Acqua di Cuba Santa Maria Novella

What a beautiful, twisty EdC. Of course, the Cuba in the name should have hinted at quite a bit, but I didn't expect such a bombshell. After the orange blossom scent Zagara recently made quite an impression on me, Cuba takes it up a notch and immediately sparked my urge to look online for where to buy/order the wonderful fragrances from Santa Maria Novella. You have to search a bit, but then I found it and saved the page directly to my favorites. €85 for 100 ml for such amazing perfumes that leave most niche creations behind in terms of quality and beauty - that's something to remember! It's strange that there is no distribution through the brand's own Italian homepage - but as I said, there are points of contact. It's just a pity that I've never seen them live and so far, hardly anything has been testable or tangible.

The scent starts citrusy, which can be misleading. Because although all SMN scents seem to be EdCs, the fragrance is extremely potent and changes quite drastically compared to Zagara. Even if it may not have the usual 3 phases, there is still a significant difference from the top note to the long-lasting rest of the scent. After the citrus burst at the beginning, Cuba-typical ingredients take over: not really woods as stated above, but rather scratchy-soapy tobacco, sweet honey, and a kind of animalistic-unclean masculinity - truly magnificent, never over the top, and of excellent quality. High-quality raw materials, a successful concept, a great price, surprising twists - this is better than some movies ;)

Bottle: classic, fine, more reminiscent of aftershave.
Sillage: definitely twice as strong as your usual cologne.
Longevity: again, everything but an EdC - 8 hours are easily achievable (including sports).

Aqua di Cuba exceeded all my expectations, going far beyond a normal EdC and perfectly embodying both Cuba and a masculine tobacco-infused summer fragrance!