What is a Blue Fragrance?

Blue fragrances don’t form a distinct fragrance family. Instead, the term blue fragrance describes a scent accord within a perfume or cologne. A blue scent is reminiscent of water, whether that be freshwater, seawater, or rainwater. This type of fragrance also tends to have an airy quality, which is an element that’s evocative of air, like a cool alpine breeze or a gust of salty ocean air.

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What Do Blue Fragrances Smell Like?

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Blue fragrances vary in their overall scent profiles; some are sweet, some are woody, some are feminine, some are masculine, and others are unisex. What they have in common is the blue accord, or the aquatic accord.

This aquatic scent differs from other fragrances that have aquatic notes. For example, fragrances that have a lot of citrus notes also tend to have aquatic notes because citrus fruits are juicy. They have a lot of water in them and that quality affects their scent. However, the aquatic notes in citrus fragrances are secondary to other notes, whereas the watery notes in a blue fragrance are a dominant accord.

The aquatic accord is not itself a single scent. Aquatic scents can smell like the ocean. They can have a salty quality to them and can smell like the sea on a cold or a hot day. They can also smell like the beach, evoking thoughts of warm ocean breezes and hot sand. These types of perfumes are also referred to as marine scents or oceanic scents.

Other aquatic perfumes smell like freshwater; perhaps a cool clear alpine lake, or a clean sweet-tasting freshwater spring. These types of fragrances are also called watery scents.

An ozonic fragrance describes an aquatic perfume that has strong airy notes. Ozonic refers to ozone, which is that heavy electrically charged smell in the air just before and just after a rain storm. Ozone is clean-smelling and breezy.

Other qualities that all blue fragrances share are that they smell fresh and clean, making them appropriate for almost any situation. Many blue colognes are mild enough that people with allergies and scent sensitivities can wear them.

What is an Accord?

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An accord in perfume is a combination of individual scents, or notes, that produce a new unique scent. A commonly known accord is the amber accord. Amber isn’t a single note, or scent, that can be extracted from a natural source. The amber accord is made by combining notes like vanilla, labdanum, benzoin, musk, and resins.

Individual notes can also be combined to reproduce a known scent rather than create a new one. Some notes can’t be extracted from their original sources like lilac, for instance. Lilac flowers smell heavenly, but it’s impossible to extract that scent from the flowers. A combination of notes from other sources is used to reproduce a lilac scent, or a lilac accord. There are several other accords used to recreate a scent that is otherwise unobtainable naturally: gardenia, rose, leather and suede, alcoholic beverages, and many more.

Notes Commonly Used in Blue Fragrances

• Citrus, like grapefruit, lemon, lime, etc. because citrus scents impart an aquatic quality.
• Melon, which isn’t a natural melon extract but a synthetic compound called calone.
• Cucumber, a green scent that’s also aquatic.
• Mint, which has a cooling quality.
• Menthol, a component of mint. It’s common in aftershave because it cools and soothes skin.
• Calone, also called watermelon ketone, is a synthetic compound that is fruity and sweet and smells like melon. It can also impart a breezy oceanic scent.
• Dihydromyrcenol, a synthetic compound that imparts a clean lavender-floral aroma with a sweet lemon-lime scent.
• Lavender, which smells clean, herbal-floral, and sometimes powdery, or even medicinal depending on the type of lavender used.

This is not an exhaustive list. Not all fragrances that have some of these notes are blue. Having some aquatic notes doesn’t automatically make a fragrance aquatic, or blue. Fragrances are categorized by their most dominant notes.

Are Blue Fragrances Popular?

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Blue fragrances are very popular and have been since the late 1980s when Davidoff released the first true blue fragrance in 1988, Cool Water for Men. Inspired by Green Irish Tweed (GIT) by Creed, Cool Water for Men has more aquatic notes than GIT and has some green notes in the dry down that are similar to GIT, although some people don’t smell the similarity either because those green notes aren’t prominent on their skin when they wear Cool Water, or because their noses don’t pick up those notes easily. Everyone’s capacity to pick up scents is different.

Another cologne that’s similar to GIT is Aspen by Coty. It’s greener than Cool Water and shares some similarities with both Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed, although its quality doesn’t come close to that of Green Irish Tweed. Aspen has a cool, airy, pine scent and is not an aquatic fragrance.

Blue fragrances remain popular because they are versatile. They are generally inoffensive and, therefore, are appropriate for almost any situation. They are clean-smelling fresh scents that often perform best in warm-to-hot weather.

A blue fragrance isn’t something one wears to make an impression. This is the type of fragrance one wears to smell good while not offending anyone.

Not all Blue-Colored Fragrances are Blue

Blue fragrances are often packaged in blue bottles and/or boxes. Many also have blue juice, which is what the liquid perfume is called. Some even have blue in the name, like Versace’s Dylan Blue and Bleu de Chanel.

Others aren’t aquatic despite having blue in the name or having blue juice. Brut Oceans by Brut Parfums Prestige has blue juice but is more aromatic than it is aquatic, at least in the modern sense. It does have some marine notes, but it’s a classic-style cologne that wouldn’t appeal to someone looking for a modern aquatic fragrance.

Aqua, and its various different spellings, in the name usually – but not always – signifies that a fragrance is aquatic, meaning that it’s a blue fragrance regardless of its actual color.

It’s best to test a blue-colored fragrance before purchasing rather than assuming it’s aquatic based on its color.

In Which Perfume Family Do Blue Fragrances Belong?

Fragrances are categorized into families, subfamilies, and sub-subfamilies. Perfume families, also called fragrance families and olfactory families, are placed on fragrance charts or fragrance wheels. These charts can be very simple or very complex. Since this site is geared toward beginners, we’ll reference a simple perfume chart.

Blue fragrances don’t constitute a distinct fragrance family and are, instead, placed within a fragrance family based on their dominant scent notes. Blue fragrances are often aromatic as well as aquatic and are, therefore, commonly considered fougeres. Here’s where things get dicey. Fougere isn’t a fragrance family so much as a fragrance concept. On a simple fragrance wheel, the fougere is often placed in the center because it borrows elements from the four, main, perfume families. Fougere is an old term and many perfumers consider it outdated.

Aromatic fragrances can be a subfamily of the fougere. On some fragrance charts, however, “aromatic” replaces “fougere” as a category and will often be found between the fresh and woody families. Aromatic aquatic fragrances can be considered a subfamily of the aromatic perfume family.

Blue fragrances are usually very fresh-smelling and sometimes have strong green notes. Aquatic (blue) fragrances that are strongly citric, fresh, and/or green can be a subfamily of the fresh perfume family.

Traditionally, the fougere is considered a cold-weather fragrance whereas members of the fresh family are warm-weather fragrances. Modern fougeres are quite variable, however, so the traditional rules don’t always apply.

For more information on perfume families, go to this page. For even more in-depth perfume-family information, go to this page and download “Understanding Perfume Families: A Beginner’s Guide.” (It’s very affordable.)