01/05/2016
ColinM
516 Reviews
ColinM
1
Almost...
Passum by Profumi di Pantelleria features some of Profumitalia’s trademark notes (if you are familiar with Hugh Parsons, Boellis, Acqua di Biella and other Profumi di Pantelleria scents, you probably already spotted some recurring accords and bases Maurizio Cerizza seems particularly fond of – notably heavy musks, dusty stuff and powdery sweet-amber notes). Passum opens – and remains, actually – as a very dusty, smoky, powdery, dry, kind of almost “moldy” and camphorous blend of musk, dry patchouli, amber, incense and cedary “pencil shavings” dusted with some sweet aromatic spices, notably pepper, cumin and cinnamon, and rounded by a further layer of sweet dustiness provided by myrrh – which smells basically like amber and incense, again. A thick, super dry Oriental woody hypercube of resins, patchouli and incense, shortly, showing some quite bold “powdery-earthy dustiness” from basically any perspective you approach it, the only minor variations being a subtle base accord of dry-woody leather (basically acting just as a darker, more “robust” facet of incense) and some spicy-peppery hints coming and going which provide some very light sparkles of colour and “life” to an otherwise rather aseptic and very static blend.
So, nothing really new although I can’t think of a specific comparison to name, and sadly anyway nothing really exciting either in my opinion: just a quite stout, fairly artificial and very flat resinous-incense-patchouli bomb with no particular features of interest. Woody, earthy, smoky, ambery and powdery in a quite synthetic and extremely linear way, rather thick too, still at a slightly more decent price than many other similar – and more costly – niche scents. Its nondescript endemic dustiness is at once the most fascinating and the most annoying of its traits, as it feels very “massive” and mono-dimensional. Which means “boring”, quite soon. Not tragic but far from being amazing. Recommended for dust eaters, stoner rock fans (you know, all the desert sand imagery and stuff) and incense-amber freaks, more or less vastly negligible for anyone else.
6/10
So, nothing really new although I can’t think of a specific comparison to name, and sadly anyway nothing really exciting either in my opinion: just a quite stout, fairly artificial and very flat resinous-incense-patchouli bomb with no particular features of interest. Woody, earthy, smoky, ambery and powdery in a quite synthetic and extremely linear way, rather thick too, still at a slightly more decent price than many other similar – and more costly – niche scents. Its nondescript endemic dustiness is at once the most fascinating and the most annoying of its traits, as it feels very “massive” and mono-dimensional. Which means “boring”, quite soon. Not tragic but far from being amazing. Recommended for dust eaters, stoner rock fans (you know, all the desert sand imagery and stuff) and incense-amber freaks, more or less vastly negligible for anyone else.
6/10