Preferred Fragrance, Inc. is one of those pesky downmarket cloning companies that capitalizes on spinning their "impressions" of popular designer fragrances for one-tenth of the template's price. I'm not a big fan of this commercial practice because it implies that dirt-poor people should consider these lame knock-offs as viable alternatives to middle-shelf mainstream fare, without sacrificing quality. That's a blatant condescension. Preferred Fragrance's alarmingly esoteric web site states:
The thing about Cool Water is that it's not an aquatic, water has nothing to do with its fragrance, and its blue bottle isn't meant to impart an oceanic message to consumers. Davidoff (Coty Prestige) intentionally mis-markets it with the aquatic theme for no discernible reason. One could say it serves as a trap for counterfeiters and knock-off artists who seek to devalue CW's cache with their own junkola. Cool Ocean fell into that trap, and smells like a cheap ozonic aquatic cologne. It's basically a low-grade perfumer's alcohol and linalool mixture with a very dilute green apple note, which very quickly slips into a grating tobacco note. Unlike Cool Water's subtle interplay with apple, lavender, mint, violet leaf, cedar, tobacco, amber, and musk, Cool Ocean depends on fleeting laundry-grade lavender, weak apple, a vaguely ozonic, sea-salty accord that smells mostly of alcohol, and flavorless cigarillo tobacco, sour and unfriendly as ever. This sourness ensues for two hours before fading away. Truly ghastly.
If I were to do a knock-off of Cool Water, I'd at least smell it first. Get an idea of what the heck it does and doesn't do. Whoever did Cool Ocean had the basic premise half right - there is lavender, apple, and tobacco, - but mistakenly deemed these notes unworthy of careful attention or any skillful integration, and instead relied on alcohol's astringency as a common bond. Whatever. If I'm ever down to my last two dollars for a fresh fougère or chypre, I'll look through Al-Rehab's catalog, splash on some Aqua Velva, or snatch a two-ouncer of Aspen from a discounter. They're all for a song and infinitely better than Cool Ocean. Avoid this fragrance at all costs. No need to trade quality for affordability.
"The company prides itself on creating products that combine the same premium quality of a designer fragrance with affordable pricing and mass availability."Yeah right, and that Cool Water for $20 on Amazon hasn't been price-adjusted for inflation and is only available in selectively-distributed, hand-numbered bottles. Give me a break. Give people who depend on Dollar Tree a break. Just because they can't afford to drop $20 for a designer fragrance doesn't mean they deserve to be lied to about a $2 bottle of scented alcohol. Have the decency to embrace your own cheesiness and call it like it is - a lousy chromo that misses the point of the original and doesn't ask you to pay much for its ineptitude. Preferred Fragrance specializes in this sort of swill, with titles like "New York Nite" acting as a Bleu de Chanel clone, "Black Extreme" standing in for Polo Black, and none other than "Cool Ocean" parading itself as "our impression of Cool Water." So how is their impression of Cool Water? Truly strange.
The thing about Cool Water is that it's not an aquatic, water has nothing to do with its fragrance, and its blue bottle isn't meant to impart an oceanic message to consumers. Davidoff (Coty Prestige) intentionally mis-markets it with the aquatic theme for no discernible reason. One could say it serves as a trap for counterfeiters and knock-off artists who seek to devalue CW's cache with their own junkola. Cool Ocean fell into that trap, and smells like a cheap ozonic aquatic cologne. It's basically a low-grade perfumer's alcohol and linalool mixture with a very dilute green apple note, which very quickly slips into a grating tobacco note. Unlike Cool Water's subtle interplay with apple, lavender, mint, violet leaf, cedar, tobacco, amber, and musk, Cool Ocean depends on fleeting laundry-grade lavender, weak apple, a vaguely ozonic, sea-salty accord that smells mostly of alcohol, and flavorless cigarillo tobacco, sour and unfriendly as ever. This sourness ensues for two hours before fading away. Truly ghastly.
If I were to do a knock-off of Cool Water, I'd at least smell it first. Get an idea of what the heck it does and doesn't do. Whoever did Cool Ocean had the basic premise half right - there is lavender, apple, and tobacco, - but mistakenly deemed these notes unworthy of careful attention or any skillful integration, and instead relied on alcohol's astringency as a common bond. Whatever. If I'm ever down to my last two dollars for a fresh fougère or chypre, I'll look through Al-Rehab's catalog, splash on some Aqua Velva, or snatch a two-ouncer of Aspen from a discounter. They're all for a song and infinitely better than Cool Ocean. Avoid this fragrance at all costs. No need to trade quality for affordability.
The only brand that does a great job on this blamable activity (even a good knock-off is a kind of robbery) is the Cuba Paris line.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, I think Al-Rehab and the Perry Ellis 360 line does a halfway decent job of it also, although I agree Cuba Paris seems to be, from my limited experience with them, competent.
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