FRAGRANCE | Sex and the Sea EDP by Francesca Bianchi: Where a sea of sweetness (almost) drowns everything else

I've tried Francesca Bianchi's Sex and the Sea at a sniff sesh with fellow fragheads and was instantly smitten. We soon got a bottle but it seems quite different from how I remembered it.

Anyway, Sex and the Sea opens sweetly with an underlying creamy coconut, the latter lending the scent some quasi-tropical character. It's bordering on cloying, to be honest. It's not entirely vanilla but not totally resins either. There's also something fruity and floral to it alongside a camphorous-like accord, but which all go away after only several minutes. Too bad because it's a really lovely combination that somehow manages to cut through all the saccharine syrup. I get pineapple, too, but it's readily drowned in a, well, sea of sweetness.

Later some saltiness starts to appear in the background but to my disappointment, it never manages to really break through. Although it's there, it's almost easily washed away by the waves of sweetness that dominate this fragrance. It's struggling to stay afloat, working really hard to balance the scent and pull it away from falling into cloying territory. I might have to wear this again some other time because in my memory it was this perfect balance of sweet and salty that made me love this Bianchi release in the first place.

As to projection, this fragrance is quite deceptive as it starts out okay, so much so that you might feel the need for a couple more sprays. But then it sneaks up on you as it only grows stronger by the minute, revealing itself gradually as a roaring monster. Caution on the sprayer then or else you'll drop a nauseating bomb, more so because it just goes on and on. If it's any indication of how concentrated it is, the juice leaves an oily consistency on my skin, something akin to what I'm getting from Nishane fragrances.

In hindsight, I'm a little let down with Sex and the Sea—personally. No, it's not a bad fragrance per se but I just don't get much of the sea, or even the sex. It's still worth sampling, though, because it could work for you, especially considering its spectacular performance given that it's not that expensive (a little over a hundred USD).