Sail
Acqua di Portofino (2012)

This is a nice, fresh holidays-at-the-beach kind of scent. The minty opening is delicious, unfortunately the mintiness soon succombs to a green and sultry and salty note that reminds me of sea weed, quite pleasant in this presentation, but not to everyone I suppose. Nice projection - moderate but persistent. One important thing: apart from the very opening, this scent smells EXACTLY like Montale Sandflowers, and I mean exactly. If you have either of those, don't bother buying the other one. Still, it's an interesting scent worth having.

“Sail” and “Portofino”, what would you think of? Yes, that. A floral-anisic aquatic scent. Surprisingly nice, though; kind of plastic but with an enjoyable translucent texture which brilliantly manages to tame down the usually annoying heaviness of calone and similar notes. Cozy and classy like high quality linen. Basically Sail is a salty-anisic ozonic scent with a subtle pastel tone of flowers and a whiff of herbs, and an odd echo of nutty coconut (I don't think that is intended). Light and discreet but with a nice darker shade underneath the “bright floral saltiness”. Somehow not that fresh, actually rather lukewarm and kind of aloof. Quite more refined than most of other aquatic scents, more “civilized”, and more masculine too. Basically while most of others smell “natural” and evoke sand, salty water, wet skin under the sun and whatever other depressing clichés this genre is based on, this is actually more the white shirt Alec Baldwin's wearing while sipping a scotch on the seaside. Pretty linear though, hence boring soon. Nonetheless it is overall fairly nice for me: less predictable and less mainstream than it may seem, it could easily fit many avantgarde niche lines (that wouldn't really be a compliment for me usually, but it is now).

6,5-7/10

An ozonic poetic white musk with a nostalgic peaceful temperament. Sail is a translucent, somewhat ethereal and "breezy" mediterranean salty-floral-anisic ozonic creation. The salty water ozonic accents are rosey, balmy, balsamic and kind of dreamy. I get lot of resemblances with scents a la Il Profumo Pioggia Salata, Profumum Roma Acqua di Sale, Reminiscence Rem and L'Erbolario Fiore dell'Onda but Sail is more delicate and discreet (especially if compared with the bombastic Acqua di Sale). Eucalyptus and white thyme are key notes encompassed by balmy tonka, rosey floral accents (actually the sambac jasmin's effect), sea weeds and anisic musk. Patchouli (a kind of almost balmy-creamy languid patchouli) provides stableness and refinement. Sail is a really light fragrance conjuring a languid sunny solitary day along the cost, neaby a tiny quiet harbor and walking among the rocks covered by sea grasses. The combination of spices, may be a touch of amber and jasmine arouse a slightly mild soapy feel. The interaction of patchouli, green notes and white musk (with the sharpness of the geranium) elicits a sort of opaque final greenness. Really floral, with a dominant sambac jasmine. A dazzling "white floral musk" with lot of texture and refinement, despite not properly being my ideal genre of fragrance.