Acqua di Portofino Acqua di Portofino Eau de Toilette

Portofino, once the epitome of Ligurian fishing village romance, has long since become a crowded mecca of tourist hustle and bustle, where people stand on each other's toes in line in front of the souvenir shop.

Sure, I like colognes, especially Italian ones, but "Acqua di Portofino" is unfortunately a rather unspectacular representative of this genre. Although Portofino is only 150 kilometers away from Parma, AdPo gets stuck on the way to this league in Grandma's handbag.

"Acqua di Portofino" is a decent, nice cologne that presents itself very modestly and doesn't want to do anything wrong. I can't smell anything of Apicius' strong lemon, no wonder, as the top note features only a limp/sweet/warm little mandarin. The possibly beautiful lavender gets lost in harmless herbal notes, and the rarely seen sticky seeds (Pittosporum) in colognes seem to serve merely to diversify the ingredient list.

For unisex, it's all a bit too sweet, and the longevity is only mediocre, especially since the character of the fragrance quickly leaves all Cologne-typical freshness behind with the spice overkill of the heart note, and the base note doesn't exactly shine with creativity.

And 62 euros for 50 ml, as well as the designation "Eau de Parfum," seems a bit exaggerated for this splashy little wallflower.

Maybe just bring it back as a souvenir.