Perfume Review: i Profumi di Firenze Mirra, Incenso and Cuoio di Russia

i Profumi di Firenze is an astoundingly prolific line that lists over forty fragrances on their site and apparently has many more available in their store in Florence. About thirty of their scents are sold in the States, and, as far as I am concerned, not the most exciting ones. How many variously numbered Florentias does one need, when there are many other more seemingly exciting fragrances available, like Russian Leather, Desert Jasmine, Bitter Wood, Red Patchouly, Incenso, just to name a few. Mirra, a new scent that is being added to the line in the US, is one of the i Profumi di Firenze fragrances that I always hoped would be sold here. Featuring Ethiopian myrrh, incense, wood and vanilla, this is a warm, cuddly, delicately powdery, sweet scent. If rich brown velvet ornamented with gold had its olfactory equivalent, this would be it. Mirra is sumptuous but not heady, comfortingly sweet but not cloying. It is not particularly complex, mostly I smell languid, honeyed myrrh and quite a bit of vanilla, but it smells plush, it is smoothly blended and overall is a very attractive scent indeed. The only thing I would say against it is that it has rather poor lasting power on my skin. Thanks to the kindness of a wonderful fellow perfume addict, I got to sample two more I Profumi di Firenze scents not (yet?) available in the US. Incenso is interesting to me, because, unlike many incense-heavy scents, although it most definitely smells “churchy”, it is neither melancholy nor “dark”. This is a scent of a church at Christmas time, brightly lit with candles, ornamented with colorful red, green and gold wreaths, full of rejoicing and festive spirit. I smell a very strong woody-balsamic note here, so the church in question is freshly built of pine. Like most i Profumi di Firenze scent, Incenso does not have a complex composition, but it smells wonderful. I wish a bottle was waiting for me underneath a Christmas tree this year. Russian Leather aka Cuoio di Russia is the “non-export” i Profumi di Firenze scent I wanted to try the most. Ironically, it was the one that I liked the least. It has a very nice citrusy beginning that is “candied” in the same way that the citrus accord in L.T. Piver’s Cuir de Russie is candied, which is a quality I like. The leather is fairly smoky. There is even a certain incensey undertone that is certainly attractive. But on the whole the blend seems to be a little watery, a little pale, not intense and rich enough. Still, it is more interesting to me than the numerous florals that the line exports to the States, and if it was sold here, I would have probably bought it. Finally, I wanted to address the question of the price of i Profumi di Firenze scents. On the iPdF site (erbitalia.com) they are sold for…wait for it…€18.00, which is about $23.00. In the States, however, the price is $79.00. You do the math. And yes, I know that the profit must be made, but what other line is sold for almost four times of its “domestic” price? Ridiculous. Still, since Dr. Di Massimo refuses to sell online to the American customers, I suppose we will just have to grin and bear and keep paying these inflated prices. Mirra is available on Beautyhabit.com, $79.00 for 50ml. The image is from isabellaimports.com