in all, it leaves me cold, though.

First impressions: Huge blast of salty melon in the opening. The melon settles down quickly and then I get a ton of ambergris. Very salty, very marine. So far I’m not a fan of how this smells when I smell my skin directly as it feels a bit in-your-face with the ambergris. When I get whiffs of it in the air it smells like petrichor, salt, and a touch of cigarette smoke. Im not sure this is for me but I will update once I’ve tried this out more. Melon comes back out at full force in the dry down. Salt and ambergris mellow out. I really cannot get through the first 2 hours though it’s like sitting next a cigarette smoker and never getting used to it. I wish I liked this but it’s a no go for me.

Smells like a Hollister store. A bit more masculine leaning in my opinion. Not a ton of projection, but I could still smell it on my skin the next morning so it has great longevity on me personally. After a year or so smells more sour on initial application, drys down to crushed leaves and white ivory bar soap. Reminds me a tad of snowy owl from zoologist.

White Whale-Masque Milano I’m still working my way through evaluating this fragrance for the past couple of months. I purchased my 5 ml test sample via Scent-Split. White Whale has a promising cast of notes upon first glance. Some not readily apparent and some, let’s say, incredibly polarizing and nauseating. The notes that encouraged my curiosity for this fragrance were: Olibanum, Ambergris, Chinese Osmanthus, Violet, Italian Orris Root, Haitian Vetiver, Virginia Cedar, Patchouli and Labdanum Upon my first test I found that the opening was horrendously bitter and harsh. But it became apparent after the fact that I was way too heavy handed on first application. Every test since then, I’ve been spraying in front of me 2 sprays and then walking through the mist. What an improvement based solely on proper application technique. The melon and calone accords that are not listed in the pyramid, but are easily recognized are the “Devisive” water notes for me. I personally can’t hack them as they make me feel “sea-sick”. Compounded with the snuffed out cigarette note and Thujone in the base and it quickly became a serious “Please pass the Dramamine, & FAST moment each time. The fragrance as a whole is incredibly well blended and certainly fits the 4 part “Opera Narrative” Masque Milano was portraying here, even though it offended my sensibilities in the long term. Cant win them all I expect. 😉 My husband enjoys the fragrance, as it’s more suited for the “Manly-man” crowd so I passed it forward with my blessing! I also have, and thoroughly enjoy: Russian Tea, L'Attesa, Sleight of Fern and Montecristo all by Masque Milano.

White Whale opens with a very white, transparent, rooty (almost carrotty) abstract iris note. it has a silvery inner glow that I find rather pleasant. there’s also a similar pale, sheer, synthetic skin-like aura that I imagine is the gesture at ambergris. an hour in, it’s mostly off-white “ambergris” (probably ambroxan). I like it, but it’s very simple, and at niche prices it’s a bit of a ripoff. But definitely it’s a very nice version of what it is: smooth, radiant, lightly salty, with fleeting moments of fruitiness and suggestions of woodiness, but mostly just the clean dry ivory-gray scent that smells like Vermeer’s deceptively ordinary daylight. but it’s not that much better than Not A Perfume ($140/100 mL and available at Sephora) and it’s triple the price.

Opening is in order from greatest to least salty, green, peppery. Dry down musky, powdery violet, dusty

#1632 in my “Tour de Fragrance” Got this decant from scentsplit.com for $4.99. I almost blind bought a bottle of this because of the notes, but I didn’t because I don’t have a lot of experience with osmanthus as an ingredient. I’ve only run into it once before in Les Indemodables’ “Cuir de Chine”, the one out of twelve of that line I really did not like. Caution was in order as I don’t like this either. The opening smells like rotted apricots, like a really cheap fruit-scented candle. That nasty faux fruitiness fades in an hour or so, and it gets more white floral, but not enough to redeem it for my nose. Bummer as I like every other note in use. This is definitely not masculine and if I smelled this on a woman it would be just as repellant to me. Hard no for me. Good Luck and Keep Hunting!

This gets compared to Beach Hut Woman, and while the first 2 seconds when the spray is airborne DO smell remarkably similar, there is a crucial difference afterwards. Beach Hut Woman is a beautiful example of the restrained use of calone, discreetly peeping from amongst a delicate chorus of effervescent notes. White Whale has a big fishy glut of calone, or perhaps some other similar chemical, that I find irritating and nauseating, and that's just with a teensy spray from a 2ml sample.. It's horrible. If you can't find Beach Hut Woman I'd recommend cutting your losses and moving on.

Immediately I pick up some aquatic melon nuances, but the various shades of white and grey coming from a mix of ambergris, incense, and orris root obscure that calone-adjacent note into something more hazy. I'm actually reminded of ELDO's recent Sous Le Pont Mirabeau with it's incense-violet-seawater themes, but this is deceptively more complex. I've tried it twice now and I pick up different facets as time goes on. Further into the drydown I pick up what's probably the haitian vetiver coming through with those rougher, smoky, earthy aspects. The orris feels like the central element though, and I pick up a bit of a vegetal plastic-like note eventually. It blankets the other things in a cold, damp dust. Musty, and kind of dank, but with a lingering sweet floral character that keeps it from feeling dirty or heavy. The ambergris accord comes through on skin much more apparently and has a mild funk, but nothing too difficult. It's hard to say how I feel about it, but on paper the fruity-aquatic aspect turns me off a bit. Perhaps it's not calone and just an intersection of other notes (osmanthus being one), but a small part of it is similar to something I associate with shower gels. On skin I eventually get more iris-y, earthy, and almost ominous saltwater themes that I enjoy. It captures something akin to a fog collecting along the coastline, passing over driftwood and obscuring things in a grey cloud, moving with a bracing but muggy kind of freshness. Eventually there's more wood and resinous, mineralic aspects that I increasingly enjoy as well. It's cold and somewhat distant, with a mild body odor type of mustiness mixed with stale smoke, which is where I wonder if I'd reach for it all that often. Definitely an interesting novelty I'm happy I sampled though. Perhaps at a discount I would pick it up and figure out if it really works.

What does osmanthus smell like? Think of how a peachy-pink highlighter would smell. Not juicy peachy, Osmanthus is actually classified as a shrub. Lifted, yet calming and open. Sexy and bold yet transparent. This aroma meets rustic ambergris and a mysterious saltiness. Imagine an antique, rain drenched weather-worn rope wrapped around the peachy-pink hue, and it is all being sprayed by sea salt in the days air. Uplifting, clean, but actually sexy. More a sea-spray than a deep sea-water aroma, you could say this salty-peach-resting-in-an-antique-rope-net is aquatic, but there is no tired '90s water cliché' here. Heck there is not even citrus here to resemble such things. Yet somehow the breezy texture here is drenched in rain. Masterful. Projection, performance, longevity, all good. 3 sprays around neck line from the full bottle atomizer. With time, it mellows very nicely. It also sticks around on clothes as mellow version of itself, a masculine leaning vintage aroma. There is no "strong cedar" or "overwhelming labdanum" in the slightest. It just all works. This is ambergris accord of "floral lore" for sure. Calming, evocative, vintage-yet-modern, a dash of smoky shipwreck. Unique and friendly, just missing some body to it. 9/10

Big frankincense opening. Doesn't say head shop and certainly doesn't say church, points more to open jars of stick incense from a street vendor. Very, very wet, but doesn't go Davidoff aquatic, it convinces you of its proximity to the ocean with a wide and varied spread of damp materials. Orris fresh from soaked soil. Storm-battered seaside vetiver. An especially oily leather labdanum from the banks of the Mediterranean. Certainly not ambergris, but a fine approximation of it, no nagging aromachemical headache. Good, salty, and round. Powdery violet lends it a strange little gloom; I do find it to be very transportive, and I do find myself in northern California feeling very alone over a wide gray water, whipped up and down by an unseasonably cool wind, eyes stinging. In warmer weather the osmanthus creeps out and takes over, punctuates the scene with a big melon-y shampoo exclamation mark, announces that the sun's come out now and reminds us that we're on vacation. Not a sugary tiki bar postcard of a vacation, a real vacation. Groaning wooden belly of the pier at low tide. Freshly washed wet hair combed through before heading out again for dinner. Still didn't get all the salt out. Kelp stuck to a sandal. Fairly delicious.

White Whale is the echo of a dream, the memory of an endless quest, a journey into the unknown. “Below the hat lowered to his face, Ahab let a tear fall into the sea; and all the Pacific contained no riches equal to that one small drop.” Thus, like Captain Ahab in his endless pursuit, we too follow an invisible trail, an obsession that simultaneously consumes and elevates us. Each note is a fragment of Melville's great work, where the air is tinged with salt and the water glows with golden reflections. The white whale is there, far away, perhaps only in our imagination, but its tail guides us, like a beacon in the darkness. At the heart of the fragrance lies a delicacy that smacks of melancholy, but at the same time soothes us. It is the feeling of a lost love, but one that lives on, intact, in the embrace of memory. “There is no lonelier place than a traveling heart,” writes Melville, and yet, with White Whale, even loneliness becomes sweet company, for in every note of it there is the promise of a dream that never ceases to live, of a quest that, even in its obsession, finally makes us whole. ig: @pietroparodi

Thing emerges above horizon to its substance beauty to be admired, from subconscience to conscience and back to the abyss again, like a dream... Masque in this act of dreams, The Opera of Life (in four acts), consists of total 16 bottles, now meets its ending. Having some from this, I feel it's an obligation to have one more to accomplish my collection though I'm not enthusiastic to aqua, salty, oceanic things in perfumes. Here are violet and osmanthus again like Times Square closing Act. 1, specially the latter, feeling it's an ode, an echo to the previous efforts, no wonder this reminder purified with more of ambergris, seafaring salty, when applied on skin won't be like gourmands. Bottle emerges in an ocean of fragrances to be sniffed, from memories to an experience and back to the storage again, like haunted. White Whale, while love the name to give this play a definition it's not impressive as some others, sometimes a thing doesn't fully meet expectations. 白鯨行,199th review

Huh. I get an onset of old wooden furniture and wax candles that are pretty much exact to what they’re going for, I guess, but isn’t pleasant to wear as a perfume. Dries a bit to let out some of the floral notes with fruity elements probably from the osmanthus as it’s citric, but also with a plastic note that I don’t love. There is a feel closer to real ambergris at this point though, which is quite impressive. Dries to a faintly fruity floral, as reported by other reviewers, with a salty sea vibe, but it is in no way what I expected. I was kind of hoping for more sea water and less wax candle/floral perfume blend. It’s okay, but I won’t even use up this sample. Not loving it. Also doesn’t last very long overall

Melonal is a bit overwhelming here...at times it feels a bit household cleaner-like, though perhaps I am just particularly sensitive to that chemical...nice salty, musky, airy backbone. In the opening, it reminds me of the original Panda by Zoologist, with green-bamboo nuances and that Zoologist vegan musk. But White Whale is more aquatic, more seaside than watery. The drydown moves towards a marine-salty osmanthus, which I prefer more than the opening. This stage lasts forever. Sillage is deceptively strong; it's not an intense scent even up close but it projects far and well. I find this to be squarely unisex. It's likeable and safe, but nothing about it stands out to me. The saltiness is mouthwatering though.

True holy-grail fragrance. A scent profile I would have never sought out and likely steered clear from, but was happily directed to get my nose on by Emma from Perfume Room podcast's scent recommendation. Whispy salt air, but in a more abstract, conceptual way compared to other more photorealistic, purely marine or ozonic scents. A perfect marriage of orris and ambergris, just like the elusive white whale slipping through deep blue water - a thin, pearl knife slicing through soft butter! Triangular balance of sea to air to Earth elements. Somehow simultaneously niche and unusual yet universally appealing... an iconic, top-tier for life fragrance for me.

Soapy, salty, aromatic, slightly smokey candle wax. It can be a little cloying if you overspray but it’s a beautiful scent. I needed a clean smelling fragrance in my collection and this one ticks all the boxes. People around you will enjoy this fragrance, it is not offensive at all but it has made me roll down the window a couple of times because of the strength. It’s revitalizing and uplifting. I’ve sprayed this on a few people and asked for their opinion. They do get the aquatic foundation of this fragrance but they understand this is nothing mainstream. Comments of them envisioning the ocean is always the first thing. Cheers Alori. 🥂

Interesting take on the aquatic genre. Misty sea-melon overlaid by the gentle florals of osmanthus and violets, with olibanum dragging it towards incense in the base notes (it's listed as a top note here but I smell it more clearly in the base notes) It's actually a very pretty fragrance, but for something named White Whale and with an ambergris accord, I wanted something more brutally marine. It's not. White Whale is tourists on a whale sightseeing boat just off the shore with their floral perfumes, not a rogue whale attacking seasoned mariners in the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean.

(Ozonic accord, like mildew) you find yourself at a beach, desolate and draped in a light misty veil. Suddenly, the wind picks up, carrying with it the ghostly whispers of forgotten belongings, calling out like a damp, beckoning hand from the abandoned seaside shack near you. (Sweet melon-like note) a white apparition flickers and leaps in the horizon, its flapping tail resembling a winking eye. I fell in love with WW so quickly. Would have been perfect if it were less sweet on my skin. 💔

This one is super intriguing. Definitely fits to the name, salty, aquatic, slight ambergris and seaweed, masculine, a little leathery, a touch of spice. I do feel the frankincense, or incense. A bit of both. Mellows out with all these aspects there with an added orris powderiness that softens it up. Overall leans masculine. I really enjoy these types of scents, to analyze and try, not sure I could wear it but I can definitely see it on a man.

olibanum, and salt blast.... I smell light skin, olibanum, salt, seashells, and hot summer morning beach. I also detect some touch of violets, and orris. I didn't like this blend at first, but when it cooled down and got into it, it bloomed quite well and gave me that summer mornings vibes. This is charming for those who loves Issey Miyake for men the 1st edition, & Acqua Di Gio classic for men.

This is a tough one. Unisex, right down the middle, white floral vibe, earthiness, salt. A lot sweeter than the note breakdown might lead you to believe. A slight soapy feel to it. It’s strong and radiant, really makes itself be known. Do I like it? I really want to like it, but it’s a bit too feminine leaning and loud to be truly enjoyable.