ON THE FENCE: Ocean Therapy ~ Ocean Mist & Citrus *COLD SNIFF REVIEW

Products: candle
Area used in: n/a
Time Period: n/a

Description: White-Capped Waves, Bright Pomelo Zest, Sun-Bleached Woods

Trivia: repackage of Waterfall Oasis from Zoo Collection


So this and Salted Oak Bonfire were the only candles from this collection that I was remotely interested in. This scent in particular had my name written all over it - a oceanic watery manly "cologney" scent; you know I love my fresh watery scents and I love my cologney scents. For awhile none of my stores had them and a few people on social media were asking me what I thought about this scent but I couldn't give an answer. Finally on a recent visit to BBW, I spotted some and was able to sniff. I went back and forth on it but ended up buying one. Having smelled it at home with clear head and nose away from the all the distractions, I have a case of buyer's remorse as I'm leaning towards not liking it.

So there's two things that this scent reminds me of ...

1.) Ocean bodycare for men (which, besides Paris) is only men's bodycare that I like. The bodycare and this candle both share similar notes - ozone, white woods and citrus

2) Nantucket Sails from summer 2015's "there once was a a man from Nantucket" collection, which was basically Black Tie mixed with grapefruit and sea salt. This and OM&C are sooooo similar, they can be twins. BBW does this all the time - why create a "new" scent that smells similar to an already existing scent? BBW should've just re-released NS and called it a day!

Ok so first of all, despite what the name suggests, I didn't find this scent to be very oceanic. There's no ozone, no cucumber/melon action, nothing that suggests wetness..just salt. Secondly, they were not kidding about the citrus - it is intense. You get an instant noseful of tart pomelo grapefruit... in fact it smells like the old Pomelo Grapefruit from 2014's Fresh Picked; it's like they took that candle and added sea salt and herb notes..which brings me to my next point. There's definitely a herbal note in this, my guess is lavender (common in watery scents) that adds fresh, almost minty astringency. And lastly there's faint hint of woods, a driftwood accord. Oak perhaps and maybe a hint of cypress and or vetiver.

I'm a little disappointed as a scent like this is usually right up my alley but there's something in the blend that is rubbing my nose the wrong way and I think it's the pomelo grapefruit note. It's so sharp and intense and almost comes across slightly ripe musty armpit-ish to me. It's really throwin me for a lopp marketing-wise - to me it's less ocean waves and sea air and more healthy breakfast of grapefruit sprinkled with salt. I think if this had been marketed as a spa resort scent with no mention ocean, perhaps it could've tricked my mind into liking this but then again, I dunno if I could get my nose past the pomelo note. Perhaps if there wee an accompanying wf bulb, I might have tried that instead cuz I don't think I could commit to a whole 3wick candle. So yeah, I think this may be going back to the store to be exchanged. All this said, I can see some folks liking this; this could be a nice lounging in the bathtub kind of scent. So go ahead and sniff this for yourself cuz you may enjoy it but this one is just not for me.