Eau Suave Parfum d'Empire 2005

Antonietta had received the apprenticeship position as a soap maker. Of course. As if she had a choice, after all it was the family business and she was supposed to take it over later. From her mother. Who had taken it over from her grandmother. And her grandmother's mother, so her great-grandmother, from her mother. For 300 years, the women in her family had run the soap making business and would probably always do so. That was tradition - e basta!

Antonietta didn’t actually mind her professional fate, after all she was born into the family trade and had learned early on to distinguish a well-made soap from a poorly made one - "soap flows in our veins" was the family credo, and there had to be some truth to it.
But why did it have to be exclusively the same old musk soap, according to the unchanged Italian family recipe for 300 years? That was so boring! Reliable, yes, but boring.

In her free time, Antonietta enjoyed spending time in nature. There, she would smell flowers and berries and imagine how delicious their scent would blend with the soap. Then she would hurry back to the soap factory:
"Please, Mama, let’s add a raspberry, just a tiny one, or a rose petal. Pleeeeease!"
"No Lampone! Only Muschia! I’ve always made it this way, I’ll continue to do so, it’s Tradizione - e basta!"

Antonietta had to wait 20 years before she took over the soap factory from her mother. The day after the big handover celebration, to which the whole village had been invited (that was tradition), she gave all the employees a day off and closed the business for a day, which was a scandal and caused her grandmother to faint. But Antonietta was already familiar with these staged "fainting spells" as signs of discontent. Now she was the boss - e basta!
She finally wanted to implement the creation she had had in her mind for years. She made herself comfortable by candlelight and set a small kettle with the tried-and-true musk soap solution on the stove. As the soap simmered, she added rose petals, raspberries, saffron, pepper, and a few more ingredients. For a moment, the ingredients swirled on the surface and released an intense sweet scent as they were warmed. Then they sank into the hot, liquid soap, exhaled their breath, and merged with it. Antonietta poured the hot soap into the molds and let it cool.
The result brought tears of emotion to her eyes: the flowers and fruits smelled delicate, sweet, and very natural. The pepper challenged the piercing core soap scent of the musk and transformed it into a pleasant sharpness. She had done it: she hadn’t invented anything new, that wasn’t her plan, the soap still smelled like soap. But she had improved the soap, preserved the cleanliness, and softened the sharpness.

Of course, her female relatives raised their hands in lamentation over their heads and prayed to the holy Mother Mary for Antonietta’s spiritual well-being when she announced that the soap would henceforth be made according to the new recipe. It might smell nice, but tradition was tradition! And until now, one could live quite well from it. But when the new soap creation generated a large, stylish family residence with three bathrooms, a swimming pool, and staff in Tuscany, even the last critical voices fell silent.

Recently, I have come across some harsh musk fragrances, such as Tuscia by Sigilli or Signature Platinum by Tova (maybe that’s why I have associations with Italy). And I always thought: This core soap theme is nice, very clean and mentally organizing, but somehow something is missing, there should be more to it. With Eau Suave, this has finally succeeded! The best moment is the opening, when the ingredients immediately release their aroma on the bubbling soap solution. Raspberry and rose can be wonderfully detected, everything remains very natural. In the heart note, the pepper is a bit too strong for me personally, and I would wish for more of the initial sweetness (which does come back in the base). But I don’t want to interfere with Antonietta, after all she is the boss - e basta!