When you chew the fat with fragrance enthusiasts, they tend to lose interest in the conversation when it touches on the "aquatic" genre. Something about the words "fresh," "blue," "salty," "clean," seems to irk them, and if you start rattling on about stuff like D&G's Light Blue and Nautica Voyage, they get up and leave. Aquatics have long been considered a boring topic, although why is less clear; there's nothing wrong with harnessing the feel of the ocean and interpreting it via scent.
Heeley's Sel Marin was released in 2008, at the height of the 2000s aquatic wave (pardon the pun), and it immediately made a splash (pardon the pun). What I found interesting was that it was the first aquatic that many enthusiasts seemed pumped about. I find it to be a flawless exemplar of the theme, with a salty seaweed accord that smells vaguely fishy, overtly briny, and a bit like low tide. It begins with a crisp lemon and bergamot snap that fades into the salty ozonics typically found in aquatics, except here the effect is very literal, devoid of sweetness, and evocative of the sea. If you want a fragrance that will have you smelling like you spent a weekend at the shore, Heeley gives you your money's worth.
A true aquatic isn't fresh and soapy, but sharp and funky. It contains facets of mollusk shell and rotting dulse, sea spray and salty air, cold stones and wet sand. If you want a user-friendly fantasy aquatic that will make your girlfriend snuggle up, go for Cool Water or Voyage. But if you're looking for an expression of nature, something that smells like the ocean crashing against rocks, you'll need to check this stuff out instead. It's timeless, impeccably crafted, and arguably the best aquatic ever made.