Myrrh Casati Maison Mona di Orio 2014

Myrrh Casati is the first Mona di Orio fragrance to be composed by someone other than Mona herself, following her tragic death in 2011. And you can tell. While very nice and wearable, it does not have any of the special Mona di Orio signatures that could be traced from one perfume to another like a vein on a lover's arm.

It lacks the almost overbearingly rich, dirty, creamy woodiness of Vanille and Oud, the dry-ice, almond-like musks from Ambre, Violette Fumee, and Musc, and the harsh animalism of Nuit Noire and Cuir. Without these little olfactory clues that Mona di Orio tucked so deftly into the sleeves of her work, I am lost. Myrrh Casati could be the work of anyone.

If her other perfumes are rich tapestries, then Myrrh Casati is a silk gauze. It is beautiful but simple to the point of being spare. The opening is particularly striking. A dark, dry spice note fuses with a warm, cinnamon-tinted Siam benzoin and sharp black pepper to form a gorgeous aroma of tarry coca-cola. There is also an arresting black rubber feel to the opening, arising from the use of saffron, or perhaps plain old saffraleine, and it is a smooth complement to the licorice. But any opening richness or darkness quickly attenuates. Within minutes, I am left with a rather bare bones resin scent with a faint but noticeable minty smoke note from either the myrrh or the licorice. I'm a myrrh lover and a big Mona di Orio fan, but this one leaves me wanting more.

Myrrh Casati Mona di Orio opens as a sophisticated boozy cola cocktail. And while the ubiquitous rum and coke may not ring your bell as an especially high-class libation, imagine an offbeat, extravagant artisan’s interpretation of the soft drink, a concoction created with luxury materials and stellar quality essences of cinnamon, lime, lemon, orange, coriander, vanilla and nutmeg, the citrus and spices parceled out in surprising proportions and embellished with a generous flourish of pink pepper. Resinous, peppery, and effervescent, casting a spicy shadow in an art deco champagne coupe, this may have been served at a surreal dinner party hosted by an eccentric Italian heiress greeting her guests in pearls, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a fur coat with nothing underneath. She’ll whisper to you later in the evening that the secret ingredient was a scintilla of belladonna before introducing you to her menagerie of strange pets and conducting an impromptu seance. Drugged by beauty, weirdness and also maybe actual drugs, you spend a night like no other and awake with the taste of cardamom and licorice on your tongue, a veil of incense in your hair, and a necklace of love bites at your throat.

Pleasant smoky opening, a compelling bouquet of velvety dark flowers which smell really intense and refined, on a really sophisticated, discreet yet thick base of labdanum, resins, vetiver. All smells warm, sensual, slightly medicinal, a little boozy too, with quite some connections to many classic floral chypres, mostly for the gloomy benzoin note with a colder salty-metallic shade. Basically a resinous smoky chypre with a contemporary texture (polished and “colder”). Intriguing and well made for sure, albeit a bit boring after a while, mostly because of its monolithic linearity. Nothing groundbreaking but a really pleasant homage to many feminine classic scents – with something creative and modern enough to avoid the “derivative ripoff” effect. Overpriced (you don’t say...).

7-7,5/10