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Notes05/20/2020
FioreMarina
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FioreMarina
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17
Venus, foam-born.
You have to be a little crazy to add another one to a perfect comment like Sweetsmell75. Or a little cocky. Or you can't help it, you just want this perfume to get the attention it deserves. And that's how I feel
I have a question right at the beginning: When you think of "Aphrodite", or for all I care about her Roman pendant, Venus, what image do you have in mind? Is it one by Sandro Botticelli, showing the goddess naked standing on a shell, with her hair in the wind? I bet it is. But if it's not, bring the picture here, google it if necessary, so you know what I'm talking about. I need it for this scent
For I believe that "The Birth of Venus" has lasted for more than 500 years, has been tried and tested countless times from Warhol to the advertising for ladies' shavers, and is so easily recalled from our memory because Botticelli succeeded in creating an archetype, the image of a goddess, or actually: to capture the divine in the feminine in such a way that we understand it with our soul before our mind can, and even beyond.
And I have a feeling as if 532 years later Paolo Terenzi could have done exactly that again: with a perfume. With quotations and allusions in the choice of components and a masterfully designed progression, he paints the picture anew, olfactorically, into our senses and our souls.
The very first impression when spraying the fragrance belongs to the pink pepper, which creates a diffuse arousal, a restless expectation, as if something was in the air, before it is, almost immediately, burnt over by white lilac, which, more complex and also less innocent than its purple siblings, washes me wildly, then is bound by the delicate, sensual, almost luminous sweetness of the white peach.
Remember Botticelli's picture? The roar of the air, the foaming spray, and in the midst of all this roar the foam-born Venus, radiant and sweet? That's what it smells like. Vanilla is soft, white currant ensures that the fragrance does not become sweet despite all its sweetness and, like the iris later on, prevents it from slipping into triviality at the threshold of the perceptible.
With time, the fruity peach note becomes more restrained, while the lilac remains in my perception for many hours. The fragrance now becomes more floral, lily-of-the-valley exudes cool beauty, bound again by the sweet-creamy tuberose, which for once doesn't want to show off, but only to be tender: the heart of the perfume belongs to the goddess. Like her, the fragrance is, at this stage, absorbed in itself, unaware, or let's say not interested in her, of the attention it attracts. It surrounds its wearer with an aura that radiates, a beauty that is neither young nor mature, but timeless, eternal Terenzi is clever enough not to succumb to the obvious temptation of a tonka bean, sublime vanilla or something similar in its base, which would have made the fragrance too pleasing. And it's true, I don't know what ebony smells like. But I imagine that next to the patchouli, which I take for granted because I can't really smell it, it provides what I would call "grounding", even if that is an inappropriate term for a goddess. Or perhaps for something mystical. Sandalwood and white musk give a playful, unobtrusive warmth, ambergris physical sensuality. And then there are the pheromones: I can't say whether this fragrance needs them. But if you smell it and are enchanted and have to smile, then maybe it has something to do with them.
Sweetsmell75 is right, very right even when she says that the Drydown is special: close to my skin it stays for hours like the wonderful memory of something that was perfect.
I think that when Botticelli painted his Venus, he loved women so much that he wanted to erect a monument to them. And Terenzi does the same. When I wear the scent of Aphrodite, he gives me a radiance, an aura, that makes me feel connected to a goddess - and to every other woman.
Addendum: My special thanks go to Sweetsmell75 who, without knowing it, inspired me with her comment on this happy blind purchase and to Covex who encouraged me to blindly trust her judgement.
And I have a feeling as if 532 years later Paolo Terenzi could have done exactly that again: with a perfume. With quotations and allusions in the choice of components and a masterfully designed progression, he paints the picture anew, olfactorically, into our senses and our souls.
The very first impression when spraying the fragrance belongs to the pink pepper, which creates a diffuse arousal, a restless expectation, as if something was in the air, before it is, almost immediately, burnt over by white lilac, which, more complex and also less innocent than its purple siblings, washes me wildly, then is bound by the delicate, sensual, almost luminous sweetness of the white peach.
Remember Botticelli's picture? The roar of the air, the foaming spray, and in the midst of all this roar the foam-born Venus, radiant and sweet? That's what it smells like. Vanilla is soft, white currant ensures that the fragrance does not become sweet despite all its sweetness and, like the iris later on, prevents it from slipping into triviality at the threshold of the perceptible.
With time, the fruity peach note becomes more restrained, while the lilac remains in my perception for many hours. The fragrance now becomes more floral, lily-of-the-valley exudes cool beauty, bound again by the sweet-creamy tuberose, which for once doesn't want to show off, but only to be tender: the heart of the perfume belongs to the goddess. Like her, the fragrance is, at this stage, absorbed in itself, unaware, or let's say not interested in her, of the attention it attracts. It surrounds its wearer with an aura that radiates, a beauty that is neither young nor mature, but timeless, eternal Terenzi is clever enough not to succumb to the obvious temptation of a tonka bean, sublime vanilla or something similar in its base, which would have made the fragrance too pleasing. And it's true, I don't know what ebony smells like. But I imagine that next to the patchouli, which I take for granted because I can't really smell it, it provides what I would call "grounding", even if that is an inappropriate term for a goddess. Or perhaps for something mystical. Sandalwood and white musk give a playful, unobtrusive warmth, ambergris physical sensuality. And then there are the pheromones: I can't say whether this fragrance needs them. But if you smell it and are enchanted and have to smile, then maybe it has something to do with them.
Sweetsmell75 is right, very right even when she says that the Drydown is special: close to my skin it stays for hours like the wonderful memory of something that was perfect.
I think that when Botticelli painted his Venus, he loved women so much that he wanted to erect a monument to them. And Terenzi does the same. When I wear the scent of Aphrodite, he gives me a radiance, an aura, that makes me feel connected to a goddess - and to every other woman.
Addendum: My special thanks go to Sweetsmell75 who, without knowing it, inspired me with her comment on this happy blind purchase and to Covex who encouraged me to blindly trust her judgement.
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