La Via del Profumo Italian Series: Giardini Segreti and Milano Caffè (And a Prize Draw!)

By Donna Picture yourself in a secluded garden, with only the birds for company. It's an old garden; there is a film of algae in the pond and fountain, moss on the marble statues, and the trees are gnarled and bent, their advanced age masked only by the tangle of vines climbing their trunks. The walls might be made of stone, or an impenetrable hedge, and they keep the noise of the modern world out and allow the silence to settle in, broken only by the sigh of a gentle breeze and the murmur of water. Wide paths wind enticingly through this hushed green refuge, and at each turn there is a different vista, a new delight – the arching branches of an antique rose flaunting its plump pink blooms, a collection of aromatic herbs clustered around a sundial, a stand of elegant sky-blue irises, or a jasmine in full flower tumbling over a wall, spilling its exquisite scent throughout the garden. This is a garden of dreams and reverie, and if you happened to see a poet or noblewoman dressed in Renaissance garb walking around, it would seem like the most natural thing in the world. This is the magical effect of the new Giardini Segreti from La Via del Profumo, an homage to the hidden gardens and storied past of Venice. The main floral notes are jasmine and rose, decorated with herbal touches and resting on a base of soft leather, mysterious myrrh and a hint of the nearby sea that come from real ambergris, a rare and precious thing indeed in modern perfumery. Of course, this is a very special kind of scent, made of completely natural materials in honor of the perfumer's adopted home country of Italy. The luscious jasmine Sambac in this fragrance is particularly sublime, and since my skin tends to amplify white florals, it is quite dominant at first, but that's fine with me, since I love jasmine, and the languid dreaminess of the composition speaks to my own personality as a lover of gardens, history, beautiful vintage objects, and good stories. The rose is the handmaiden to the jasmine here, adding a ripe fullness and plush comfort to the centerpiece of jasmine. I don't know what pure ambergris smells like, but its inclusion in this perfume seems to give in an overall patina of nostalgia and wistfulness, like the ineffable pull of memory experienced when looking at faded photographs of places you have never been, but to which you feel a deep connection, and you wish you could somehow become a part of that long ago scene, where all the rough edges have been erased by time, leaving only the watercolor beauty of happy memories and idyllic living. Wearing Giardini Segreti is like stepping into that fantasy world, and I never want to leave it.                                                                         In sharp contrast, Milano Caffè is a fragrance of modern life, of rubbing shoulders with your fellow urbanites in the crowded coffee houses, reveling in the hustle and bustle of city life while stealing a moment of relaxation out of your busy day. For a natural perfume you may find it to be surprisingly urbane and sophisticated if you are not accustomed to the formidable talent of perfumer AbdesSalaam Attar (Dominique Dubrana), and it sits on the skin in perfect comfort and assurance right from the beginning with none of the sometimes disconcerting rough stage that naturals sometimes pass through before they settle down and begin to coalesce. It is by no means a coffee “solibrew” (for lack of a better term) or novelty scent, but a complex composition that also includes a profound chocolate note, dry woods, tonka bean, opoponax and warm spices. However, make no mistake, coffee is the star of the show, and it's a darkly bitter brew that hits the nose like a triple shot of the best espresso you ever tasted. The perfume's longevity is excellent and its development fascinating; it most definitely does not get too sweet over time like some other coffee scents, and it should find favor with both men and women. This is the kind of fragrance that almost makes me wish for winter so I can wear it all the time, and I feel a different kind of nostalgia with it – an overwhelming desire to visit a real Milanese coffee house. I have never been to Italy, but smelling Milano Caffè makes me even more determined to go there someday. I am offering a sample of both perfumes to two lucky readers; sorry, you must live in the continental U.S. A. in order to enter the draw due to international mailing restrictions on perfume. Please indicate in the comments if you would like to be entered, and let us know if you have ever tried and fragrances from this line, and if so, what are your favorites? The draw will close one week after the publication of this post. Good luck! Image credits: Garden: One of the real “secret” gardens of Venice, courtesy of Abdes Salaam Attar. Coffee: Original image from papalanigelato.com via kootation.com. Disclosure: I received samples of these perfumes directly from La Via del Profumo at my request for testing purposes.

More Fragrances from La Via del Profumo: An Artist's Palette of Choices

By Donna In my previous reviews of fragrances by AbdesSalaam Attar (Dominique Dubrana), the mysterious perfumer behind the Italian house of La Via del Profumo, I described a number of different styles that I had tested; from the fierce beauty of Tcharas to the tenderness of Tasneem and the fresh delight of African Night, I was impressed with the range of perfumes that one person can compose, and I was eager to delve into even more of them. I decided that I wanted to sample as diverse a palette as possible, including some that I would not ordinarily choose for myself, in order to find out just how talented a perfumer this man is. I was not disappointed. Beginning with a style to which I do not normally gravitate, the amber gourmand Oriental, Chocolate Amber does not smell anything like the hair-raising concoctions of sugary overload that one might find in the department stores. Of course it's sweet with a name like this, but it's also interesting, which is more than I can say about the kind of things sold at Victoria's Secret stores. It's just not fair to compare them; Chocolate Amber is sexy and truly adult, deepened with Tonka bean and vanilla. Wearing this is a total commitment, a full immersion in sensuality and made me completely rethink my attitude toward ambery scents. For those afraid of chocolate in perfume, it's not that dusty weirdness that some chocolate scents can have; this is a luscious chocolate marriage made in aphrodisiac heaven, conjuring up the intimate connection between the sense of smell, food and sex. Wear it with someone you love and let nature take its delicious course. Do you think you don't like fruity scents? It's can be a difficult style to appreciate these days, with so many fruity florals crowding the market, most of them cheaply made and inferior. What makes a fruit note in perfume is almost always synthetic; all those berries, lychees, mangoes, peaches and even apples are made of complex aroma chemicals that grew in laboratories, not on trees. The challenge that faces a natural perfumer is creating the smell of fruit with a very limited selection of available materials, other than citrus oils, there is not much actual fruit from which to choose. Well here is something truly impressive, a fruity perfume constructed from apricot-scented osmanthus flowers, blended with jasmine, vanilla and blackcurrant resin absolute, called Frutti Paradisi. All I can think of to describe this gem of a scent is that it made me think of old paintings of fruit in still life; darkened by age and varnish, still they glisten with life and tempting plumpness, surrounded by luxuriant flowers, spilling over in abundance from ornate bowls and emerging from deep background shadows to tempt the observer to reach out and pluck them out. This is a fruit perfume like no other, soft and understated and the polar opposite of all those “fresh” fruity fragrances that last five minutes before devolving into dull, plasticky dry downs and seem to be aimed at people who don't even like fragrance. Frutti Paradisi reclaims the genre for perfume lovers everywhere. On the opposite end of the style spectrum is Hindu Kush, which combines the ferocious impact and adventurous spirit of Tcharas with a green intensity that is nothing short of mesmerizing. I simply cannot stop smelling this! It is definitely meant for men to wear, and indeed it is as bold a fragrance as I have ever experienced, redolent of dense pine forests, far Eastern spice bazaars and blazing bonfires. I adore smelling it straight from the bottle or on my own skin, but I think I would follow a man who wore this anywhere, just to be in the wake of his scent trail. At its heart this is a dry incense perfume, and it just gets better with every passing hour. With less of an “animal” character than Tcharas, I think it would be easier to wear for most people, and I cannot recommend it highly enough to every man out there. (Of course, this is for purely selfish reasons; I am just hoping I will be walking down the street someday and smell it on you.) Samurai is an elegant surprise, being a spare composition of oakmoss, woods and a hefty amount of the best vetiver you ever smelled. Vetiver and oakmoss lovers, this is a must-try. It's a cologne style with linear development but there is nothing lightweight about it because of the profound base so rich in oakmoss, one of my favorite perfume notes. (He also included in the samples, at my request, a tiny vial of pure oakmoss absolute, and it's unbelievable. Now I really know why I love chypres so much!) A green so profound that it approaches the aroma of lime basil emanates from this wonderful perfume. Summers will seem cooler and life in general will just seem to make more sense when your day is grounded by Samurai. It's sophisticated enough for the boardroom and easy enough for casual wear. In fact, I can't think of any occasion that would be wrong for wearing it. To obtain your own collection of samples or buy full size bottles, please visit the La Via del Profumo Web site. I dare you to make up your mind. Image credit: Still Life with Fuit, A Glass Of Wine and a Bronze Vessel On A Ledge, by French artist Blaise Alexandre DeGoff (1830-1901), via angelartco.com

La Via del Profumo's Sensuous Side: Tasneem, Night Blossom, Tabac and Mecca Balsam

By Donna In my last post I reviewed three fragrances from the Italian natural perfume company La Via del Profumo by AbdesSalaam Attar (which is the Sufi name of perfumer Dominique Dubrana, a detail I did not know until recently), and now my attention turns to some of the more complex scents that reflect the Orientalist style for which this house is justly admired. First of all, one of them is a floral that manages to be delightfully different from anything I have ever smelled before. Tasneem, a creamy Oriental floral blend, is built around the second distillation of the ylang ylang flower extract, which apparently results in an almond-like essence for use in perfumery. This is explained in the Web site description of this fragrance, and it's something I would imagine that only perfumers know about. This is one of the softest and most appealing florals imaginable. The almond quality is not really very powdery, nor is it a candy-sweet rendition like the Jordan almond simplicity of L' Artisan's Jour de Fête. Because it is not really an extract of almond, it also lacks that slight cyanide aura that will appear when a concentrated essence of real almond is used. Instead it is a tender and rounded bouquet of blossoms that has the sleight-of-hand effect of smelling just like milky, mildly powdery almond until you get closer, and draw your breath in slowly, and then from deep down inside the fluffy softness the ylang ylang emerges in its more familiar floral guise. Egyptian jasmine, Tonka bean and vanilla complete and enhance this effect. As parlor tricks go it's a real winner, and I could not keep myself from smelling my own skin when wearing Tasneem. It is deeply, warmly feminine and I would think that men would love to be with a woman who wears it. I am already craving a full bottle of it. Night Blossom is supposed to be about flowers too, but to my nose it is dominated by an intensely penetrating patchouli note and an incense-like heart. Its “blossom” is the tuberose, so I wonder if some of that effect is just more of the weird aspects of the tuberose flower being brought to the forefront; is there any end to the fascinating complexity of real tuberose? After all, such perfumes as Tubéreuse Criminelle are anything but pretty even if they are beautiful to those who appreciate their strangeness. I do get just a smidgen of that creosote odor that is in TC's opening, followed by the dark green murkiness of patchouli and some other things I can't quite pick out. This is for serious fans of patchouli and also of offbeat tuberose compositions. Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful stuff, but don't expect Night Blossom to be a delicate floral scent. It is not very sweet and it would be a fantastic masculine. Men who would ordinarily shy away from wearing a tuberose fragrance should really try it. The heavily candied and “girly” aspects of Fracas and its multitude of imitators are entirely absent from this one. There are many fragrances based on tobacco, mostly intended for men, and the recent vogue has been for the aromatic Oriental style types like Serge Lutens' Chergui and the even more ornate Fumerie Turque. Tabac is just as pleasing as those, but it does not have the same narcotic opium den sweetness so it may have a broader appeal. It does have a subtly sweet facet in contrast with the roughness of the leaf that seems to derive from the tobacco flower itself, which happens to be one of my own favorites; I grow the ornamental Nicotiana species in my garden for their graceful beauty and their superb evening fragrance. It goes on a little wild but smoothes out into a seamless and long-lasting finish. The commitment of this house to fine quality materials is immediately evident here, and anyone who enjoys a good tobacco scent should fall hard for Tabac. (Ladies, don't let the men have all the fun with this one, it's just fine for you too.) The final perfume in my sample set is the newest in the line, Mecca Balsam. Much has already been written about it since it release and with good reason; it is truly outstanding. It is an exotic “Orientalist” type, which has been something of an industry trend recently, as evidenced by the popularity of such releases as L' Artisan's Havana Vanille and of course any number of Serge Lutens and Montale perfumes. Any fragrance launch of this style has to be good to stand out from the crowd, and Mecca Balsam is just that. It is not so overwhelmingly heavy and spicy that it can hardly be worn in public like some others in the genre, but it does have an “otherness” and authenticity to it, a quality not often seen in Western perfumery. It is as much of a departure in character as Tcharas but in a different way. It reminds me a little of one of my other favorites in what is sometimes called the “spice market” style, which is a rather broad catch-all category for these perfumes, and that is Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's Mahjoun. From me that is high praise, and it is no accident that both fragrances are based on natural essences. Mecca Balsam is not a gourmand like Mahjoun, and is not as sweet, but it shares its complex and addictive deliciousness. It is in such perfumes as this that the interplay of so many different ingredients creates something greater than the sum of its parts. It is built around one of my favorite perfume elements, labdanum, an essential building block of the Chypre genre, enhanced with frankincense, benzoin and tobacco, and decorated with florals like Damask rose and Indian tuberose, though the floral notes are barely evident; this is a warm, radiant incense perfume and one of the best of its kind. It is not dominated by any one overly strong spice note such as cumin or saffron that can be distracting for people who can't tolerate an overdose of such ingredients in perfumes. I will be the first to admit that I have not smelled very many truly authentic Arabian types of attars, so I have a limited basis of comparison that mostly involves my experiences with such lines as Amouage and Serge Lutens. What my nose does know is what good perfume is supposed to smell like, and Mecca Balsam is that, and not just with the qualifier of good “for an all-natural fragrance” – it can stand on its own against anything else from a niche line, and the fact that it is truly natural and cruelty-free is just icing on the cake. Did I mention that its longevity is excellent? It is – and not just “for a natural” either. It just gets better and better as time goes on and it melds with skin chemistry to create a sublime alchemy. Now for the good part – The perfumer has very generously offered a full bottle of Mecca Balsam Eau de Parfum to one lucky PST reader! I will also include the winner's choice of three samples chosen from among the other La Via del Profumo perfumes I have reviewed: Tcharas, Tabac, Acqua Santa, Grezzo (d'Eleganza), African Night, Tasneem and Night Blossom. If you would like to be entered in the draw, please say so in the comments. Please note, I can only send this to a U.S.A. mailing address, unfortunately no shipping to other countries is possible, and anyone who enters as an “Anonymous” commenter and does not give a nickname in the body of the comment will not be entered in the draw. The winner will be selected by on an online randomizer program the week after this review is published. Good luck! Disclaimer: All perfume samples reviewed for this two-part series were a personal gift to me from a third party. The prize draw bottle is being provided gratis by the perfumer. Image credit: “Arabian Nights II” by artist John Douglas, from worldgallery.co.uk

La Via del Profumo On the Lighter Side: Acqua Santa, African Night & Grezzo (d’ Eleganza)

By Donna In my recent review of the AbdesSalaam Attars Profumo perfume Tcharas, from the Italian fragrance house La Via del Profumo, I extolled the quality of raw intensity that I experienced in that wonderful scent. I am happy to tell you more about this line, starting with a few that are very different in character from Tcharas. This all-natural line contains a dazzling array of perfumes in a wide range of styles. The samples I have tried are only a small part of the sumptuous menu of offerings from the very talented perfumer Dominique Dubrana, and after testing them I only want more. The lightest in the sample group is Acqua Santa, which is a unisex cologne, and it may just be the Platonic ideal of a cologne, what the original 4711 must have been like in its prime before it was ruined in modern times and sold by the liter in mass market drugstores. It has some of the woody austerity of Guerlain's Eau de Cologne Imperiale, but it is not citric or sharp. The unique aspect of it is the use of sandalwood and frankincense, instead of the usual woods such as cedar or pine normally found in traditional colognes. There certainly is citrus here, but it's a lovely soft orange blossom instead of a squeaky lemon or lime oil, and a just a hint of rose softens the whole thing. The herbal elements are subdued and interesting; I can't say exactly what they are, since they do not jump out as much at the opening the way they do in most compositions of this style, but I think I smelled santolina and absinthe, a.k.a. wormwood. The name means Holy Water of course, and it meant to be a scent to “open the heart” and calm the soul. It is gently cooling and I look forward to wearing it when summer comes. Of course it is fleeting like all of its kind and reapplication throughout the day would be fine, but it lasts better than one might expect for such a sheer fragrance, and the incense lingers on the skin for several hours. Grezzo (d' Eleganza) is nearly as light as Acqua Santa, very dry, and as dapper and refined a masculine fragrance as you are ever likely to encounter. A similar structure of herbal notes, rose and frankincense is discernible, but there is a little something extra in Grezzo; castoreum and vanilla; the castoreum gives it some depth and nudges it over into the masculine realm. I suppose a woman could wear it since it's not of a clichéd “manly” style, but it is one of those wonderful scents that really smell best on a man, while you (if you are female) wear something softly feminine to play up the vive la difference contrast. The perfumer says that he wears Grezzo, which was originally made for an (unnamed) Italian fashion designer, when he “must attend the world of fashion or high society.” It's certainly perfect for those whose lifestyle permits, but for any man it would be ideal for a special date or gala event, although we would rather smell it on you more frequently than that, so please, splash with abandon. The women of the world will thank you, and possibly follow you down the street. There is a great Italian tradition of quality fragrances for men, and it's wonderful to find one of them in a 100% natural formula. The last of this group was made for women, and I wish that my sample of African Night were a really big bottle instead. I have never been to Africa and I probably never will, so I don't know if it smells like its name, but I know what it smells like to me; the sweet living breath of the earth and awakening life. I once went for a ride in a hot air balloon, an undertaking which must be accomplished very early in the day while the air is cool so that the balloon will rise. It was in summertime shortly after sunrise as we drifted soundlessly through the lush green pastures and forests of rural Oregon, and as we passed over fields where thousands of berry bushes grew, their delicious aromas rose up in tantalizing waves to delight us. It was a mixture of rich, damp soil, fresh growing leaves, sweetly fragrant blossoms and the ripening fruit of cane berries, bursting with juices in the warming sun. This was many years ago, but when I smelled African Night it immediately reminded me of that day. Its balance is a bit more flowery than fruity, since the fruitiness is partially the result of a particularly excellent extract of ylang ylang, combined with rosewood, hibiscus and grapefruit. How this brought me back to the berry fields I have no idea but I heartily approve of the effect. African Night is said to be an anti-stress perfume, and it does seem to be conducive to a serene state of mind. It has a youthful, vibrant personality and a light femininity that would make it wearable for almost any woman and it is simply superb for summer wear. I know I will be longing for more of it once the really hot weather arrives. Next time I will explore a few more perfumes in the Arabian-inspired styles for which this house is best known, including the new Mecca Balsam. Image credit: The African savannah at night, from profumo.it.