Blasted Heath
Penhaligon's (2015)

Double double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble...

Unfortunately ... there’s no magic to this blasted heath,
no weird sisters...

just a skimpy herbal-aquatic of no real interest.

This is a really fantastic marine aquatic that smells realistically like a windswept, cold, and rainy beach in Britain. The dominant notes are seawater, seaweed, and sage to my nose, although there are also noticeable menthol and eucalyptus notes (though not listed). Apparently there's whiskey and tobacco in the drydown but I don't really smell it. This is like niche version of Bvlgari Aqva pour Homme, and is so good I ended up selling Bvlgari Aqva. It has good projection for around 4-5 hours, and good longevity after that (it's quite strong for an aquatic). It is really photorealistic as far as ocean scents go, and really smells like how I'm describing it - of a cold, rainy, windswept beach.

5/5

Not much about this is ‘blasted' - lightning didn't strike on this heath once, let alone twice. There's no smokiness, no burnt woods, no ionised air/high voltage electricity smell, no charred peat etc.. It's just a diluted mossy-sage green fragrance that's very wearable and inoffensive, but not particularly interesting or unique either. I definitely get similarities with Floris 1962 but with less mint.

Blasted Heath lasts a long time which is nice. At the end of the day I still smell mossy. However the fragrance fell out of favour with me. It must be something in the tobacco or wood notes of the fragrance that's a bit sulphur & mercaptan. One day I took the train and there was something in the diesel smell of the train station that matched an element of the Penhaligon's cologne. Now the fragrance is like one of those mistakes in a movie that once you see it, you can't un-see it. Blasted Heath now reminds me of diesel and train stations. So Penhaligon's if you're listening, there's something not quite right with this one. The seashore notes of Blasted Heath are nice, but I think I prefer Kenzo pour Homme as a fresh water scent. Kenzo pour Homme has vetiver and bergamot which adds freshness, and none of the whiskey and tobacco which I think are a mistake in Blasted Heath.

This is an aquatic sent. I have to consider that if the name was different, I may have liked it more. I was expecting Heath, but it is more seaside. It reminds me of a limited edition Floris fragrance from 2012 that was designed to capture England in a bottle, which worked very well. It is also similar to some of the Aqua di Parma offerings. I found something about it synthetic and that is non-starter for me.

Blasted disappointing, is my verdict. While the official description is absolutely great, the reality is totally different. Where are the green leaves and the tobacco? Where is the whisky accord? I would love to smell the smoky notes of Alaskan cedarwood, it's one of my favourite materials. But you must be joking, surely, about these ingredients playing any significant role. All marketing hype, I suspect.

It's actually a pretty established and familiar type of fragrance encountered for example in the EdT "Faconnable". Quite inferior to its sibling Blasted Bloom, which does evoke the seaside quite well.