Persolaise Review: Mandarino Di Amalfi Acqua from Tom Ford (2017)

I guess it’s fair to assume that Tom Ford found gold at the bottom of his pool of water: last year’s release of an Acqua version of Neroli Portofino must have been successful, because 2014’s Mandarino Di Amalfi has just been given the same treatment. And if the move turns out to be equally lucrative for Mr Ford, you won’t catch me complaining, because it leaves all of the rest of us winners too. Simply put, Mandarino Di Amalfi Acqua is one of this year’s best ‘summer colognes’. I enjoyed the syrupy citruses of the original version, but only up to the point when they were shoved aside by the somewhat more prosaic wood notes. However, this Acqua iteration dispenses with the woods and opts for a more overtly floral accompaniment to the eponymous fruit, which in this case, is even lighter, brighter and more mouth-watering. Like a wish for summer to last all year long, the fragrance freezes time, so that it is forever hovering somewhere between that second cocktail and a limb-loosening stroll along the beach. Or maybe it’s a diver, half-way between a precipice and the pristine surface of the ocean, just on the verge of finding that gleaming cache of gold. Sparkling work.