The One Essence Dolce & Gabbana 2015

Who does not know the catchy duet of Eros Ramazotti with the great Tina Turner? Even now it still plays toothlessly on the radio from time to time, 22 years after its appearance. Dolce & Gabbana's golden donkey The One did not yet exist, not to mention the Essence. And yet I immediately associate this song with this fragrance - and my three-week road trip through Tuscany, the most beautiful holiday of my life so far. It was eighteen years ago now, I had just finished school, and I was young, free, full of life, enterprising, and felt as alive as you can only feel at that age. Together with my uncle Salvatore, my aunt and my teenage cousin we drove for 2 days in an old Mondeo station wagon in Salvatore's old home country, listening not to Eros but to Iron Maiden, Guns N Roses and the Ramones until we pitched our tents in Genoa on a campground directly at the sea. On top of the rocks you could hear the sea rushing by night, and the moon threw flashing will-o'-the-wisps on the water. Down on the shore often sat a boy who played the guitar. A few days later we went on to Florence and Pisa, until we spent another two weeks in Follonica, we camped in a pine forest, sunny during the day and warm, azure blue water. In the evening we strolled through the little town, everything was colourful and cheerful, at night the sea roared, it smelled of pines, sand and sun on the skin, and the cicadas sang. This summer I lost my heart to Italy, they are wonderful memories, but there is also a little bit of melancholy, because time and youth cannot be brought back - but this attitude towards life, even if only for a moment. I wasn't aware of it myself until I sniffed at The One Essence. Because that's what I smell here - happiness, light-heartedness and sun on your skin. This fragrance radiates so much warmth and cordiality, starts with good-humoured citrus notes, then becomes pleasantly floral; the most beautiful, however, is the amber vanilla base. The comparison with the warm peach cake is already there - for me not only a winter scent, but also, precisely because of my association, a scent for balmy summer evenings. The fragrance never disappears, but is in perfect harmony with the skin, gently plays around and remains perceptible. Nevertheless I understand the critical voices who wish for more perseverance and Sillage for an Essence. At least he lasts much longer than his big sister, who is not developing as beautifully as TOE. In the hair or on scarves or collars the durability is also much higher. The bottle is beautiful, straightforward, typically Italian, chic into old age and with a casual implicitness that was unknown to me until then - it was the first time I saw old ladies and gentlemen who, unlike at home, radiated so much pride, elegance and joie de vivre.
Back in Germany, life went on as usual, I lived on my very healthy skin colour for a while (which I never reached again afterwards), and Tuscany was more and more forgotten. Until I met the golden liquid of The One Essence. Cose della vita, smash Eros. Sometimes it is the (small) things in life. Thank you, Dolce & Gabbana, for this time travel