Aqua Allegoria Flora Salvaggia
Guerlain (2021)

Terrible. Not an interesting watermelon note, but a straight-up 90's aquatic-melon. Some of us are old enough to not find this charming. It's accompanies by that strange "solar" accord that's all the rage in florals these days (see J'Adore and Alien flankers) with a big slug of hedione.

Overall it smells just like an ion-removing deodorizer, that is to say, like fresh laundry steam coming out of a sidewalk grate that gets in the back of your throat.

If you want to smell like an upscale window washing fluid, this is a good way to do it.

This is not as bad as I feared! Read: not nearly as aquatic as the notes are threatening and not cloying at all - I often find aquatics insanely cloying; but this is not an aquatic. It's a lovely soft and dreamy floral, a bit sweet. Lovely violets, lovely freesias (okay, maybe not freesias as different flowers are listed in the notes, but I think I smell them, therefore it's freesias for me), a hint of sweet watermelon. Starts out slightly too sweet and too floral for my taste, but dries down to a soft, fluffy, dreamy and lovely scent. My nose is buried down deep into my inner elbow and I just cannot contain myself, it's just, uh, SO FLUFFY. Maybe it's not exactly my cup of tea, but it's such a lovely tea!