Reviews of Nostalgia (2002)
by Santa Maria Novella

On one hand it’s a completely synthetic, car equipment oriented scent which manages to impress thanks to an unusual composition. On the other hand, a successful attempt to fit in a 100 ml bottle, a whole bunch of memories, images, feelings and dreams. No matter which hand you pick, no matter how industrial or artificial you find it, you have to admit that Nostalgia is ingenious. Mislead by the romantic and quite feminine title that brought to my mind white flower baskets and light green and citrus notes, I got a huge smoky leather blast at the very first sniff, almost like a black vinyl boot kick in the face. And while recovering from the kick, I realized I had left the room, and I was seated on the front of a 1972 E-type Jaguar, caressing the all new tan leather seats and the handmade steering wheel. Half an hour later, back to reality, I was left with a sweet vanilla and woods heart that fainted rather quickly to a pleasant powdery base. More than a smell it’s a feeling and as that it is magnificent!

The adviser in SMN said that they can't understand why people would want to spray this on themselves. Now, I'm all for honesty in life but I think the sales pitch needs honing a bit.

It's so uplifting to sample something like this straight after reviewing Green Irish Tweed (so much negativity). The opening is pretty drastic -- mechanics overalls no less, but it soon changes into a glorious leathery drydown with a touch of sweetness thrown in -- yeah it's synthetic, but what isn't nowadays -- (look out for the newly created 'vinyl' notes appearing in fragrances). The sillage and longevity are ok, but it is a little shy late on -- that's pretty much a given with the whole range, so will need to spray accordingly. I have no need for Nostalgia at the moment as Mark Buxton's sublime 'Hot Leather' is in rotation, but I will return for this when that dries up.

If you think Heeley's Cuir Pleine Fleur is a touch too floral or feminine then you would probably dig this. I know I do though 'dig' sems rather mild for this stuff is fantastic! The opening salvo of car leather interiors, screeching tires and gasoline leaks puts me in the bucket seat of a Dodge Charger as I floor the pedal to the metal and go from 0 to 100 in 10 seconds. Breathtaking! Unfortunately from that point onwards it goes into cruise control mode with a smooth vanilla-tinged leather punctuated with hints of gasoline and grease. I guess that's the cue for me to check out the breathless young beauty in the passenger seat and chat her up. I'm just surprised someone like Nathan Branch don't get it. But I can't really blame him. The deceptively dull bottle design has a dampening effect on reviews though it's certainly not something a whiff of NOSTALGIA can't overcome. Btw, my birthday is due in 2 weeks; can someone please get me a bottle of this?

i agree with Indie_guy right below me, this stuff is amazing. Possibly the best construction i've ever found in a scent. The opening is a blast of oil, petrol, tar, and the smell of a 1974 LeMans pit stop area....and then it settles down into the most beautiful, elegant leather, vanilla, and floral cascade. Longetivity is great, and the sillage is fantastic. One of the most complete scents i've ever tried or owned. This stuff is a classic. I'm really into cars and racing, and smelling this always reminds me of what a vintage race car smells like on the inside. The only downside is the absolutely ridiculous bottle---which looks like something you'd find at a dollar store. I dunno why they didn't just use the standard SMN bottles---which are beautiful. HUGELY recommended.

Definitely one of my all time favorite scents. Huge WOW factor. I first bought a bottle and loved it, but thought it was too strange to wear in public. I was wrong. I get the best compliments on Nostalgia. Women always notice it and tell me how good I smell.

The gasoline and motor oil opening is unusual, but this fragrance evolves quickly into something deep, complex and magnetic. As the drydown unfolds, out comes leather, musk, fine tobacco, and exotic wood notes, the likes of which I've never smelled in a cologne. I also get a bit of hot gummy red cinnamon candy, like those Swedish Fish. The composition of this fragrance is amazing.

If you ever try this one, you have to give it a full day's wearing-- don't judge it on a quick sampling. This is not just some dashed out novelty scent, but rather a well made luxury scent with lots of personality and class. The bottle is a bit ugly, but with a scent this good it's easy to overlook.

This stuff is top gear.

High quality leather gloves melted in a bottle. Or an old cars soft leather interior, however you like.

I don`t think it smells that much of any chemichals, though. This is pure, authentical leather scent. It has a bit of that fruity-sweet and oily scent of suede to it too, and in fact, Nostalgia smells alot like a collection of different kind of (soft, refined) leathers.
So basically you get this smell when you step into some store filled with different kind of leather wear and accessories. Its almost the exact smell.

Continuesly sweetening drydown doesn`t last terribly long on me, although I think the lasting power is reasonably nice after all.

Linear and almost singular accord fragrance. If you like the way leather smells, you must try this as soon as possible.

Amazing stuff! Like a rough kiss from a sweaty, unshaven mechanic whilst being pushed up against a pile of old tyres... *sigh*

Actually, the 'pit-stop' opening dissipates rather speedily and you're left with a dry, subtle, synthetic leather and wood drydown that's eminently wearable.

'Nostalgia' clearly refers to classic cars and it commemorates some famous race or other. I'm afraid I was a little distracted by the scent and scrabbling for my credit card as the lovely lady at the Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy in Florence told me the story.

The wooden bottle cap is totally hideous but this is a beautifully clever fragrance. One of my all time favourites.

OMG, I’ve smelled the top notes so often. It DOES smell like a garage—motor oil, hydraulic oil, an air compressor pumping out a stream of rubbery scented air. What an opening…this is better than a Demeter! After the heady garage & motor oil opening, Nostalgia turns into a synthetic leather scent, just as teflondog said—and I completely agree with the rest of his review, too: synthetic but excellent, inoffensive, too light, and I won’t be buying a bottle, either. It’s not my kind of thing for wearing so I guess I won’t be purchasing it, but it surely is an incredibly interesting scent. It’s a must sample.

At first, all I could think about was classic cars-- everything about them, tires, leather seats, and something else about cars and gas stations that I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly. Nostalgia is a perfect name for this mens' fragrance, I thought. Later, the development was hard to describe, because where this beauty ended up for me was......something like a moderately warm wood and rasberries! I don't get it exactly, but as the car smell and leather dissipated, that was my experience. My thought now is that I like it; I respect it; and I admire the creativity it took to make this, but I think it's just a bit too avant garde for me. Someday, maybe. I have to give it a positive review, ultimately, because it is so incredible and what is lacking is not in the product reviewed, but the reviewer, who doesn't fully understand the product. Wow!

This is an amazing fragrance. It really surprised me. I thought it would be similar to wearing gasoline and oil. It's not at all like that. It's extremely pleasant to wear. At first it's flowery a bit, with leather. Then it changes an hour later to more intense leather mixed with a touch of sweetness. It does make you reminisce about car from Rush's Red Barchetta, or something similar. This is truly, truly a gentleman's fragrance that oozes pure class. It's not really about automobiles at all to me, but I do get the references.. it's, to me, like a nice morning drive on country road, isolated.. that smell of air, woods, leather, a hint (slight) of oil, and thrill. The best word I can come up with to describe this scent is "THRILLING." It is to unique. It's a leather mixed with hint of floral. There is something sweet about it, VANILLIC.. I concur. This fragrance is totally wearable and modern. I could wear this to a workplace easily and guarantee no one would be offended by it. It's a useable fragrance that evokes a calm mood in me. From the leather to the vanilla, such a unique combination of stuff going on here. I am blown away by this scent. I don't know what else to say, other than sample it, wait some hours and then judge it. It's amazing.. my 2nd favorite SMN fragrance. Thumbs far up for this one.

Fun, fun, fun until daddy takes the T-bird away! Nostalgia does indeed start out smelling like new tires and auto fuel. I suspect that like Tubereuse Criminelle, there's a menthol or eucalyptus note creeping around here somewhere, and that it's responsible for some of the rubber/petroleum product vibe.

Once these top notes clear off, I'm left with a very clean and ever so slightly powdery leather accord that persits for about an hour or two. The drydown is much more conventional than the opening, dominated as it is by powdery musk and creamy woods.

Do I like it? Yes, I suppose so, but the top notes leave me expecting something much more novel and dramatic in the development - something that never quite occurs.

An interesting scent definitely worth a try, but with several letdowns: a bit too synthetic (my first impression was the nail polish remover my mother used when I was a kid); leaning on the feminine side; the gasoline/leather combo, the best part of this scent, vanishes in a matter of minutes; the tyre number has been done before, and better IMO (suffice to mention Tubereuse Criminelle), and the leather invokes vynil car seat sofas rather than genuine well-worn car leather.

All the rumors are true. The topnotes do in fact smell like a mechanic's garage. It starts off smelling like motor oil; the dirty kind you smell when you do an oil change. Although I initially thought it was a one trick pony, it did evolve to something more wearable. After the first five minutes, the topnotes completely disappear and what you're left with is a pleasant synthetic leather scent. It's not classic leather/suede such as Dzing, Knize Ten, or Cuiron. Instead it's like a leather couch that's been treated with many chemicals to give it that "new leather smell". I truly believe that anybody can wear this out in public. It's not offensive at all IMO and more of a skin scent. While I really like Nostalgia after the top notes burn off, it becomes too light and fails in the sillage/longevity department. If the middle and base notes were stronger, I would definitely buy a bottle.

Very much like a vintage car - leather, oil, gas, even rubber - in the topnotes. Like all SMNs I have tried, it has massive topnote potency, very strong to start. The action fades quickly though and it picks up a musk and vanilla quality, with just a touch of the leather and petrol notes remaining into the base. The base is also a little soft for my taste. Longevity could be better as well. All that kind of bummed me out because the topnotes were a real rush: very avant garde, unique, interesting, inspiring even. It got my blood flowing a little. Then it tamed down too much for my taste. Warm weather would probably keep it interesting longer. All said, it's a very hip scent and worth a sample at least.

A truly curious entry that opens up with an unabashed tribute to fresh rubber cement. I wish I could say that it stays this brave to the bitter end, but the adhesive is too rapidly swept aside in favour of noncommittal vanillic leather with a pale wash of generic fruitiness over the top.

Nostalgia is simply unbelievable: it really does smell like a vintage car, a finest possible specimen with smoothest leather seats.

This fragrance is amazing. I wasn't sure what to expect before I tried it - could it really smell like a vintage car? Gasoline, motor oil, rubber, leather? The answer, a resounding Yes! And it smells great! It's difficult to imagine that those notes could be composed into a fragrance that smells so good on the skin. The leather is one of the strongest, truest interpretations I know of. It dries down into a base of vanilla and light spices, with the wood and leather (like an old car interior) persisting to the end. Very long lasting as well.

Fantastic scent and quite original as well. It definitely resembles the old leathers like Knize ten and Cuir de Russie, but it's closest relative has to be Bulgari Black. Nostalgia is even more avant-garde though, using notes like petrol and motor-grease to create a very unique aura. Very untypical for being a Santa Maria Novella fragrance, especially since it's so modern. After all we're talking about a house with several centuries of heritage. In no way does Nostalgia put that leagacy to shame, quite on the contrary- this is probably their best launch up to date! The genuine, vanillic, leather drydown is to die for.

Really special! I love this one. Opens up smelling like a tire store, which is surprisingly attractive on skin, but then it turns into a beautiful spicy vanilla scent with just the faintest hint of rubber in the background.

I can’t even begin to express how special Nostalgia is to me. I am huge car lover, and this brings me back to my best days. This is an amazingly unique fragrance that is reminiscent of motor oil, rubber, and leather with gasoline like top notes. Nostalgia is one of my favorite fragrances. Anyone who loves cars will love Nostalgia.

This scent opens with a smokey blast of cured leather, slightly rubbery and bitter, and absolutely glorious. It softens revealing a somewhat soapy tobacco and a brief lingering hint of a vanillic sweetness, barely there, but just enough to provide a good base. Darker and less sweet than Relax, smokier and slightly more disturbing than Or Black, this deserves to be given a chance by anyone partial to the notes listed above or who is looking for something dark, unusual, and mysterious.

Leather, gomma, oils, Brummmmmmm Brummmmmm.

I like this right away. My first impression was some kind of solvent then it settled quickly to a slightly sweeter comfortable unique fragrance. Definitely some of the machine lube here but not excessively, with some kind of spice and woods or leather. This is a very different take on the idea of a masculine scent.
It is casual without being at all crass, and would be very versitle. Also definitely has a continental flair. Nostalgia gives a very contemporary feel without any trendiness.

This fragrance reminds me of a more dry, muted version of Michael Kors. Nice leathery overtones with other beautifully rich notes, but low key and not in your face. Very good.