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DogiCoco
3
Performance is not everything!
I only tried this in 2021, so I was super late to the Erba Pura party, and I felt like I had to leave immediately.
Wow, this is SO not for me. It starts out really fruity, in a bright, radiating way. I can smell the sweet ripe citruses and tropical fruits like passion fruit. It's tart and juicy and at this stage, I get the hype around it: This seems like a refreshing, sunny and exotic fruity fragrance that everyone can wear, even men who feel awkward about smelling feminine in fruit notes.
But to me it's the olfactory equivalent of meeting a really good-looking and funny guy in a bar, and then after you gave him your number you start to notice that he is annoying and overbearing. This scent is just so loud! It knocks you out! And if it doesn't, you've likely just gone noseblind. It will knock out people around you and it gets procedingly worse as it dries down. The fruity top is fine, but the base doesn't only have vanilla, musk and amber. There is also some kind of unidentified aromachemical that I just can't stand. Is it supposed to be musk? I have no idea. It smells like a male deodorant from a black aerosol can and fresh sweat. Very sharp and harsh and scratchy in the throat. I can also sense some creamy, vanillic notes in the background, but the harshness just won't stop. It lasts all day and all night, even a shower won't kill it completely.
It's not just my skin, it's the same when I just open the cap of my sample and sniff it. I suspect there is some fixative in this which some people (me!) are very sensitive to, while others barely get it at all. My husband doesn't like it either, everytime I tested it he said the whole room smelled "oudy", which is his non-perfume-junkie way of describing sharp and heavy notes. And he isn't wrong, it kind of reminds me of the screechiest kind of synthetic oud. We both have the same problem with Tiziana Terenzi's Kirkè. I think if you dislike one of these you won't love the other.
Erba Pura was the worst when I tried it the first time. I'm not sure if my nose got a little used to it already or if the scratchniness bloomed in warmer weather. I will never find out, because I already gave away my sample and won't ever look back.
To me this is a good example why great performance is not everything and can become too much at times. I'd rather wear something softer and I'm pretty sure this could have been nice if they didn't use that weird "musk" to amp up the base.
I can only advise to try before buying and to spray carefully even if you're a fan.
Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
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