Linfedele 1003 by O'Driù, 2011

This is an intriguing and complex scent. The juice is a deep golden colour. Sniffing the juice in the vial, I immediately got a powerful leather-laurel (bay leaf) combination. I tried Foustie's advice and put a bit on paper. That brought galbanum (a bitter celery-leaf note) to prominence. On my skin, the galbanum is extremely fleeting. The scent quickly goes to leather and laurel, with a brief sulphur note which reminds me of the tops of chopped green onions. At this point, the scent is a dark green sort, quite leathery, and dry. It is cool (perhaps a bit minty) but not cold -- the leather gives it considerable warmth. The leather recedes and combines with a dusky, round scent which is also a bit soapy. This phase is quite complex and I struggle to identify it. I feel that is benzion from the styrax with myrtle and myrrh. At times this phase seems to suggest warm rubber! Then, some marvelous smoky incense appears. This is a new and very pleasant phase, sadly a brief one. Next, a coumarin (hay) and tobacco note appears. It is more sweet and grassy, with a kind of reed-stalk-wood pith aspect. The interior of a newly-snapped twig comes to mind. The scent seems quite masculine to me: it is not sweet, floral or pretty. It is powerful, weighty, leathery-green. I guess in style it is a chypre. I like it but I am not in LOVE with it. It is an amazing scent. Perhaps it is a bit too weighty/dense for me, and a bit too sweet in the dry-down. Still, any green fan should try it.

LINFEDELE 1003 The fragrance is accompanied by prose from Charles Baudelaire's "Spleen", a creepy bleak disturbing poem.... Leather, Laurel, Pine, Orange Incense, Galbanum, Tobacco, Styrax Juniper, Myrrh, Myrtle, Tobacco, Styrax The fragrance itself is expansively green, and cold. I think that it should be tried on paper to fully appreciate that. The first blast is refreshing, herbal, slightly bitter, a bit like an herbal apertif. On skin it becomes a bit more balsamic quite quickly, whereas on paper it retains its icy greenness. On me, notes seem to come and go throughout the development, pine, herbs, sage and thyme in particular but there is also juniper, lavender, artemisia, oregano and others listed in the notes. Galbanum clearly plays an important part. Although it does become a bit more balsamic at times (think fir balsam, and it does have styrax listed) it remains underscored with an astringent chill. At times a cool mint comes through and it is quite dominant. Mint is not listed in the main, abbreviated, description, but it is definately there and I did find it in the long list. There are many listed notes that I don't smell, and you might. To me, the heart of this fragrance is camphoraceous, piney, minty, herbal with a cold character.