Nautica Blue
Nautica (2006)

I stumbled upon this fragrance wearing my new black shorts, which, it turns out are slim fit, pronounce my package to a dangerous extent, and mercilessly hug my thick, powerful thighs. Amidst the heat of it all, I caught sight of a box filled with personal hygiene cast-offs that someone had put out in the street.

I felt a little bit of excitement at finding a full and boxed bottle of men's fragrance as part of a personal hygiene giveaway by one of my neighbours. Yes, it was only a Nautica but how bad could it be? Turns out, pretty bad. A headache-inducing, generic aquatic that will make you feel blue. It seems to get a little bit less offensive after a while, but I had to force myself to smell it again.

This is a high school / after gym scent. Not something you will make a staple just an after thought IMO. Similar to Wings and several others released in this time frame of the "aquatic" sensation. It's cheap so other than price I don't see any reason to really own this unless you have a 12 year old looking to impress.

I overpaid for this in a fragrance outlet shop in Tanger Outlet in Myrtle Beach. The store was nice & the staff was helpful. But I paid way too much for this bottle. It smells nice and clean. It lasts a few hours. I'll use it occasionally.

Nautica Blue (2006) is one of two fragrances that Coty contracted perfumer Maurice Roucel to create for the nameplate after the fragrance portfolio was purchased from Paul Sebastian/Halston Borghese, with the other being Nautica Voyage (2006). Of these two, Voyage is definitely the better-respected and has a surprisingly good reputation overall for an oft-maligned brand like Nautica (which deserves some of that upbraiding), while Nautica Blue just seems to hum along mostly ignored except by people who shop for value. The original purpose of Nautica Blue was to be something of a soft reboot on the Nautica fragrance brand, as it re-used the bottle from the original eponymous Nautica (1992) made under Paul Sebastian, but with the updated logo and different blue hue to the juice. I'm guessing this was because the sale of the brand didn't mean sale of the formulas from Halston Borghese, so it made more sense to start again. In the case of Nautica Blue, this actually meant the creation of an aquatic fragrance that was arguably more of a legitimate aquatic than the original was, but also at the same time more generic, as the original Nautica at least stood apart from what was going on elsewhere in the 90's. If you can frame this as a scent out of time, it makes all the more sense and doesn't seem so generic, but as a 2006 release sitting alongside game changers like Ralph Lauren Polo Blue (2002) Bvlgari Aqva (2005), Versace Man Eau Fraîche (2006) and the upcoming Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue pour Homme (2007),, it does feel pale.

Nautica Blue makes its "blueness" known by taking pages out of the playbook used by Wings for Men by Giorgio (1994), in that it opens with a fruity sweet blast of peach and citrus, with touches of mint. In fact, the formula doesn't get much more deviant from Wings even into the heart, with tons of hedione and white florals, labelled as jasmine and water lily by Roucel, but basically being a mix of acetates and ionones with the hedione for a pleasant but nondescript clean. The dry down of Nautica Blue is where things smell less like a retread of Wings and more like a callback to the original Nautica, with a similar white musk and powdery sandalwood feel but rounded with a touch of fruity laundry galaxolide, just not the heaping gobs found in Wings. Nautica Blue retains the throwback 90's laundry soap aquatic vibe but with a few tweaks and tugs to feel at least a tiny bit more contemporary around its 2000's peers, but not much. Better late to the proper aquatic pillar party than never huh? Whatever the case may be, this works well for fans of 90's aquatics even though it came out a decade late and a dollar (or two) short, smelling like the light-hearted mindless fun most of those scents were in those days. Like those, this can be a reprieve from heavier and more serious-wearing fragrances after a nice shower. The wear time here is also about just as long as the original Nautica, so not much over eight hours, while performance is fairly admirable. Versatility is naturally high too, and the mix of sweet fruity musk and woods can work in all situations but formal ones or cold weather happenings.

I think the main reason this one gets the ire while Voyage gets all the kudos is Voyage did something more contemporary at the time, and something that no other aquatic was really doing, while Nautica Blue played it safe as the nineties cum two-thousands fragrance for the guys looking to replace the then-discontinued original juice. The irony here is the demand for Nautica (the scent) was so strong that eventually it saw re-release under Coty as Nautica Classic, with the updated logo on the bottle like Nautica Blue but with colored juice that matched the glass color of the original Paul Sebastian stuff. With the new "old" Nautica sharing shelf space with this, or sometimes even being packaged with it in gift sets, Nautica Blue's fate was sealed as a throwback budget "spray and forget" release while Nautica Voyage became the new cat's pajamas for the brand, spawning a whole wave of flankers and taking the lead spot in the brand's canon. Do I think Nautica Blue is overlooked and underappreciated? Nah, not entirely, since it's sold well enough as a discount option to stay on the books for years, but I do think people specifically shopping budget aquatics from places like TJ Maxx and Ross probably overlook it when snapping up those bottles of Davidoff Cool Water (1988) instead. Being a seemingly throwaway scent that never seems to go away at discounters is not exactly underdog status though, is it? Nautica Blue's only crime is smelling cheap, but since it is actually cheap, I can't find fault in that, and it is a guilty pleasure. Thumbs up.

Its not bad its not great, its clean and fresh and inexpensive. It dose have a cheap barbershop scent to it but its still a clean scent....im indifferent

Mild, fresh, after shower fragrance. The fragrance throw is not strong. But I am not always looking for projection. Sometimes I just like wearing certain colognes for myself. When I get home from work and take a shower. Nautica Blue is light and relaxing and helps put me to sleep. Giving two stars ratings for Nautica Blue with a thumbs up. It is not my favorite. But it does what it is supposed to do and the price is right.