Gattopardo is the sixth fragrance that Antonio Alessandria creates for his self-named fragrance collection.  This perfume has been inspired by a novel written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa although it is not associated specifically to one of the characters in the book. However, it does try to portray the archetype Sicilian man with his strong bond to his motherland. He is

In the first half of the 20th century, in the south of Italy, the phenomenon of proxy marriages was very common. A young woman used to be promised to marry an older unknown man living as an emigrant in search of fortune in distant lands. Groups of young women were herded all together on a ship towards an unknown country, torn

Every year, in mid-July, in the neighborhood where I was born a feast is organized. According to an old saying, this is considered to be the hottest time of the year in town. When I was a child, on the day of the feast, early in the morning, I used to go to the market with my father to buy some flowers. After,

Diptyque is a French brand renowned for scented candles, but also for lots of perfumery products. It was founded by Desmond Knox-Leet, Yves Coueslant and Christiane Gautrot, three friends coming from the world of architecture and decoration. They started in the early 60’s with a boutique, a sort of bazaar, situated in Paris, in Boulevard St. Germain, where they used

Olivier Durbano A French architect in love with stones. Olivier Durbano is the creator behind the brand Olivier Durbano Parfums de Pierres Poèmes. He is a French architect in love with stones. He has chosen to talk about his passion with the language of fragrances. His range is composed by ten fragrances, everyone dedicated to a stone, real or imaginary.

What’s a perfume? What does it mean EDT or EDP? Lots of people use fragrances in everyday life, but they don’t know what’s inside a bottle. A perfume is a mixture of: a compound of natural and chemical products; denatured alcohol; water; colorants or other additives (facultative). The compound is the base that actually gives fragrance to the perfume. The

Autumn is here…winter is coming. The days have been turning shorter, temperature is going slowly down and we live more in the dark. It happens to wake up during the night and to hear the sound of the rain in the silence. But, how does cold smell? Definitely not fresh. It smells like cold colours (blue, grey…), like something metallic

When many years ago I approached the world of artistic perfumery, I came across an expression: niche fragrances. It was a word that I liked, because it carries a flavor of distinction, of opposition to the mass. But today, thanks to my experience and to the training that I followed, this expression has started annoying me. As a matter of

Edmond Roudnitska A legend in the world of perfumery Probably the name of Edmond Rodnitska doesn’t sound familiar to everyone, but I think that everyone knows, at least by name, Eau Sauvage or Diorissimo. Edmond Roudnistka is the man that has survived his death composing such masterpieces. He was a great perfumer and also a refined thinker. He wrote some