Bvlgari
Bvlgari
375 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The spray delivers an immediate salvo of bright hesperidic oils cut with that unmistakable synthetic aquatic shimmer—think freshly split citrus peel dropped into seawater, the oils creating rainbow slicks on the surface. There's a soapiness that arrives within seconds, clean but textured, as if the ambergris is already announcing itself through the transparent top notes.
As the citrus recedes, the ambergris becomes the star, revealing its strange, animalic-waxy character that oscillates between marine and musky. This isn't decorative; it has genuine presence, that slightly faecal edge that proper ambergris carries, softened here but never sanitised entirely. The woods begin their slow emergence, sandalwood adding a creamy counterpoint to the ambergris's salinity.
What remains is a quietly sophisticated woody-amber skin scent where patchouli's earthiness grounds the last wisps of aquatic shimmer. The benzoin lends a subtle sweetness that never tips into gourmand territory, whilst vetiver provides a green-grey foundation that smells like weathered rope and bleached wood. It's intimate, clinging close, the olfactory equivalent of sun-dried linen still carrying traces of sea spray.
Cavallier-Belletrud's Atlantiqve reads like a love letter to the Mediterranean's contradictions—the way ambergris washes ashore amongst driftwood, the mineral salinity that clings to sun-warmed rocks. This isn't the transparent aquatic of the late nineties; there's genuine weight here, a soapy-waxy texture that recalls proper vintage ambergris tinctures rather than Calone's melon-cucumber shorthand. The opening delivers that requisite citrus-water brightness—Calabrian bergamot cutting through Sicilian lemon with surgical precision—but it's the heart's animalic ambergris that anchors everything, preventing the composition from floating off into generic freshness. What emerges is curiously perfume-y in the best sense, a scent that smells intentionally constructed rather than algorithmically 'blue'. The base quartet of sandalwood, benzoin, patchouli, and vetiver creates a skin-scent that hovers between clean and quietly dirty, like linen dried on Mediterranean stone walls that still carry whispers of seaweed and salt. This is for the man who's moved beyond Acqua di Giò but still wants that coastal ease—perhaps someone who actually spends time near water rather than fantasising about it from a boardroom. It works beautifully in heat, where the woods never turn cloying and that ambergris core pulses like a steady heartbeat beneath the shimmer. Not revolutionary, but executed with the sort of technical confidence that only a perfumer of Cavallier-Belletrud's calibre can muster.
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3.1/5 (75)