Eau d'Italie Eau d'Italie 2005

Now I am in a big trouble, what else to say, what Greysolon did not tell about EAU D'ITALIE before me.

This perfume... I will not call it perfume. It is rather a scent, a memorandum of a place. So IT is a bit green, old, nearly historical scent on my skin, reminds me to a Mediterranean garden, but the wall of the old mansion is included to the picture by all means. The concentrated herbal whiffs vanish very soon, and even if you hope, nothing else will happen, and even this nothing keeps big silence. I could say, EAU D'ITALIE is a tiptoe stealthing fragrance, or like a crying baby in the cradle: if you takes it out from the bottle, falls asleep.

Eau D'Italie EAU D'ITALIE opens with an appealing bouquet of mixed flowers. They are an odd assortment, odd enough to remind me fleetingly of L'Artisan Parfumeur FLEUR DE LIANE (perhaps not coincidentally also composed by Bertrand Duchaufour...). However, after a couple of minutes, EAU D'ITALIE becomes identical to the scent of an organic chemistry lab in which I worked while I was an undergraduate student. Seriously, I cannot wear this composition without thinking of that lab. Could it be the scent of benzene? It's definitely a solvent used in reflux distillation. Let's hope that it's not benzene, which is carcinogenic.

The next lurch made by EAU D'ITALIE is toward the aquatic realm. I am not an aficionado of aquatic fragrances, to put it mildly. In fact, the only truly aquatic fragrance which I can claim to like at this point (I did wear Calvin Klein ESCAPE a long time ago, but those days are over...) is in fact L'Artisan Parfumeur FLEUR DE LIANE. I realize that most people do not think of FLEUR DE LIANE as an aquatic composition, but to my nose it is midway between floral and aquatic, close enough to aquatic to count, given that straight-up aquatics are not even wearable by me.

I'd say nearly the same about EAU D'ITALIE: this seems more aquatic than aromatic after a few minutes, but not aquatic enough to be unwearable by me. Still, by the drydown the flowers have faded to such a degree that I'm left thinking that EAU D'ITALIE is more aquatic than floral, and though it is just a touch over the boundary, it's enough to make me doubt that I'd ever seek this creation out.

On those extremely rare occasions when I feel like wearing an aquatic floral, I can reach for my small bottle of FLEUR DE LIANE. That said, I'm sure that EAU D'ITALIE would work better for men precisely because it is less floral.

Reminds me of the smell of being in 1920's-era art deco and italianate styled mansions in South Florida, the kind I've visited that have many original decoration and linens still in use. It makes me strangely sad for times before my time, the days before air conditioning, the smell of the roof tiles cooling off after facing the sun all day, verdigris on copper bath pipes, windows open to let in sea breeze carrying the smell of orange blossoms and date palm fruit. My only criticism would be the brief longevity. I wore it to bed and it was gone by the morning.

Fortunately, my ITALY test series is over today.

You can't mix perfumes more absurdly than this. It's about as if you put a 4-year-old between some pots of oil paint, paint thinner, gall soap, and honey, handed him a shovel, and said: Go for it!

Neither a flower pot nor a trophy.

I received a sample of Lolle today....
To me, the scent absolutely smells like a brothel..(not that I know what it smells like :D ) at least that's how I imagine it...right after spraying, something perverse hits you (Magnolia or Clove?!) which makes me wrinkle my nose. As Lolle described, it's simply a mixed-up soup that I find hard to categorize and with which you can't do anything. Somewhat like nettle^^
20% since after a few hours it smells somewhat (subtly) bearable. It must be the orange blossom.
Not the worst scent I know, but definitely very far down!!!