Cuoio Fiorentino by Farmacia SS. Annunziata (2016)



Farmacia SS. Annunziata is among the very few Italian brands which keep offering good, sometimes brilliant products with a classy, humble, understated and totally appreciable attitude. Most of their fragrances are simple, maybe simplistic sometimes, but straightforward, very decently priced and with solid performances and quality. And most of all, they share a sort of melancholy, of distinguished darkness, which quite reflects their antique allure and their connection to their ancient roots (which for once, are real).

This new addition to their range got me intrigued from the name already, as I figured that a “Florentine leather” in Farmacia’s style would have surely been interesting to smell. And in fact, it’s quite like I imagined. It’s dark, gloomy, elegantly dry thanks both to the rusty, tanning, sharp and whiskey-infused leather accord, the subtle inky-woody smokiness, but oddly enough also to the sweet-tangy top notes of bergamot and elemi. They should be “bright” and fresh theoretically, but together with the resinous-ambery base notes, they create here a sort of powdery, dusty, sweet-candied and almost moldy “Guerlinade” evoking dusty furniture, vanillic aged paper, an overall sort of “moody Mediterranean” kind of inspiration as you would imagine if thinking of a Medieval Florentine pharmacist boutique. Which is quite a dark inspiration if you think of it, given today’s perception of the “dark ages” of Middle Age. Classy, gloomy, totally Italian. Foreign people tend to associate Italy to “freshness” and “joy”, but I think we’ve quite a dark-veined history and national attitude, and some fragrances did or do reflect that (think of vintage glories like Ferré for Man, Moschino pour Homme, Krizia Moods and so on).

Well anyway, back to the smell: leather’s surely the main accord here, especially in the central hours of the evolution of Cuoio, and it’s done perfectly. Leathers are quite tricky today, they often tend to smell very synthetic and predictable, either in a dry way or in a sweetish Tuscan Leather-like way. Here, you can clearly get the efforts to create a more credible, nuanced, compelling leather accord. It’s quite dry, dark and extremely sophisticated in its whispered texture, raw yet smooth enough, with a mature boozy touch, a very realistic sort of ashy-cedar frame, and some interesting Oriental nuances of saffron and pepper. Sweeter and more resinous at first, getting drier and spicier as hours pass, ending in a smooth, martially simple pure leather drydown still supported by a sharp, slightly salty cedar note.

Shortly a refined, moody leather scent infused with ashy woods and a clever touch of zesty-resinous powdery amberiness letting a lukewarm ray of evening Mediterranean sun in. Somehow restless and somehow laid-back. Subtler than I expected and definitely lighter than most of other Farmacia SS. Annunziata scents I tried, but not a skin scent (almost, though: that would be my only remark). Surely worthy a sniff.

8-8,5/10

Cuir Vetiver by Yves Rocher (2016)



Nose: Sonia Constant

One of the most honest, worthwhile and affordably good releases in a long while. I am not a fan of Yves Rocher usually, as despite I respect the brand, none of their releases seemed that interesting to me so far (not even for the price); but Cuir Vetiver quite got me. It is by no means inferior to many decent designers easily showing double the price tag – Hermès, for instance: for the similarity of the notes, the composition and the quality, this could have easily been a budget-mainstream release by them. In fact Cuir Vetiver is basically a cheaper, yet absolutely solid sort of fresher Vetiver Tonka meeting Terre d’Hermès with a thin shade of some smoky tonka-infused suede (and that’s the only “cuir” you’ll get), and also some tangy cardamom nuance which reminds me of another Hermès scent for men – Voyage.

A poor man’s Hermès digest, shortly, with a surprising good quality and a not-so-ordinary texture. Specifically I detect here a more than compelling sort of fresh-woody-powdery transparent clarity dangerously close to Ellena’s style, and despite Cuir Vetiver smells quite close to the stuff I mentioned above, for some reasons it doesn’t feel just like a blatant ripoff of it. I don’t get what precisely, but there’s more than that. It’s like if more than a simple passive carbon-copying activity to monetize on other brands’ ideas, this was just more a genuine “tribute” simply taking inspiration from them with enough skills and budget to elaborate the brief a bit. It’s still 90% close to Vetiver Tonka and the other couple of Hermès I mentioned, but the remaining 10% is, well, a little sparkle of uniqueness (after all, it’s fresher than Vetiver Tonka, and smokier than both Terre and Voyage – unique, in its own and a bit derivative way).

So, all in all, totally recommended. It smells good, classy, versatile, smoky yet fresh and breezy enough to be perfect for any climate and circumstance. And surprisingly natural, too, considering the level of flat syntheticness you usually get at this price range. Sadly the persistence is a bit weak, but it’s so inexpensive that you can simply reapply it on and on. For 29 eur/100 ml or so, a total winner in my “everyday-replacement-for-more-expensive-stuff” book.

8/10

Mr. Burberry by Burberry (2016)



Nose: Francis Kurkdjian

By far one of the most irrelevant, pedestrian, nonsense new launches I smelled in a long time. If something like, say, Dior’s Sauvage seemed like that for you, then Mr. Burberry will make your nose explode. Someone on Basenotes’ forum mentioned an Axe deodorant, and I now regret having used that same term of comparison for scents which compared to Mr. Burberry don’t really deserve that. Because in fact, in my experience Mr. Burberry is the scent which absolutely went the closest to that. Actually it even went further and below– no kidding, the 2,50 EUR deodorant I carry in my tennis bag smells more appealing, nuanced and rich than this garbage.

Basically this is a truly nondescript, extremely artificial, puzzingly uninspired sort of a counterfeit Bleu de Chanel meeting a sport deodorant with a drop of Interparfums’ irritating signature musky-tonka base accord (Armani Code all over again- please fix that time machine, Interparfums!). There’s some synthetic citrus, some extremely generic woody stuff with a pointless sort of subtle minty-creamy nuance (a bit as in Paul Smith London), something sweet-spicy, and that’s it. I’m using the term “something” not out of laziness but because it’s truly the best approximation I can use – I read the composition, but none of the notes mentioned is remotely detectable here for me. It would be a joke to mention cardamom or vetiver here. It’s just woody stuff, spicy stuff, citrus stuff, cheap lab replicas of some “idea” of woods and spices. The same exact materials you find in supermarket deodorants in fact. Just a big generic “something”. And it’s so vastly nonsense that I can’t even think of a possible audience for this, neither can I understand how could Burberry approve to invest money for something so desperately unappealing and cheap.

So shortly, if it wasn’t clear enough, my opinion is that this is a complete depressing trainwreck on every level – quality, inspiration, identity. And if you want to understand better how it smells, I can’t really describe it better than I did above – I know my description sounded generic but this is truly how this scent smells. I’ve never been a fan of Burberry but I’ve always (kind of) respected Kurkdjian’s work on commission, even recently – for example, Carven Homme from 2014 was quite good, and if you compare it to Mr. Burberry you can definitely sense the immense gap of budget and efforts that separates the two scents. This is on the contrary easily the worst scent Kurkdjian ever put his name on, and one of the worst scents by Burberry ever.

3/10