About to be eaten alive -- shaken or stirred?

..... or a bit of both, just like how Lorenzo Villoresi Spezie is a little bit of both : herbs and spices. Admittedly, the title of this thread is a holler to Trebor's cannibalistic review of Spezie

Spices, in any shape or form, are not new or exotic to me. Being an Indian and having lived in India all my life, I've been fortunate be able to enjoy in abundance many substances, exotic or otherwise, which are desirable to the west in varying degrees. I had therefore never imagined I'd fall so hard for Spezie. I marvel at Mr. Villoresi's splendid competence and I'm eternally thankful to him for having brought us modern day sensations like Piper Nigrum and Spezie. I find it astonishing that a juice that feels so much "at home" for me is actually blended in Italy. I wonder what it was, that Mr. Villoresi envisioned when be created Piper Nigrum and Spezie. What was his inspiration? I'm now going to make a feeble attempt of reviewing this magnificent juice, and in doing so, i'm going to mostly abandon my typical method of mentioning identified notes and accords, the whole shabang. I'm going to review it purely on the lines of the sensations it has ignited within me as I write this, with my both wrists and chest silling of Spezie.

To begin with, I must give a nod to one of Spezie's facet, nostalgia. This is pure nostalgia in a bottle for me. It reminds me of my grandmother who has long passed away, it reminds me of some of my best times with her. One such memory is from when I was a kid, about 8 years of age? I was a good kid, and would assist her in carrying grocery bags et al, so she used to tag me along as we made our monthly trip to the spice market for spice supplies. Among the black pepper, fennel, fenugreek, cinnamon, dry red chillies etc, we used to buy turmeric sticks. Dirty yellow in color, they have a very soothing smell. She used to be able to tell if the Turmeric is of a certain quality or not by simply holding a stick in her palm and letting some of the turmeric powder stick to her palm in the process -- and inhaling her palm after that. Being the curious one, I'd always want to smell her palm after that. Some accord in Spezie smells very much exactly like that. I'm sure it's a combination of some notes, the sum of parts -- rather than any singular note.

Another thing it reminds me of is the uber delicious whole raw mango pickle my Grandmother used to make. Lightly spiced and dipped in oil, it's packaged carefully and left to marinate for over 2 years until they soften up completely and taste delicious as hell *wipes drool from lips* damn...... Once again, the key spice here is a light hand of turmeric powder. I get a lot of turmeric vibe from Spezie as I mentioned above.

Spezie is definitely a high quality composition. The abundance of spices with their herbaly undertone never clash with each other, they come together in a perfect amalgamation instead. I'm forced to comment, if there is any scent out there most reminiscent of an "Indian spice market" vibe -- this is "it". And I mean that in a rather positive manner.

This is a "so hot, it's cool" kind of scent. Beautifully warm and rather dry in the opening with the coriander, cardamon and oregano-ish spices, firmly backed with mint and cloves. I haven't taken a look at the notes listing, but I'm sure there's more than what I've identified so far. I've yet to reach the drydown on it, though. To conclude, I don't really find this similar to any other scent I've smelled so far, and that includes the Incense Series [all 6 scents] by CDG.

Do any of you find it similar to any other scent? It's worthwhile to mention that by "similar" I mean smelling atleast 80% similar, instead of scents that have but a note or two in common.

Thanks

I wouldn't call it a debate though -- It's just us stating our own respective opinions, nothing more nothing less.

Thanks Mike. Isn't the mind a wonderful thing? It stunned me to notice how easily Spezie reminded me of of my grandmother and the memories associated with her. One sniff of Spezie was all it took to bring them back to life, memories which I wouldn't recall otherwise.

Thanks for the Eau Lente suggestion too, i'll be trying to get a hold of a sample

@Galamb : Thanks! It's interesting as to how the scents both you and Mike recommended are Diptyques. Gotta hunt for samples

@Tonyprince : I may or may not have mentioned this in any thread, but I completely agree with the Incensi comparison. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it myself as I wrote my Spezie review -- I was just too consumed by memoirs I guess. Matter of factly, my nose detects a "turmeric" like accord in Incensi as well. Sillage whiffs of Incensi remind of of a locally available Turmeric based beauty creme called "Vicco Turmeric" by Vicco Labs. This creme has an International market too, and you just might find it at any pharmacy or any large enough store that carries beauty supplies.

And yes, I have and love Incensi too.

I see -- in any case that makes things somewhat easier, for now I only need to lookout for one scent, instead of two. L'Autre it will be

Thanks Anthony

I can imagine that about Mr. Villoresi's travels. His interpretation of all those spices and herbs is so realistic, it's almost scary!

@PaulG : Now that I've looked up the full notes listing, I must agree with you about the Tomato Leaf. And you should post more regularly, I think!

@Jathanas : This is the first instance I took a different direction than usual when writing a fragrance review, and by the looks of it, it has paid off! Thank you for your kind comment

Ambre Narguile has been on my To Test list for quite a while now, it's about time I did something about it!