Zoologist Portuguese Man O' War Extrait de Parfum

Fragrance Family:
Aromatic Fougere

Notes:
Ginger, Saffron, Immortelle, Caribbean Gunpowder, Jasmine Sambac, Geranium, Seaweed Absolute, Sandalwood, Tonka

Concentration:
Extrait de Parfum (20%)

Occasion:
Haunting and dangerous, unusual aromas made wearable. Fresh enough for summer, deep enough for winter. All year wearing. 

Made in Canada

There are aquatic fragrances and there are marine fragrances, and then there’s Portuguese Man O’ War, a piratical fragrance of turbulent force: raging seas, deadly creatures, sea captains, marauding buccaneers, and swashbucklers. The salt of the sea becomes electric, even brutal, closer to escapades and heists than leisurely voyages. Ginger zings and seaweed tingles with both vegetal and metallic coolness, against the heat and smoke of gunpowder residue, freshly ignited. Portuguese Man O’ War, what we Australians would know as a bluebottle, is as strange as it is dangerous. Epitomising both the beauty and the danger of tropical seas - its long, lacy tentacles, sometimes exceeding 100 feet, float just beneath the surface, and in a flash, deliver potent venom capable of paralysing its prey. More than this, the fragrance positions the wearer both behind and in front of an active cannon, around kegs of saltpetre and sulphur gunpowder, bounties of spices, and the smell of wooden boats and rope, sand, shellfish and fine shingle that make up the shore.

Portuguese Man O’ War is perfectly Zoologist in style and manner, masterfully composed by Antoine Lie. It achieves the representational feat of conveying a sense of danger, fear, and pain in smell - the same feeling of knowing that there’s something deadly in the water, but not knowing where or what. This natural drama assumes an olfactory form: it opens with a sharp, almost electric sting of ginger and metallic gunpowder, immediately commanding attention, before giving way to briny seaweed, immortelle, and geranium that evoke the undulating, hypnotic presence of this oceanic predator. This fragrance allows one to experience the thrilling tension of predation, and the exquisite beauty of the marine environment, without any real-world peril.