Acqua di Selva Victor 1949 Eau de Cologne

I love Acqua di Selva. It is now 64 years old, and does not smell dated to my nose. It opens with a tart lemon, fresh lavender, herbaceous pine. Smells clean and fresh in a non-laundry-musk or aquatic way.

After the fragrance settles a bit, touches of carnation, geranium make themselves known along with a wonderful musky cedar base. A bit of smoky vetiver makes it even more attractive. The final stages are a warm and gentle musk and the cedar. It is just an incredibly well-done fragrance.

Longevity from start to finish on my skin is about 4-5 hours, excellent for something that is an EDC. Sillage is light to moderate, so this fragrance is delightful and inoffensive to most people. You would have to douse yourself to overdo this one. A couple or three sprays in an office setting would give you a crisp, clean, and confident scent, that would last through most of the day.

Overall, I cannot speak highly enough of this excellent, yet inexpensive fragrance. Of course, it speaks for itself that it is 64 years old and is still highly regarded. I would rate this a solid 8 out of 10.

The 1st time I smelled Acqua di Selva was when will my cousin George sprayed it. The smell intoxicated me. This was back in 1987 when I was a teenager and I just had to find that fragrance. When I finally did it was a great buy at $20 a bottle the only problem was it didn't last very long on my skin. It is an eau de cologne concentration so i knew it wasn't gonna last very long but i don't even get 3 hours out of it. However I am in love with the smell just totally in love with it. I will never stop wearing it and the only time I do wear it is when the temperature outside is 90 degrees or above. If they ever come out with a parfum concentration I don't care if it costs $500 I'm buying that bottle! But I don't think that will happen as the cologne is very old since 1949.

My vintage 25ml Victor Acqua di Selva is a treasure. The camphorous pine steeped in lemon that is its fanfare may be repellent to those accustomed to creamy-dreamy pseudo-tonka pralines, but I live for it. The thyme and basil is delectable, clinging on to the hair on my forearms and causing me to nuzzle into myself. Over time, it grows spicier and damp-grassy-woody, and it just feels like the paragon of old world masculinity.

Opens with lemon. Sweet and fruity, think gourmet Fruit Loops.
I heard it said it smells like mouthwash but I think it's more like menthe liqueur.
It's not cheap and synthetic but herbal maybe slightly... medicinal. Not mouthwash though.
It has liqueur creaminess ...with maybe a slight chocolate? (Maybe my mind is doing some "pairing".

You might want to grab a few sprays before you light that clove cigarette and order the next grasshopper.

It's for the mint menthe menthol fan. The silliage and longevity is average but that might be a good thing. Not a scent that would be good if overwhelming. Pack some in a travel size and spray throughout the day

I own a great book for self-studying Italian that I bought many years ago at the Bonn Rhine Meadows flea market - and it dates back to the 1950s. Contemporary language textbooks focus on 'learning to speak quickly' based on common everyday situations, such as: 'Hello, my name is Betty Mason.' or 'Nicole est la sœur de Philippe.' In my Italian textbook from the 50s, however, the very first sentence is: 'Mi arricci i baffi', which translates to 'Twirl my mustache' - great to be able to say that.

Mi arricci i baffi - how wonderful it sounds! And I see the piazza of a small seaside town glowing in the early evening sunlight, where the locals slowly gather for the aperitivo. And something that you see in Italy - the further south you go, the more - much more often than here, is - wonderfully touching - the figure of the vain older gentleman, in a white suit or a pink polo shirt with a thin sweater draped over his shoulders and - if he can - with an expensive gold watch - as he makes 'bella figura' on the piazza with his best friend, whom he has known for seventy years.

Acqua di Selva has strength and grandfatherly dominance and a wonderfully 'not-present' (I consciously do not say 'outdated') character that probably makes it seem little interesting to younger - even southern - men - even if they do like traditionally Mediterranean arranged, coniferous herbal squads. However, Acqua di Selva is likely one of those fragrances that a man must discover and choose for himself as a young man - back in the 50s, in a seaside resort somewhere in Italy. And then they grow old together, the fragrance and the man - on the piazza, every evening, for a whole lifetime.

Conclusion: I see the older gentleman from the piazza in the afternoon at his barber - in a small side street, where his father and grandfather also came - sitting in front of the already blind mirror at the edges and strictly examining the bare spots on his head. And then he allows the barber (who is also nearly eighty) with a nod to apply a few spritzes of Acqua di Selva before he finally commands: 'Mi arricci i baffi!'