![VTrancoso]()
VTrancoso
3
The true Valentine scent.
Casablanca by Diane St. Claire.
Awarded "Best Rising Star" of 2018 it is one of my favorite fragrances. Nowadays is very "exclusive" because it is practically impossible to find.
Extract (30 or 13 ml sold out) with 50% concentration. 50%!!! The extracts that we have known do not exceed 30 to 35% (eg Puredistance and Areej Le Doré) or even 43% (Profumum Roma). Here we find the same concentration that probably exists in mid-century fragrance extracts. XX after decades of slow evaporation. It took about a year to build, deconstruct and rebuild – always with the highest quality materials.
If I were asked to try to give an idea of Casablanca with just one image, I would say that it reminds me of a beautiful woman (preferably similar to Ingrid Bergman) wearing only a half-open black mink coat over her skin to give shelter to a naked lover who kisses her romantically.
Casablanca is a beautiful, complex, sensual fragrance with a huge personality and a huge heart. There is a “vintage” feel to Casablanca that recalls (without copying) great classics from the past like Bal à Versailles and Lucien Lelong's Indiscret. Or even as if it were the result of a menage a trois between Fracas, Maai and Miss Dior.
The name immediately evokes the film of the same name about Humphrey Bogart's novel as “Rick” with the beautiful Ingrid Bergman as “Ilsa”.
However, it was not originally created as a reference to the film, but rather as a nostalgic vision of someone who lives in a large American metropolis and dreams of a Mediterranean paradise.
Ingrid… ooops pardon… Casablanca opens on my skin with orange blossoms (like those in a backyard from my childhood) and notes of bitter orange announcing the fleshy and succulent accords of a tuberose with ivory petals. An unusual aroma, dense, enigmatic, vintage, ripe, vigorous, pulpy, sweet and natural. There's a jasmine that's still hidden behind the tangerine tree, there's a feel of an orange-infused brandy note, there's a cloud of spice, musk and patchouli on the horizon. The “labdanum” used almost imitates distant notes of leather and tobacco. We're definitely not in the present and we're traveling to the past with a somewhat complex and very specific handcrafted fragrance.
At 12/15 minutes it “blooms” and unfolds like an emerald-colored carpet covered by fruity and oriental florals.
Something highly atmospheric and special is happening as in the movie of the same name. After 60 minutes, jasmine stops hiding and starts singing “a kiss is just a kiss…”. It's a dark jasmine cigarette in the mouth on blue moon nights, with a sensual and slightly animalic vibe under a chorus of partially smoky musk notes and sprinkled with light hints of civet.
The intermediate phase is the one with the greatest variations and lasts approximately from the beginning of the second to the eighth hour. Here, sometimes, oakmoss, vetiver, leather, animalic / musky and resinous notes - always accompanied by orange blossoms - pulsate with such vigor that they all together seem like an appeal/song of a group of mermaids diving in the fantastic light of a moonlight that finally reveals the simultaneous presence of the masculine and the feminine united in a ying and yang embrace.
Drydown begins in the middle of the tenth hour. The view is that of a dark forest, semi-carbonized by a fire last year, where notes of clove, cinnamon and jasmine emanate on a base of green vetiver. The background is still marked by some spicy floral dust and a “procession” of ylang-ylang, benzoin, toffee caramels and a musk that is rarely found today – with vintage and soft characteristics like that mink coat. We see Ingrid's eyes pleading “Kiss me again” and we enter the last part of the drydown, around the 14th hour. Now drier, sweeter, woody, still orange and discreetly spiced with traces reminiscent of amber.
All very well tuned and balanced. The next day it's still “under my skin”.
In conclusion: A different, exuberant, sensual / carnal, romantic, warm, elegant, magical, timeless, deep, mysterious fragrance that creates a sublime atmosphere. Its aroma projects me through the screen of a B&W film. On the other side of screen I feel Ingrid Bergman's head resting on my shoulder.
Top Notes 
Red mandarin orange
Pink grapefruit
Blackcurrant bud
Heart Notes 
Ylang-ylang
Jasmine
Tuberose
Orange blossom
Base Notes 
Hyraceum absolute
Musk
Civet
Oakmoss
Vetiver
Labdanum
Rachelg
Samgrade
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AlexD76
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