Blue Sugar, as you may have already guessed by now is Aquolina’s male version of their female fragrance, Pink Sugar. The basic gist of this stuff is Pink Sugar with a slap of woods thrown in.
In Bottle: Most people who enjoy Blue Sugar like the woodsy notes added in. I have to disagree as the mixture of candy and wood is a bizarre blend for me.
Applied: I smell the embodiment of Pink Sugar’s caramel and candy on initial application but give Blue Sugar a few seconds and you’ll start to notice the woods coming in to play. The opening is a slightly fresher interpretation of Pink Sugar as the bergamot gives the fragrance a slight hint of sophistication. Only a very slight hint, mind you. Now, I’m not a big fan of sweet, woody scents as it makes me think of medicinal herbs steeping over a fire. A nice visual but a pretty scary olfactory experience that makes me think of wilted plants, bark, and trees covered in caramel. There’s a slick sweetness to this that, I admit, does great when toned down and it makes me wish Pink Sugar smelled more like the lighter sweetness. AS it is, I can’t get on board with the sweet woody fragrance. The dry down is a fairly easy story of sweet wood with the woods coming up a bit more. I like the dry down, it strikes a more fair balance between sugar and tree rather than the slugfest the middle stage was advertisting.
Extra: Aquolina is most famous for their Pink Sugar fragrance but in addition to Blue Sugar they have a gourmand fragrance called Chocolovers which, you guessed it, smells like chocolate.
Design: Bottled in a similar fashion as Pink Sugar. Blue Sugar boasts a tall blue cylinder of scent and like the Pink Sugar bottle, it reminds me of packaging for a shampoo or a body mist rather than a perfume.
Fragrance Family: Sweet Woods
Notes: Bergamot, tangerine, star anise, ginger, licorice, patchouli, lavender, heliotrope, coriander, cedar, tonka bean.
Not much to be expected of this fragrance and sometimes I wonder if it was truly necessary to have a men’s and women’s version of a perfume that was largely straightforward in the first place. Between the two, I will stick (or stink!) with the pink girly version.
Reviewed in This Post: Aquolina Blue Sugar, 2009, Eau de Toilette.