Miele Rosa (2007)
by I Profumi di Firenze

Miele Rosa is a lush, gorgeous, heady, beautiful rose soliflore. I am a great rose lover, and as a friend says, I like my rose fragrances "straight up". I adore other rose soliflores, such as Annick Goutal's Rose Absolu, Sonoma Scent Studio's Velvet Rose, Jo Malone Red Roses, Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose, and Creed's Fleur de The Rose Bulgare. I also love fragrances with major rose notes, such as Annick Goutal's Ce Soir ou Jamias, Sonoma Scent Studio Rose Musc, Stella, YSL Paris, etc, and especially Guerlain's Nahema.

What I love most about Miele Rosa is that it smells so lush and yet natural. The effect is of wild, ancient roses in a warm, sunny, natural setting, not a chilled bouquet that came from the florist's case. I absolutely see the "hillsides of Tuscany" as in the marketing description. Even though this fragrance could be very strong if over applied, a light application of it fuses with the skin, and radiates a soft and warm characteristic that is a wee bit powdery and honeyed. The use of orange blossom in the opening helps to soften, freshen, and warm up the rose. I think the honey accord provides more of a fragrant warmth rather than just mere sugared sweetness, although it is a tiny bit sweet as only the fragrance of rich roses or honey is sweet. The drydown is an exquisite soft and warm, almost spicy, rose. The honey acts as a diffuser, as if you were smelling roses through a golden/sunny screen. The beeswax provides an interesting warm note that is softer and more organic than the use of vanilla in other rose fragrances, and prevents any gourmand tendencies in the drydown. The entire fragrance has a sun drenched rosy aspect that keeps it from being too linear, boring, or just too much. The overall impression from the use of orange blossom, honey and beeswax is to warm up and naturalize the rich spicy rose. The lasting power is good (4-5 hours) and the sillage is medium strong, depending on how it's applied. I waited far too long to pick this one up as a full bottle, and it will keep good company with the other rose fragrances I love. I do absolutely recommend that this be tested first - it is a must try for rose lovers who want a warm, rich rose, but may not appeal to those who do not like major rose fragrances.

Fantastic simplicity underlies this heady, rich fragrance. Honey. Rose. And what a rose. This is the same rose of Rosa di Damasco, their original singleflora that is rose, rose, and just for interest, some rose thrown in on top.
While I'll continue to have Rosa di Damasco in my arsenal for as long as I can forage up the currency to haul it home (iPF's prices have skyrocketed; jumping 45% in the last 5 years.) , Miele Rosa has a certain extra "oomph". That ommph is not just "honey".

As a mead brewer, I've come to know dozens of different honeys - the color, viscosity and fragrance are affected not only by the specific variety of flowers over which our yellow-striped friends graze and gather pollen, but also the season of the year during which the honey is collected, age of hive, and so on. The honey note in Miele Rosa is good strong summer honey - dark, heavy and unflitered. The bees knees are here, along with chunks of honeycomb, wads of wax (where a large percentage of the fragrance is stored anyway), and even a bit of the aged wood frame of the hive.

Now, that describes each element. It doesn't describe the final effect of these combined essences. And I fear that I can not do so either, as long as Basenotes remains at least a PG-13 community. However, why let that stop me from trying?

A medieval castle, covered in a hundred year's worth of rose vines, late May, full bloom. The prince and princess have just been wed the day before, and upon entering their chamber the next morning, the aroma of roses - both the ones growing on the vines outside the open window, and thousands of petals that had completely carpeted the floor and covered the bed, make one of three overpowering olfactory factors. The second comes from hundreds of freshly made and mostly un-used rolled honeycomb candles, the raw wax sticky with residue of honey. The third aroma - one that is known to happy newlyweds everywhere, is a scent best left only alluded to and not completely described.

Sadly, like a blissful wedding night, Miele Rosa is not here forever - limited edition only.

Very sweet, overblown scent that's just too much for me. The honey is very strong, and while I think it's a true honey note, it's paired with a rose that is the same kind of rose in my grandmother's cheap rose hand cream: soft and sickly sweet and just old smelling. This perfume as a whole comes off as something you'd smell at a special event at a retirement home.

Gorgeous take on honey. Imagine, if you will, Lutens' Miel de Bois minus its fierce ferality and woody undertones. This is far better, too, than L'Occitane's weak and watery attempts at rendering a sweet honey note. This is one of those frags whose super sweetness could almost be cloying were it not for the complexities of the drydown and the sheer quality of the ingredients.