Polo Ultra Blue
Ralph Lauren (2018)

Thumbs down. Unexciting. Bland. Nothing made me want to wear this again. Didn't stink, but just, eh.

There's some kind of artistic synthetic minimalism here with Polo Ultra Blue (2018), and I can tell by how the initial release was limited to a 40ml or 1.36oz size that even Ralph Lauren wasn't too sure about how something this bare bones and futuristic would float over with the buying public. I've enjoyed many of the Polo (1977) flankers over the years myself, including Polo Sport (1992), Polo Blue (2002), and Polo Black (2005). I am guessing this is supposed to be to Polo Blue how Polo Double Black (2006) was to Polo Black, which is as a more intense distillation of a theme rather than just a louder version of the scent itself, which exists in Polo Blue Parfum (2016) if that's what you're after. With Polo Ultra Blue, the unknown perfumer sets out to get right down to the nitty-gritty of what made Polo Blue so special in the first place, it's formal and mature appeal, then zooms in on it with an electron microscope. The core aromachemicals in the base are artical and ambertonic, both IFF captives that replicate different effects in a perfume. The former is responsible for a balmy effect in a fragrance, while the latter is closer to Cashmeran for a woody effect but isn't as rounded or vanillic as Cashmeran can sometimes be. These two chemicals form the star of the show with Ultra Blue, and Ralph Lauren unabashedly lists them for that reason. Unfortunately, by focusing so intently on the formal aspects of Polo Blue and forgoing the rest, our anonymous perfumer has made an aquatic so morose, that Lurch from the Addams Family seems like the perfect person to model the damn thing.

The opening of Ultra Blue is like a lighter, more stripped-down version of the original Polo Blue flanker, having the dihydromyrcenol "aquatic" note but missing the melon or anything else that gave Polo Blue its tie-in to the 90's aquatics it was spring-boarding off of in 2002. With Ultra Blue, we get dry cedrat, which is really just another fancy custom compound containing citron and some other hesperidic elements, before a salty mineral accord which is just called "mineral accord" by Ralph Lauren shows up. If you can't tell by now, there is barely an iota of natural-smelling anything in this perfume, and the whole thing is an abstraction of Polo Blue to what I consider uncomfortable extremes. Some lemon verbena grounds this in reality a bit with it's verdant freshness, followed by basil in the heart, but then we're onto that artical and ambertonic as mentioned above. The base is dry, scratchy, unfriendly to the extreme, and possibly the most formal and humorless representation of an aquatic I have ever seen. If Polo Blue is the mature aquatic, Ultra Blue is the prude aquatic. Wear time is decently long at 8 hours but sillage is weak, and I'd expect that with no real substance in the base, not even a white musk note would hold the stuff to skin. Formal or office use is the safest bet with Ultra Blue, but I'd not place my bets on it really working for me anywhere. I rarely recoil to the smell of a fragrance, but I admit pulling back then forcing myself to go at it again out of morbid curiosity, like somebody partially shielding their eyes when watching a horror movie.

I can't get behind Polo Ultra Blue at all, and I can't recommend anyone looking for a formal or more mature representative of an aquatic to seek it out, since the original Polo Blue or it's parfum alternative just fit this niche so well within the narrow purview of the genre to begin with, and outside of higher-end options like maybe Heeley Sel Marin (2008), you can't do better. Polo Ultra Blue is sorta neat with that salty mineral vibe in a science experiment kind of way, but there again, I like observing experiments briefly and moving on, not experiencing their results all day long. Polo Ultra Blue was opened up into 2.5oz/75ml and 4.2oz/125ml offerings like the other Polo entries, with that original 1.36oz/40ml limited trial run size discontinued, but it's all the same stuff no matter what size you buy. I can't give this a thumbs up or even a neutral, as I find the lightness of the harsh base its only saving grace, and unlike something such as Dior Sauvage (2015) offers no sweetness or anything else to counterbalance it whatsoever. Going from light and salty aquatic to light and scratchy aquatic is not my idea of a good time, but as I am one of few dissenting opinions on this scent, I'd chalk it up to my taste and not necessarily the perfume itself. I think Polo Ultra Blue can also be quite unisex on virtue of it's very lightness, abstraction, and neutrality of tone, but regardless of the gender under the perfume, the uncompromising artificial minimalism is still a vibe one has to be looking for to enjoy this. Thumbs down from me, but your opinions and mileage may vary, so test for yourself before drawing any conclusions. I think Ralph Lauren should leave the weird futurism to Calvin Klein, since they seem to have a knack for it anyway.

I love Polo Blue, and I love the EdP version as well.
Ultra Blue is simply another take, one that has a mineral oily quality without the full effect of the melon in the original.

Ultra is quite clever as well, versus the ubiquitous adjectives being used today. However, I don' know what ultra means in this context, since it is NOT an extreme version of Polo Blue.

This is the version to get if you don't want to be in your face about your fragrance. I prefer the original though...first love type of thing.

This is simply an improved Polo Blue. Replace your bottle of Blue with Ultra Blue.

At the very beginning it made me think it was Lauren's attempt to crack into the Sauvage market, but the sharp metal that comes from those types of fragrance lasts all of fifteen minutes. After that it dips right back into a very similar Polo Blue DNA.

It lasts about 4-5 hours reliably. It opens up more as you sweat, so choose warm weather and warm events for it.

This has the same application as Blue: To the beach, to brunch, on the golf course. It could be a work fragrance, but there are many better choices in that department.

Scent: 6/10

Longevity: 5/10

Sillage: 5/10

Slightly above average aquatic in that it does not appear to be generically cheap. Undertone of something bitter attempts to keep it masculine and this gradually comes to the fore as time goes on which indicates a lack of imagination and/or disappointing lack of effort on the part of Ralph Lauren who assume their name on a new Summer product will guarantee sales. Not for long without class, quality and innovation gentlemen.

Fragrance: 6.75/10
Projection: 7/10
Longevity: 7/10

Finally...an aquatic with some depth. Get it? Depth? But seriously, this is pretty good. Polo finally got it right this time. I get the salty mineral aspect of Ultra Blue. A more mature aquatic.7.5/10