Aria di Mare
Il Profumo (2002)

Aria di Mare by Il Profvmo (2002) is a niche aquatic floral musk that seemed part of a micro-genre of stripped-down floral aquatics in the Italian side of the niche realm that lasted throughout the 2000's, with other examples being scents like Sapore di Mare/Brezza di Mare by Profumi di Firenze (2002) and seemingly all inspired by the scent Mare by Beth Terry Creative Universe (1997), a long-dead early independent perfume brand run by the namesake Beth Terry. What Aria di Mare does differently from most others in this micro-genre is focus more on the metallic aspects of the freshness than the sea notes or the florals, although it is quite floral and thus leans more conventionally feminine in case there are any dude-bros out there checking this one out. I found Aria di Mare pleasant enough, but when I was gifted a partial tester from a friend who was discontinuing the line at her store, I ended up giving it away myself to someone who enjoyed it more. Aria di Mare smells intentionally unfinished, fresh for its own sake, and very much a close inspirational riff off of Beth Terry, which is understandable given the time it was released and the overwhelming "newness" of niche perfume to most people anyway, but it hasn't stood the test of time as something wearable in my opinion today.

The opening of Aria di Mare is very ozonic, in particular, very 1998-2003 ozonic, when the ozonic style was all the rage, so searing nose hair burning freshness that comes in with a vengeance and takes no prisoners is the name of the game here. Also niche perfume at this time wasn't obsessed with exclusivity or cost of ingredients like it seems to be now, didn't have the condescending luxury slant, nor obsession with naturalness, so consider those when testing this. I'm no stranger to ozone in my aquatics or my white florals, as I enjoy both L'Eau D'Issey pour Homme by Issey Miyaki (1994) and Acqua di Giò pour Homme by Giorgio Armani (1996), but this is another level completely. From this opening, you also get some sharp metallic aldehydes and some dihydromyrcenol that I guess is supposed to bring in the ocean notes, with floral acetates and ionones that impart vague white florals but get listed as broom, tiara flower, and lily by the perfumer. Finally, a dry cedar-like woodiness and a clean laundry white musk finish off Aria di Mare, with the ozone just coming and going throughout the wear, reminding me of smelling like how a battery tastes when you put your tongue on it. Wear is more brief than something like this is expected to be (perhaps a Godsend) at about 8 hours, but projection remains good for most of that. Wear this casually in summer if you're going to at all.

What made Mare by Beth Terry Creative Universe so special was how spectacularly raw and stripped-down in its aromachemical nakedness it was, being truly avant-garde and showing what the "freshness" of 90's perfume smelled like without all the filler to make it "nice". When other niche and indie acts followed and started building up from there, you ended up right back where you started with designers using the same aromachemicals as creative crutches in the first place, except worse off than those designers because in many cases like Aria de Mare the desire to retain a portion of that minimalism meant not blending in a bunch of things to actually make the scent more appealing, but blending in just enough stuff to make it "different" from its peers but still jarring in its incompleteness. Today we have entire perfume houses like Escentric Molecules which exists solely to do what Beth Terry Creative Universe did with Mare back in 1997, but with a host of single-ingredient subjects or embellishments thereof, but Aria di Mare tries to be a whole perfume while it really is not. Il Profvmo founder and perfumer Silvana Casoli would make what feels to be an actually complete fragrance using ideas from this when releasing Pioggia Salata (2009) a few years later, but it is far more floral than aquatic or ozonic in tone. I like the idea behind Aria di Mare, but this kind of smell really belongs in a haircare product and not in a bottle by itself. Neutral.

Oh no it starts off with hairspray much like Brezza di Mare! Pretty quickly some different accords appear. A soft bamboo and minty florals. The hairspray is lighter in this and mimics sand/dirt so there's a little impression of flowers and dirt. This maybe too feminine to me but Lucky Scent describes it as unisex. Again for the price it's not really worth it. Unless you like hairspray this will give you some headaches and there are much better scents to try.

A decent "sea" scent, a bit better than most of others on the same theme mostly because it is at least a bit "elaborated" here – the salty/calone heart note is encapsulated into a pleasant harmony of somehow silky, warm and slightly sugary amber (artificial), a bit of woody softness (the warm coziness of cashmeran), then balsamic notes, resins, perhaps pine notes and also a slight floral accord. The drydown is sadly a bit disappointing, quite dry and metallic - kind of "revealing" the same usual linear and (to me) boring substance of this type of scents. Provided that I do never get why one should want to smell like a fisherman, it's more pleasant than others in this genre (but the best one for me remains Heeley's Sel Marin).

5,5-6/10

Genre: Aquatic

I guess I was expecting something more distinctive here. This is so similar to Beth Terry's Mare that I doubt I could distinguish them blindfolded. Aria di Mare may be an itsy bitsy bit sweeter, and a tad less floral, but not enough to really matter. Very short-lived to boot!

Decent aquatic, airy, delicate and ethereal. You are teleported in a breezing salty and sunny day spent in front of the blue ocean's crisp waters. You can perceive the smell arousing from the salty feminine skin under the sun and the wind blowing on your face. This fragrance reminds me a lot the more renowned (at least in Italy) Acqua di Sale by Profumum Roma (but also a lot Rem by Reminiscence). It's a musky, floral creation characterized by a soapy "mild saltiness" and by the airy touch from the Dyer's Green weed.

(Ocean notes, bamboo stalk, java tea leaves, floral herbaceous notes, sweet water mint, yellow wild broom, acacia flowers, sand white lily, yellow rose, tiare, musk) - taken from luckyscent.My unexperienced nose was a little surprised how sweet it was. Pretty good longevity and sillage for an aquatic perfume. I smell melon somewhere but didn't see it in the list of ingredients. There's definately summer and ocean in this one but it's not a cool, crisp and light summer breeze. This is a bit heavier and sweeter but still very refreshing.