I was browsing through fragrances on fragrantica and noticed fragrances like Acqua Di Gio and Aqva Amara have "sea" and "watery" notes respectively. While the other notes are pretty specific Sicilian mandarin or neroli, I feel the former two are a bit ambiguous. What ingredients go into making these two notes and how do they differ so that users of that site choose to make a clear distinction?
Is there anything that smells like a pool (that chlorine-ish smell?) or a tidepool+ozone only?
Nothing flowery nor fruity, just straight up water+ozone or something.
Is there anything that smells like a pool (that chlorine-ish smell?) or a tidepool+ozone only?
Verymoss reminds me a bit of a pool smell when overdosed, though it's actually an oakmoss-like material. That might just be me though.
Nothing flowery nor fruity, just straight up water+ozone or something.
I may not have been clear. All of those ingredients blend together to make a marine/aquatic smell, not marine/aquatic plus flowers and fruit. In the same way that flavors can blend in unexpected ways, so do smells. Linalool, for example, has a floral smell, but it's found in massive quantities in basil, cilantro and mint, which most people think of as herbal, not floral.
One of the big issues when talking about this is that most people lack the proper frame of context. Most people, even fragrance lovers, have never smelled these materials in isolation. It's basically impossible to convey how these materials smell to normal folks without relying on rough comparisons that are actually quite misleading.
Most materials, even single materials consisting of a single molecule, have overtones that aren't quite what one would expect. Part of the artistry of perfumery is learning how to cover over the rough edges of one material with another..which may have rough edges of it's own.
So to answer your question, not really. There are materials like helional and floralozone with ozonic facets, but none that I'm aware of smell just like ozone. Water is tricky, because it doesn't really have a smell in the same way that other materials do. We mostly sense dampness and smell impurities in the water. Tide pools smell of earth and algae and decaying organic material. Swimming pools smell of chlorine.
Calone, even though it smells melony, gives a watery feeling in the same way that wintergreen gives a cooling feeling or habaneros give a hot feeling. It's not exactly like the real thing, but it can be blended with other things to form an illusion if that makes sense.
Very cool - thanks for all these descriptions and explanations!
I've experienced a tiny bit of the complexities of interactions when I tried to make various mixes of scents that I thought would smell good together only to find that they turn into something else and/or nullify various aspects of each scent.
Instead, now I will spray one in an area of my skin and then the other one in a different area or just next to it in order to have both scents wafting around.
ie. a sharp and dry citrus like Derby Club House Blanche with a sweet scent like MontBlanc Legend Spirit.
Note-wise, I think it's mostly a combination of clary sage and citrus.
The notes come down to the way that the people who wrote them described them. Fragrantica doesn't have people who evaluate fragrances and then determine the notes. They crib them from other places, usually the marketing materials for a scent.
As far as the difference between sea and watery notes go...Usually, people use the term "marine" and "aquatic" to describe them. Marine notes are supposed to evoke the smell of the sea and can involve microdoses of seaweed absolute, and animalic smells in addition to other ingredients that invoke the smell of fresh air and water. "Aquatic" is more of a fantasy note that gives the idea of water, without necessarily attempting to smell like a real body of water. Aquatic notes often involve a material called Calone 1951, the generic name for which is watermelon ketone. In concentration, it smells melony. In dilution it gives the impression of fresh air blowing over the water. Cool Water was the first mass market fragrance to use it.
Even with the distinctions I just drew, "marine" and "aquatic" are often lumped together still. There are certainly marine fragrances out there that smell very much like tide pools at the ocean and some that smell of just calone with no attempt made to make it smell more sealike, but most fall somewhere in the middle.
To give an idea of how an accord like this is constructed, here's an example of a marine/ozonic accord that's somewhere in the middle. This is from an example formula from Givaudan, one of the big oil houses:
ambroxan 20
calone 20 (Calone is very strong...You don't need much
helional 40 (an ozonic/metallic smelling material)
ethyl linalool 60 (similar in smell to linalool, a light floral smell)
habanolide 60 (a sweet floral, white musk)
Iso E Super 80 (provides some cushion and diffusion)
Galaxolide 50% IPM 280 (a very common sweet white musk)
Hedione 440 (a light all-around enhancer that is similar in structure to a material found in jasmine)
Total 1000
If you want to smell what that actually smells like, you can buy a sample of it (premade) here.
I hope that was helpful.
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