Pino Silvestre by Silvestre, 1955

A few years ago I'm taking a shower in my (then) girlfriends family home in Italy. Its time to lather up and I notice this tall, plastic bottle in the shampoo rack that looks like a giant pinecone. Cool. Intrigued, I flip open the cap. Wow! By the time I'm done showering, the whole bathroom smells like a Christmas tree. If you, like me, have deep, nostalgic Christmas memories, you can imagine the thrill. Also, I never felt so clean in my life. So, I go into the kitchen where my gf is preparing a massive lunch and I ask her what that pine cone in the shower is. Pino Silvestre, my fathers shampoo," she says. Then she tells me its also a cologne! With a maniacal gleam, I insist she help me find some as soon as possible, to which she (rather coolly) responds that shed rather I didnt smell like her father. Okay, fair enough but I had discovered how to smell exactly like a Christmas tree and I was going to get my hands on this magical elixir whether she liked it or not. A day or so later, were in this large, chain supermarket andthere it is! In fact, its everywhere. And cheap! Genuinely baffled at how excited I was about this clearly prosaic scent, this was for her like someone flipping out over, say, Old Spice. Okay, I can appreciate that. But I reiterate: Christmas tree. Promising never to wear it in her presence, she happily bought me an inexpensive gift box (frag/shampoo combo). The shelf was PACKED with them. Every guy in Italy is wearing this, I thought. But I didn't care. Over the next couple of years, she indulged my Christmas smell-alike mania by sending me a small bottle every now and then (I couldnt find it in the US anywhere). Considering that at the time I tended to wear fairly expensive designer frags or exotic, Eastern oils, my enthusiasm for lowly Pino Silvestre must have seemed hilarious. About a year ago, mourning over the pitiful dregs of that last, final bottle, I found Pino Silvestre online. Now, I do, however, agree with a lot of the other reviewers: theres not a whole lot of projection (I always wonder how Engelbert Humperdinck manages to permeate an entire venue with this scent? Vats and giant fans?), fairly modest sillage, and longevity is maybe about two/three hours, tops. Then again, Im not drowning myself in it. I think if you really want people to notice, youre going to need at least ten healthy sprays. Maybe one day Ill bathe in it, but at this point this is more of a personal scent, something I wear after an evening shower before I go to bed (in fact, Im wearing it right now). I love it, and thats all that counts for me, ultimately. So, if youre into taking a journey to a Santa Land where Engelbert Humperdinck croons mellow and bare-chested (think, Winter World of Love) amidst the snow-laden evergreen boughs of the Altopiano di Asiago, this is really for you. On me, it dries down to a cozy and very masculine aura of pine, juniper berries, and a green, musky amber.

Pino Silvestre opens with a rugged blend of bergamot, lavender and maybe just a touch of anise before transitioning to its primary heart note of spruce-like pine with the lavender remaining in a supporting role, coupling with cedar emerging from the base. The pine and lavender finally recede leaving the cedar to take center stage in the final base supported by a synthetic smelling mossy musk. Projection and longevity are both below average.

Pino Silvestre is a nice woody pine scent that almost acts as an eau de cologne in its limited strength and longevity. The bottle comes in a 4.2 oz size, and my guess is you will be using a lot more of it than you might think due to needing extra sprays to begin with and multiple reapplications throughout the day. It is somewhat unrefined, quite invigorating and moderately synthetic at times, but it evokes the spirit of the great outdoors and its forests to very good effect. The unrefined cedar and pine tandem is not the kind of scent I would want to wear daily and it even seems to irritate my eyes slightly, but the fragrance is an exceptional value at the $15 or less it is selling for online currently and merits a mild recommendation outright, price aside. Pino Sylvestre earns a "good" 3 stars out of 5 outright for the scent, but much higher in the value department.

If you're an italian, born somwhere between 1955 and 1975, you can't be familiar with Pino Silvestre. This composition reached an incredible popularity during those years as it was widely available almost anywhere around Italy. It was extremely easy to buy being ridicolously cheap and readily available just next to the pasta's shelves in any supermarket. It was offered in an huge range of products going from the classic EDT to the (almost) 5 gallons family format bbubble bath/shower gel via aftershave and deodorant so that almost any italian family had at least a product labelled as Pino Silvestre in their bathrooms. My mother was a fan of the bubble-bath version and used to buy huge amounts of it. As a child, I grew up showering with Pino Silvestre for more than a decade till I reached a level of complete saturation. I can easily say that my chidhood has been marked by this composition. Now, as an adult, I associate Pino Silvestre with two types of situations: 1) A good one: Me and my family used to go camping at the seaside during the summer, and after the whole day on the beach we all used to shower with Pino Silvestre. It was a relaxing moment, happy and lighthearted. It was vacation time. 2) A bad one: After 15-20 days of camping around italy we usually came back home and I had to start my personal countdown to go back to school. It was the end of summer, days started to shorten and showering at the evening with Pino Silvestre was the sign that another day before getting back to school was passed. After more than 30 years I can't honestly see myself wearing Pino Silvestre but I surely understand why it's still very popular all over the world (expecially outside of italy).