Top Notes 
Frankincense
Salicylate
Pink pepper
Heart Notes 
Salty notes
Drawing ink
Opoponax
Base Notes 
Ambergris
Benzoin
Musk
kittea
65 Reviews
kittea
Very helpful Review
10
The one true aquatic
I have a general dislike for fragrances labeled as "blue" or "aquatic", the sort of fragrances that are intended to remind you of the ocean but in fact smell like a functional bathroom product (ranging from deodorant to tile cleaner). I think my dislike is magnified by how much I love the actual smell of the ocean— saline, cold, weird, occasionally sulfurous, and absolutely nothing like watermelony calone or lemon juice. Years back, I went on a quest to find an aquatic that actually merited the name, and after a long search, Squid was the answer.
It doesn't literally smell of seawater. Nor, really, of ink. But there's still a strange salinity in the top notes that made my throat close up the first time I smelled it as if preparing to take a mouthful of saltwater, and such a dark blue-velvet texture to the whole thing, that I think even the most literally-minded person would have a hard time smelling this without thinking "ocean". Squid doesn't really smell of any single concrete thing, which I think is its greatest strength. A fragrance with lemon in it, no matter how aquatic the rest of it tries to be, is always going to make me think of lemons, which are identifiably not seawater. Squid is abstract enough that nothing jars me out of the fantasy.
And it is a very beautiful fantasy. Eerie and dark and cold in the way of deep-sea creatures (that's another thing I think most aquatics miss— tiny parts of it might be warm and beachy, but the ocean in general is cold). Squid is not playing around on the beach with suntan lotion and pina coladas, it's scuba-diving in the middle of the ocean, where around you is only blue and beneath you is only black. I love it so much. I wish they brought the old bottle design back.
It doesn't literally smell of seawater. Nor, really, of ink. But there's still a strange salinity in the top notes that made my throat close up the first time I smelled it as if preparing to take a mouthful of saltwater, and such a dark blue-velvet texture to the whole thing, that I think even the most literally-minded person would have a hard time smelling this without thinking "ocean". Squid doesn't really smell of any single concrete thing, which I think is its greatest strength. A fragrance with lemon in it, no matter how aquatic the rest of it tries to be, is always going to make me think of lemons, which are identifiably not seawater. Squid is abstract enough that nothing jars me out of the fantasy.
And it is a very beautiful fantasy. Eerie and dark and cold in the way of deep-sea creatures (that's another thing I think most aquatics miss— tiny parts of it might be warm and beachy, but the ocean in general is cold). Squid is not playing around on the beach with suntan lotion and pina coladas, it's scuba-diving in the middle of the ocean, where around you is only blue and beneath you is only black. I love it so much. I wish they brought the old bottle design back.
5 Comments
Merlotsupern
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Longevity
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VibrantGhost
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Muhmmdmahdi
namajama
