Suncycles - Sunrise Paolo Gigli 2012

Gigli? Perfume? There was something, I ponder...

I have to mentally travel back more than twenty years to rediscover that Gigli scent that crossed my path long ago, yet left no lasting impression.
A bit melony, a bit aquatic, and overall quite unremarkable, it had remained in my memory, likely shaping the expectations with which I viewed that little vial "Sunrise" - not a little surprised to find a Gigli in the niche perfume sector, as it seemed not to have even carved out a place in the mainstream.

Fruits, flowers, woods, and vanilla are found in the pyramid of "Sunrise," signaling nothing particularly eye-catching, rather suggesting one of the many fruity-florals flooding today’s market.
That fits with my Gigli memory - the price, however, does not.
And neither does the bottle, really.
Slightly puzzled, I delve deeper and discover that there are two perfume houses under the name Gigli: Romeo Gigli, to whom I owe my first encounter with this name, and Paolo Gigli, whose fragrance creation before me seems to promise an olfactory sunrise.

I have not yet been to San Fiorentino, the city from which Paolo Gigli's glass and fragrance creations originate.
I have no idea what colors the sky takes on at sunrise there, what the consistency of the air is like, or what plants and fruits thrive in this area around Florence.
Yet nothing I can imagine about a sunrise anywhere in this world could have prepared me for this dark gray, almost medicinally bitter, and herb-woody first impression with which "Sunrise" shocks my harmless-harmonious, fruitily-green expecting nose.
"Oud!" I think immediately, but nowhere is Oud listed, which unmistakably winds itself around my olfactory nerves with its often feared and simultaneously excessively hyped resinous bitterness.
I have not yet recovered from my shock when, amidst this foggy, gray November morning, golden and green lights slowly begin to shine, peach and lime penetrate the wood, taking away more and more of its original severity with each passing second.
At this moment, it truly seems the sun is rising, pushing a cool-bright golden ray over the horizon millimeter by millimeter.
No grasses, no herbs, no green at all except for the lime, which takes the scepter side by side with a perfectly ripe peach, flattered by the retreating wood that provides a backdrop and the still-hanging mandarin in the background.

Slowly, the sun rises higher, warming air and landscape, bestowing just a hint of fragrance on the still-closed, dew-drenched flower cups that finely underscore the lightly sweetened fruit-wood tones.
All bitterness has now retreated, "Sunrise" begins to shift and simultaneously gains warmth, depth, and complexity.
After about an hour, I have penetrated to the heart and even further, greeted by a pleasantly unpretentious, reserved orchid alongside rather dark vanilla, resting on a soft bed of sandalwood and enveloped by dark, slightly smoky, yet not at all cold patchouli.

The composition is so tightly woven and dense that I cannot imagine experiencing any further development - yet I do not know Paolo Gigli, whose obvious penchant for surprises, twists, and capers is expressed in this scent and on my skin.
Suddenly, I think I perceive Ambroxan, that woody-leathery addictive substance to which I succumbed from the very first moment in "Molecule 02" - here it weaves delicately underneath, further condensing the scent fabric into a highly erotic base, upon which, from one moment to the next, a dark, aristocratic rose blooms, reminding me of Montale's "Black Aoud."
In contrast to Pierre Montale's rose-oud blockbuster, "Sunrise" remains very close to the skin at this stage - no club is swung, no one is forced to their knees gasping for breath.
Those who kneel do so willingly.

"Sunrise" is defined as "a scent for an extremely feminine woman" - I dare to contradict.
A man can wear this scent just as well as a woman - the woody, powerful, and very characteristic notes without pronounced sweetness evoke distinctly erotic masculine associations in me, without me declaring "Sunrise" as a men's fragrance.
This scent belongs to a personality that knows how to take it and connect with it.
One I would very much like to get very close to.