Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Giorgio Armani - Acqua di Gio (1996)

"The ones produced in the last 5-6 years are surely worse in quality, feeling a bit synthetic and unsatisfactory products.."
 


Surely there isn't much people who don't know Gio yet. But I wanted to write a review of it nevertheless. It's a well known aromatic fresh type aquatic fragrance, was created in 1996 by succesful nose Alberto Morillas. Acqua di Gio is one of the most popular and loved fragrances of modern fragrance history. A great success, no doubt, but it's quite outmoded nowadays.
Acqua di Gios blend consist of:

top notes:orange, lime, mandarin orange, jasmine, bergamot, lemon, neroli
middle notes: cyclamen, nutmeg, mignonette, coriander, violet, freesia, sea notes, peach, hyacinth, rose, jasmine, rosemary, calone
basenotes: amber, patchouli, oakmoss, cedar, white musk

As it is seen, this is a nice, fresh and cheerful blend. Smells like that too. To shortly describe Gio is a very light and fresh fragrance. Kinda like a fahrenheit watered down many times. In a clearer phrase it's scent can be roughly described as a very well watered down melony scent. This is mostly because of calone aldehyde. You don't gent much of the notes, not much detail, everything is blended down very stronly and smells as one scent. As it smells nice, I don't think its a special or so. A lighly/melony sweet aquatic/sea watery scent with the touch of soft lemony and jasminey notes. Quite satisfactory as summer scent, but not to be exaggerated. But this is the problem, gio is a very hyped fragrance still in most countries, but in reality it's not that special. Thereby, realize that; if you haven't tried it yet, it's a nice, light and very clean fragrance can satisfy most unexperienced fragrance users, that's all. Blend was much better in it's early years, modern copies are quite mediocre.



Now, my comment may look harsh, but this is how it is. Especially the modern versions of it, thanks to IFRA. Today, most of good natural essences can't be used as before, modern bottles of the older fragrances, which were launched in 80s or 90's are becoming worse and worse. Like musk, like oakmoss, you can't find the real essences of these anymore of todays fragrances. They try to imitate those notes and fail. In Gio's way you can't find the richness, quality, and deepness of the blend of the first bottles in 90's. Now when you buy a new fresh bottle of it, if you had known adg well before, then you will see the differences, mediocrity. It now just smell as a soft, melony, sweet aquatic. Bland. You can't sense all those aromatic notes in the middle, as you could do in 90's. There is not much is going at the opening despite all the citrus notes given. Still I cannot say it's a bad fragrance, but it became quite regular for me.  

Silage is quite good but for a very short time. It's biggest disadventage is the worse quality of the modern versions in my opinion. The ones produced in the last 5-6 years are surely worse in quality, feeling a bit synthetic and unsatisfactory products. So in summary, because of the lower quality of the modern versions, regular bland scent and being a bit cliche right now, its not a fragrance to be chosen anymore. Bad? No, but not as nice as like it was 10 years ago. The current one is just a shadow of what it used to be. And it's sad, because Gio was one of the best aquatic scents known and accepted worldwide in it's period.  If Armani had discontinued it before ruining it, it could stand as a respected cult fragrance. Not now. Still usable for inexperienced young users though.




Olfactory group: Aromatic aquatic
Scent: above average  6/10
Silage: very good  8/10
Longevity: average  5/10
Quality feel: average (modern versions)  5/10
Recommended:Yes, if you love soft aquatic fragrances and haven't tried it yet, no, if you are looking for some special product from Giorgio Armani.

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